GUIDE TO GENDER

By LESLIE FEINBERG

A foundational, queer text that is so dear to my heart, the story follows Jess Goldberg growing up in upstate New York in the 1940s and her struggle with her gender and her sexuality. She’s caught in her father’s clothes and sent to a mental hospital, then escapes her school and family by running away, finding community in a gay bar in Buffalo. Quite a difficult book to find as a physical copy, the author’s last words were “remember me as a queer communist” and did not sign any commercial publishing contracts. I could rant and rave about how fundamental butch lesbians are to the queer community but you should read this book instead!

The author's work has been made available for free download in zie's honor here.

by MAIA KOBABE

A painfully honest graphic novel about growing up gender non-conforming. A really intimate autobiography that talks about coming out to family, teen crushes, bonding over erotic fan fiction with friends, and pronoun changes. A favorite that circulates the library quite often!

by C. RILEY SNORTON

“Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials-early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films-- Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding on gender as mutable.” The story follows the intersection of blackness and transness, the ties between “cross-dressing” and “racial passing”, the harm of historically white trans narratives, the development of gynecology and the construction of sex. Snorton presents the lives of Black trans people--like Lucy Hicks Anderson and Ava Betty Brown--with beautiful, in-depth, and imaginative research. A groundbreaking book, an essential read in trans studies that constructs a more livable Black and trans world.

by KATE BORNSTEIN and S. BEAR BERGMAN

This book is full of comics, short stories, scripts, a really good vegan curry recipe, conversations, poetry and beautiful people. This is not an academic book but a place to see queer people in the bedroom, on the stage, in the streets, in the news and in the workplace, an impressive anthology of queer voices. One of the first books I read that gave me a lot of hope for growing up into a queer adult. I recommend reading Stone Butch Blues before or along with this book!

by KAI CHENG THOM

A moving and interesting collection of poetry and personal essays, reflections on harm, repair and the ways we betray each other in the queer community. This book should be read slowly and discussed with friends!

by ALOK VAID-MENON

A quick read grounded in academic theory that I think everyone should pick up that focuses on the obligation we all have to each other to move beyond the gender binary. If you don't normally read books or have trouble focusing I recommend this book, the illustrations are really engaging and Alok’s poetry is lovely. A really good book to give a parent or a younger sibling!

by MADY G & J.R. ZUCKERBERG

Queer snails talk about gender and humans provide context! The perfect primer for people who are new to the LGBTQ community. The comic discusses gender, sexuality, relationships and health with accessible language and clear definitions. The relationship section is so important and gently covers things like self esteem and recognizing abuse. The authors move away from the format of focusing on queer pain when discussing trans experiences and illustrate positive experiences.

by SAMRA HABIB

Writer, photographer and activist Samra Habib’s first book asks “How do you find yourself in a world that tells you you don’t exist?”. This book follows Samra Habib through growing up as an Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan to her identity as a queer Muslim refugee in Canada exploring her sexuality, faith, and creativity along with forgiveness and family.

by URSULA K. LE GUIN

“No I don’t mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.” A science fiction book from 1969 set in the Hainish universe that follows Genly Ai, native to the planet Terra but sent on a mission to the planet Gethen, home to androgynous beings neither male nor female. Genly Ai must navigate their politics and social ways all while trying to convince the Gethenians to join the united nations of the universe, Ekumen. Often compared to great works like Lord of the Rings, this is a beautiful and incredibly important work of vivid worldbuilding.