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Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality


Sarah McBride - 2018
    Sarah McBride is on a mission to fight for transgender rights around the world. But before she was a prominent activist, and before she became the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, she was a teenager struggling with her identity. With emotional depth and unparalleled honesty, Sarah shares her personal struggle with gender identity, coming out to her supportive but distraught parents, and finding her way as a woman. She inspires readers with her barrier-breaking political journey that took her, in just four years, from a frightened, closeted college student to one of the nation's most prominent transgender activists walking the halls of the White House, passing laws, and addressing the country in the midst of a heated presidential election. She also details the heartbreaking romance with her first love and future husband Andy, a trans man and activist, who passed away from cancer in 2014 just days after they were married. Sarah's story of identity, love, and tragic loss serves as a powerful entry point for readers who want to gain a deeper understanding of gender identity and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to healthcare, identification and schools, Sarah weaves the important political milestones, cultural and political debates, and historical context into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds. Tomorrow Will Be Different highlights Sarah’s work as an activist and the key issues at the forefront of the fight for trans equality, providing a call-to-arms and empowering look at the road ahead. The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun. “We must never be a country that says there’s only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live.” –Sarah McBride

Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods—My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine


Noelle Howey - 2002
    In compensating for her father's brusqueness, Noelle idolized her nurturing tomboy mother and her conservative grandma who tried to turn her into "a little lady." At age fourteen, Noelle's mom told her the family secret: "Dad likes to wear women's clothes." As Noelle copes with a turbulent adolescence, her father begins to metamorphose into the loving parent she had always longed for—only now outfitted in pedal pushers and pink lipstick.

Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East


Benjamin Law - 2012
    But as the child of migrants, he's also curious about how different life might have been had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his fellow Gaysians. Law takes his investigative duties seriously, going nude where required in Balinese sex resorts, sitting backstage for hours with Thai ladyboy beauty contestants and trying Indian yoga classes designed to cure his homosexuality. The characters he meets - from Tokyo's celebrity drag queens to HIV-positive Burmese sex workers, from Malaysian ex-gay Christian fundamentalists to Chinese gays and lesbians who marry each other to please their parents - all teach him something new about being queer in Asia. At once entertaining and moving,

Nights in Norcoast


Sybil Smith - 2018
    When they get trapped inside a cabin together for a week, what could possibly go wrong?  April Bauer packed her bags and fled from her abusive ex-husband overnight, only to land in a secluded farming town, Norcoast, without a clue. With the approaching winter weather, no farming skills to speak of, and hardly any money to her name, how the hell was she supposed to survive out here on her own?Not only that, but her new life felt lonelier than ever. She awoke alone, ate alone, slept alone, and didn’t see that changing anytime soon. How could it? Her heart needed as much mending as her drafty cabin, and that was saying something.  Danny Irving, professional cowgirl and heartbreaker extraordinaire, wanted more out of life. She was tired of manning her parents’ farm day in and day out with nothing to show for it. When was she going to find her happy ending? The woman of her dreams? All she had was a handful of men drooling over her, a broken plow, and a bedroom she shared with two of her siblings. At twenty-four, she expected more than this monotonous existence she’d been living. But when her father sends her over to a neighbor’s house before the oncoming storm, she never anticipated what would happen next.  Slow burn, HEA novel. Book 1 of 2.

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century


Graham Robb - 2003
    Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America. Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance. He describes the lives of gay men and women: how they discovered their sexuality and accepted or disguised it; how they came out; how they made contact with like-minded people. He also includes a fascinating investigation of the encrypted homosexuality of such famous nineteenth-century sleuths as Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes himself (with glances forward in time to Batman and J. Edgar Hoover). Finally, Strangers addresses crucial questions of gay culture, including the riddle of its relationship to religion: Why were homosexuals created with feelings that the Creator supposedly condemns? This is a landmark work, full of tolerant wisdom, fresh research, and surprises.

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America


Lillian Faderman - 1991
    Using journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, news accounts, novels, medical literature, and numerous interviews, she relates an often surprising narrative of lesbian life. "A key work...the point of reference from which all subsequent studies of 20th-century lesbian life in the United States will begin."—San Francisco Examiner.

Cowgirl Up


Ali Spooner - 2014
    Her co-workers are surprised when Coal turns out to be female. Coal, used to the reaction, quickly earns the respect of the crew with her work ethic and skill with horses. Coal uses the strenuous work and friendship of the ranch hands to try and forget her broken past. Melissa Conway, owner of MC2, offers Coal a place to live in her home. They both are shocked to find they are linked in a way neither of them imagined. Mary Leah, Melissa’s sister, arrives at the ranch to recover from a recent tragedy. The attraction between Mary Leah and Coal is instant and mutual. Can the three women survive their personal dilemmas? The love and friendship they develop certainly helps but will it be enough to bring them together. Ride along with the MC2, for boot scootin’, butt kickin’, dirt eatin’, rodeo adventures, with a love story thrown into the mix.

Venus as a Boy


Luke Sutherland - 2004
    The writer ignores him. But a month later, a package arrives containing, among discs, sunglasses and other trinkets, a photograph of the writer aged eight. So he listens to the discs and emerges amazed and shaken. He then transcribes this heartbreaking story which traces Desiree's life as a bullied youth in South Ronaldsay to the streets of Soho where he reduces his grateful clients to tears with his astonishing gift of sex...

Dodging and Burning


John Copenhaver - 2018
    The reemergence of the photo, taken fifty-five years earlier, sets her on a journey to reconstruct the vicious summer that changed her life.In the summer of 1945, Ceola Bliss is a lonely twelve-year-old tomboy, mourning the loss of her brother, Robbie, who was declared missing in the Pacific. She tries to piece together his life by rereading his favorite pulp detective story “A Date with Death” and spending time with his best friend, Jay Greenwood, in Royal Oak, VA. One unforgettable August day, Jay leads Ceola and Bunny to a stretch of woods where he found a dead woman, but when they arrive, the body is gone. They soon discover a local woman named Lily Vellum is missing and begin to piece together the threads of her murder, starting with the photograph Jay took of her abandoned body.As Ceola gets swept up playing girl detective, Bunny becomes increasingly skeptical of Jay, and begins her own investigation into the connection between Jay and Lily. She discovers a series of clues that place doubt on the identity of the corpse and Jay’s story of how he found it, and journeys to Washington, D.C. in search of Lily. In D.C., Bunny is forced to recognize the brutal truth about her dear friend, and sets off a series of events that will bring tragedy to Jay and decades of estrangement between her and Ceola.

Gender Failure


Ivan E. Coyote - 2014
    Coyote and Rae Spoon are accomplished, award-winning writers, musicians, and performers; they are also both admitted "gender failures." In their first collaborative book, Ivan and Rae explore and expose their failed attempts at fitting into the gender binary, and how ultimately our expectations and assumptions around traditional gender roles fail us all.Based on their acclaimed 2012 live show that toured across the United States and in Europe, Gender Failure is a poignant collection of autobiographical essays, lyrics, and images documenting Ivan and Rae's personal journeys from gender failure to gender enlightenment. Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, it's a book that will touch LGBTQ readers and others, revealing, with candor and insight, that gender comes in more than two sizes.Ivan E. Coyote is the author of six story collections and the award-winning novel Bow Grip, and is co-editor of Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. Ivan frequently performs at high schools, universities, and festivals across North America.Rae Spoon is a transgender indie musician whose most recent CD is My Prairie Home, which is also the title of a new National Film Board of Canada documentary about them. Rae's first book, First Spring Grass Fire, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 2013.

Blood Relatives


Stevan Alcock - 2015
    On Prince Philip Playing Fields. He crossed the dew-soaked grass toward what he took to be a bundle of clothes, but then he came across a discarded shoe, and then t’ mutilated body. her name wor Wilma McCann.’Leeds, late 1975 and a body has been found on Prince Philip Playing Fields. Ricky, teenage delivery van boy for Corona pop, will be late for The Matterhorn Man. In the years that follow until his capture, the Yorkshire Ripper and Rick’s own life draw ever closer with unforeseen consequences. Set in a time in England's history of upheaval and change – both personal and social – this is a story told in an unforgettable voice.'An incredible debut novel: a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders, ‘full of daring, authenticity and wit’ (Rachel Cusk).

Brendan Wolf


Brian Malloy - 2007
    Who is Brendan Wolf?  It all depends on who you ask. *  To the staff of a Minneapolis nursing home, he's the devoted partner of a much older man who's recently suffered a debilitating stroke. *  To the women of a conservative, Christian pro-life organization, he's the tireless volunteer grieving over the recent loss of his wife and their unborn child. *  To one gay activist, he's the unaffectedly charming, yet directionless and unemployed man that he's fallen hopelessly in love with * To his brother and his brother's wife, he's the lynchpin of a scam that will net them enough money to start their lives over somewhere new. * To the general public, he's an armed and dangerous fugitive All of these people - and yet none of them - Brendan Wolf is an ambivalent lover, reluctant conspirator, counterfeit Christian, and, most of all, an unemployed daydreamer obsessed with a dead man.     From the author of the award-winning The Year of Ice, this is a tour-de-force - a compelling, hilarious, heart-breaking novel about one utterly typical, and completely original, figure:  Brendan Wolf.

The Family of Max Desir


Robert Ferro - 1983
    From the back cover copy:Max Desir loved his Italian-American family--even after his iron-willed father exiled him from its intimate innner circle.Max Desir loved his lover, Nick, with whom he openly took up life first amid the enchantment of Rome, then amid the realities of New York.Two loves so deeply felt--in a man so painfully divided...

Raised By Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents


Frank Lowe - 2018
    . . . [I]t relates to all families, tolerance, and love." — Greg Berlanti, writer, producer, director "Raw and unfiltered. . . Lowe breaks new ground, highlighting the dire need for further exploration. 5 Hearts." — Foreword Reviews "[A] powerful eye-opener." — Amanda Hopping-Winn, chief program officer, Family Equality Council  "Raw, personal, and uncensored, this must-read book gives us insight as to what it’s like to be raised by same-gender parents and how that can impact one’s life." —Eric Rosswood, author of The Ultimate Guide for Gay Dads and Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood In recent years, the world has been saturated by endless blogs, articles, and books devoted to the subject of LGBTQ+ parenting. On the flip side, finding stories written by the children of LGBTQ+ parents is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Now that the world is more accepting than ever of non-traditional families, it's time to create a literary space for this not-so-unique, shared, but completely individual experience. In Raised by Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents, Frank Lowe has carefully edited an anthology that reflects on the upbringing of children in many different forms of LGBTQ+ families. From Baby Boomers to Generation Z, it features diverse stories that express the distinctiveness of this shared journey and of each particular family. It's visceral, raw, and not always pretty, but love is always the common thread. Lowe candidly reveals true accounts of this particular niche of humanity, while simultaneously creating a moving snapshot of the world in which we live. Raised by Unicorns guides the reader through an empathetic journey that is nothing short of compelling and poignant. We've all heard the phrase "raised by wolves." Now we have a window into the complex world of being Raised by Unicorns.

Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present


Neil Miller - 1995
    Miller accompanies his narrative with essays and excerpts from contemporary and historical writings, and the text is illustrated with photos and line drawings.Neil Miller is the author of Sex-Crime Panic and winner of the 2003 Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. He is also the author of In Search of Gay America, winner of the 1990 American Library Association prize for gay and lesbian literature. He teaches journalism and nonfiction writing at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.