Friday Fives | Books to Read to Learn about LGBTQ+ History

First off, this is a great piece of work and details the history of the events of Stonewall. However, this doesn’t focus completely on Stonewall. Instead, there are a couple of people who were at Stonewall and Duberman follows their personal histories. So, it really gives the entire background of LGBTQ+ history prior to Stonewall, the lead up to Stonewall, Stonewall itself, and the aftermath.

If Queer people are a product of the modern age, then how do we explain Charity and Sylvia? Two women who lived together in Weybridge, Vermont for 40 years (death separated them), and for all intents and purposes, were considered married by the community. Using diaries, letters, poetry, and other original documents Cleves traces these women’s lives in sharp detail.

Any list about LGBTQ+ history has to include Eric Cervini’s The Deviant’s War. Cervini uses first-hand accounts, recently declassified FBI records, and 40,000 personal documents to trace the fight for gay rights and its ties to other movements all a generation before the Stonewall Riot.

This is one of those major texts of Queer studies/history. Stryker covers the American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today. This is just one of those automatic books to read if you want to know more about the concepts of gender.

There’s a lot of issues in the world that cover multiple identities, like Black and Queer. With Evidence of Being, Darius Bost focuses on the Gay Black community in DC and New York during the 1980s and 90s when they were ravaged by the crack epidemic, HIV/AIDS crisis, and a series of unsolved murders. Yet, amidst these dark moments, a new vision of community and hope emerged.