Pride and Protest: 6 Books About Queer Liberation and Activists

Through increasingly fraught political times, we are often reminded each June of an important fact: the first Pride parade was a protest. The modern gay rights movement is generally credited to the Stonewall riots, which occurred in New York City in June 1969. Despite shifting social norms and acceptance for queer people, we have still remained marginalized and at the mercy of politicians who may not always have our best interests at heart. There are a myriad of reminders of this that circulate on social media during this time of year, such as how Pride Month is still important, as there is likely someone somewhere believing they’re better off dead than being queer, or the fact that it is still illegal to be openly queer in 64 countries worldwide.

As much as the queer rights movement has advanced in many positive ways that have brought us literary juggernauts like Heartstopper or Heated Rivalry, it’s still vital to discuss the activists who have and continue to fight for queer liberation. While it’s definitely important to celebrate ourselves during Pride Month, it’s equally important to educate ourselves on our own history that is so frequently erased or gatekept. In that spirit, here are six books about queer liberation and activists to read during June, or any month of the year, because queer people aren’t only important in June.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

In this powerful collection of essays written by the famous queer author and activist Audre Lorde between 1976 and 1984, readers are presented with a clear view of who Lorde was as a person, writer, and queer person. Lorde, a long-standing advocate for women’s rights, queer women’s rights, and especially women’s right to write, explores the roots of her activism throughout the book, which was first published in the 1980s and has never been out of print. As she writes about her deep-seated anger regarding economic disparity among queer people, Lorde also describes her passion for arguments surrounding race and sex, two themes that are central to much of her written work and activism. Sister Outsider ultimately relates back to Lorde’s idea of her own developing sense of self, and how we are all still discovering and learning about ourselves until the day we die. Still a dominating voice in queer activism, Lorde’s work is sure to continue to inspire future generations of queer people to come.

When We Rise: My Life in the Movement by Cleve Jones

As someone born in the 1950s, Cleve Jones wasn’t sure if there were other people out there who were “like him.” But like many queer people of his generation, he was attracted to the vibrant hotbed of counterculture happening in San Francisco, which soon became something of an epicenter for sexual freedom and forward-thinking politics in the United States. Before long, Jones found the community he was so desperately aching for in the form of bathhouses, run-down hotel rooms, and apartments overpopulated by fellow queers, as well as in the Castro, the city’s rapidly expanding gay district. It was there where Jones would meet Harvey Milk, working closely alongside him in what they called “the movement” as Milk became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. After he was assassinated in 1978, Jones took over Milk’s fight through the age of AIDS and beyond, eventually having himself portrayed in the 2008 biopic Milk. When We Rise was later adapted into an ABC miniseries of the same name that aired in 2017.

Insist That They Love You: Craig Rodwell and the Fight for Gay Pride by John Van Hoesen

While the modern gay rights movement is often believed to have begun at the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969, the fight for queer liberation had actually begun long before then. Craig Rodwell, who was present at the Stonewall riots, was already an activist in what was known as the homophile movement during the early 1960s. In addition to his activism, Rodwell is remembered for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in 1967, a queer bookstore in New York City. In Insist That They Love You, journalist John Van Hoesen takes a deeper dive into Rodwell’s life and activism, exploring the childhood and adolescence that would lead to his role as a key figure in the establishment of New York City’s famed Gay Pride Parade, which first took place in 1970. Highlighting Rodwell’s crucial role in both the early and later years of the queer liberation movement, this biography illuminates one person we have to thank for many of the freedoms queer people are still lucky to possess today, as well as the unwavering power of social change, no matter which time or place.

Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial by Kenji Yoshino

When California voted to pass Proposition 8 in 2008, a bill that would ban the right for same-sex couples to marry in the state, activists were justifiably angry. However, the passing of the bill also resulted in many legal advocates for gay rights recommending to not fight back just yet, warning that it might only make things worse in the battle for same-sex marriage. A smaller group of other advocates, however, refused to heed the legal advice. Instead, they turned to the lawyers who once fought against each other in the infamous Bush v. Gore trial, Ted Olson and David Boies, to file a federal lawsuit against Proposition 8. In Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial, constitutional law scholar Kenji Yoshino explores the lawsuit and its ensuing trial, interweaving his own personal experience as a recently married gay man at the time of Proposition 8’s passing. As Olson and Boies brought to the court’s attention years of arguments made by legions of gay rights activists, they created a fiery, determined defense for the right for all to marry in the United States. Drawing on interviews and research, Yoshino takes readers inside this monumental trial, which became a landmark case in the United States and would later result in same-sex couples being granted the right to marry in California in 2013.

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown

Sherronda J. Brown would like you to know that everything you think you know about sex and asexuality is most likely wrong. In Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, Brown not only speaks up for the asexual community, one that tends to get misunderstood and lost towards the end of the acronym, but explores what it means to be both asexual and Black in the 2020s. She writes about how the notion that everyone likes sex and needs to have it is intrinsically linked with our understanding of capitalism, not to mention gender, race, and queerness. As a result, ace and ace-spec people are often left to fend for themselves, seen as not queer enough to be part of the community as a whole. With a fascinating look at how constructs like racism, capitalism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy seek to erase asexuality from the queer community, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is required reading for anyone who believes that none of us are free until all of us are free, as well as those who are interested in an educated crash course in what it actually means to be asexual.

Transgender History, Third Edition: A Resource for Today’s Struggle―and Tomorrow’s by Susan Stryker

In this recently published, updated third edition of her bestselling book, Susan Stryker vividly illustrates the history of what it means to be transgender in America. Taking readers on an intimate journey through time beginning in the nineteenth century, Transgender History connects the dots to the dilemmas faced by the transgender community in the 21st century, as their rights to exist freely have frequently come under attack by way of conservative fear-mongering. Through more than a century of cultural history, Stryker explains in detail the trans rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s before tying them to the rise of the more recent trans rights movement of the 2010s, and how bigotry and transphobia have somehow remained timeless, no matter which era. Interspersing history with brief biographies of trans rights activists and pioneers, Stryker sets out to make one thing clear in Transgender History: trans people have always been here, and they will continue to be here, no matter who says or does what.

What are some of your favorite books about queer liberation and activism?