Soldiers' Stories | LGBTQ+ Soldiers: General Resources

The bestselling, seminal work of trans literature: a story of love, sex, selfhood, and understanding from Jennifer Finney Boylan   When she changed genders, she changed the world.  It was the groundbreaking publication of She's Not There in 2003 that jump-started the transgender revolution. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Boylan - a cast member on I Am Cait; an advisor to the television series Transparent, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times -- explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of love and family.    She's Not There was one of the first works to present trans experience from the perspective of a literary novelist, opening a door to new understanding of love, sex, gender, and identity.  Boylan inspired readers to ask the same questions she asked herself:  What is it that makes us---ourselves?  What does it mean to be a man, or a woman?

A Queer History of the United States is groundbreaking and accessible. It looks at how American culture has shaped the LGBT, or queer, experience, while simultaneously arguing that LGBT people not only shaped but were pivotal in creating our country. Using numerous primary documents and literature, as well as social histories, Bronski's book takes the reader through the centuries--from Columbus' arrival and the brutal treatment the Native peoples received, through the American Revolution's radical challenging of sex and gender roles--to the violent, and liberating, 19th century--and the transformative social justice movements of the 20th. Bronski's book is filled with startling examples of often ignored or unknown aspects of American history: the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the effect of new technologies on LGBT life in the 19th century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the great backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s.

There is no one way to be transgender. Transgender and gender non-conforming people have many different ways of understanding their gender identities. Only recently have sex and gender been thought of as separate concepts, and we have learned that sex (traditionally thought of as physical orbiological) is as variable as gender (traditionally thought of as social).While trans people share many common experiences, there is immense diversity within trans communities. There are an estimated 700,000 transgendered individuals in the US and 15 million worldwide. Even still, there's been a notable lack of organized information for this sizable group.Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a revolutionary resource - a comprehensive, reader-friendly guide for transgender people, with each chapter written by transgender or genderqueer authors.

The sweeping story of the struggle for gay and lesbian rights--based on amazing interviews with politicians, military figures, and members of the entire LGBT community who face these challenges every day. The Gay Revolution begins in the 1950s, when gays and lesbians were criminals, psychiatrists saw them as mentally ill, churches saw them as sinners, and society victimized them with hatred. Against this dark backdrop, a few brave people began to fight back, paving the way for the revolutionary changes of the 1960s and beyond.

At least two generations of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people have emerged since Becoming a Visible Man was first published in 2004, but the book remains a beloved resource for trans people and their allies. Since the first edition's publication, author Jamison Green's writings and advocacy among business and governmental organizations around the world have led to major changes in the fields of law, medicine, and social policy, and his (mostly invisible) work has had significant effects on trans people globally.

With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population. Though undoubtedly an account of one woman's quest for self at all costs, Redefining Realness is a powerful vision of possibility and self-realization, pushing us all toward greater acceptance of one another--and of ourselves--showing as never before how to be unapologetic and real.

In the updated second edition of Whipping Girl, Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist, shares her powerful experiences and observations-both pre- and post-transition-to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole. Serano's well-honed arguments and reputation as a thought-leader stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. In this provocative manifesto, she exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this "feminine" weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire

The nation has transformed. The calls for racial equity are loud and insistent and they are now being listened to. And yet, companies across the country are still far behind when it comes to equity in the workplace. For decades, we've heard variations on the same theme on how to increase diversity and inclusion and we have still not moved. If we want equity to matter inside and outside the workplace, if we want to be real allies for change, then we need a new approach. We need to stop following trends. We need to lead change. In Authentic Diversity, culture change expert and diversity speaker, Michelle Silverthorn, explains how to transform diversity and inclusion from mere lip service into the very heart of leadership. Following the journey of a Black woman in the workplace, leaders learn the old rules of diversity that keep failing her and millions like her again and again, and the new rules they must put in place to make success a reality for everyone. A millennial, immigrant, and Black woman in America, Michelle will show you how to lead a space centered on equity, allyship, and inclusion and how together we can build a new organization, and nation, centered on justice.

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America's first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives--ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s. Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.