LGBTQIA Reading List

· by · in Disinformation, LGBT Books. ·

LGBTQIA Reading List

LGBTQIA Books

Being the curious cat (or mouse) that I am, my mind has ingested its fair share of books, ranging from theories of cultural evolutionary psychology to the neuroscience behind 3D depth perception, to the complexities of P=NP and and infinite dimensional vector spaces, to troubled teens questioning their sexuality and their gender. Yes, I am an addict, and YA Queer literature is my drug.

Here’s the list of books read so far, or on the radar. If you have a suggestion, please add it to the comments.

(Note: most links go to Amazon, so you can read the description and reviews.)

Update: Now in (mostly) alphabetical order!

Transgender Literature

Gay and Lesbian Literature

Recommended
And More…
Young Adult

Intersex, Crossdressing, Gender-Bending, and other Queer tales

Non-Fiction

Send me your suggestions or others you know about!

15 responses on “LGBTQIA Reading List”

  1. I loved Annabel. The focus is on Wayne, and other characters, not so much on Wayne’s condition (he’s a true hermaphrodite), but of course that condition is always part of his story.

  2. I’ve also got Huntress to read, it’s on my bookshelf. But I told myself I can’t start it until I write my paper due next week :P Did you get to read I Am J yet? Would it be worth buying it? (Since I’ve no idea when my library will process it.)

    I plan to make posts on more of the books I’ve been reading for my YA queer lit survey, but to jump the gun, I looooved James St. James’ Freak Show. It has some triggery content (the main character is beaten into a coma and almost raped) and is yet the single most upbeat book I’ve read for my entire project. Billy (the narrator) is amazingly engaging, charming, and spirited. The book uses some typographical stuff like ALL CAPS, but it never felt gimmicky to me. And it had a happy ending!

    Also, Middlesex made me remember that a while back (I hope that link works) Intersex Unicorn on Tumblr was taking questions about Middlesex and linking to reviews and stuff that said it was awful: that the character’s being intersex was used as a plot device, and that the author did zero research on being intersex and did not talk to anyone in the intersex community. I’ve since seen it referred to as using being intersex as a “cash cow”.

  3. Don’t forget S. Bear Burgman’s second book, “The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You”. SO good! I have yet to read the first book, though. Also, have you read “I Am J”? I just finished it, and I loved it.

  4. Thanks for all the suggestions! I’ll be sure to check them out and add them to my list. And maybe make this a sticky post for reference.

    Yep, just finished ‘I Am J’ and will post a review soon. (Along with the 3 other books I finished this week… eek.) In sum: buy it. Or buy a Kindle and buy all of them.

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  9. I can also recommend the following books, which are all excellent:
    TRANSGENDER NON-FICTION
    - The Testosterone Files by Max Wolf Valerio
    - Body Alchemy by Loren Cameron
    - Dear Sir or Madam by Mark Rees
    - In From the Wilderness by David E Weekly

    GAY AND LESBIAN FICTION
    - Silent Goodbyes by CC Saint-Claire

    And just a note on Stone Butch Blues – strictly speaking it should be listed as literature not non-fiction. The author has stated and maintained that the book is not an autobiography but a work of fiction. It’s was the book that changed my life because I transitioned in the days before internet when books about transgender people were limited and the word ‘transgender’ was not even in the mainstream vocabulary yet. In those days I still had to order all my books about transgender topics from the UK and US because there was nothing available in bookshops in Australia.

    • Thanks for the suggestions. I have a backlog of books I need to add to the list as well.

      Since I haven’t read all of them, sometimes I’m not sure what to classify it as, so thanks for pointing out “Stone Butch Blues” as fiction (Readers: If there are any other inconsistencies please let me know).

      Along with a few others, it is definitely considered a “classic” as it allowed people to find and connect with their identity pre-internet information age. I don’t know if it would have as much of an impact on me today (or whether I would even like it) compared to the meaning it carried for other people back then, but a handful of books like those are of huge historical importance and still worth reading, regardless. For instance, I absolutely loved “The Well of Loneliness” and was even more astounded to learn about its historical context.

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  11. hey, pretty great list, but you’re missing ‘How to Say Goodbye in Robot’ for an asexual list xx

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