The Queer Book Club, Beyond Pride Month
A list of quality books to deepen your LGBTQ appreciation well beyond June
June brings the party, but these books will help deepen your appreciation for LGBTQ efforts and leaders all year long.
The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports
This new, expertly-written book by Michael Waters takes a look at queer athletes trying to compete in the Olympics in the early 1900s. The book draws on historical records and personal writings of the athletes to make it read like a novel. The people in this book, who we would consider trans or intersex by today’s identifiers, were the subject of scrutiny and controversy as they tried to compete in games. Invasive tests to confirm gender became the norm for athletic conferences and the backdrop of a Nazi Europe makes this narrative even more compelling. It’s also an important book for today as trans athletes have become a focus for America’s culture wars. With the Paris Olympic games just around the corner, this is the perfect, smart, summer beach read.
Radiant: the Life and Line of Keith Haring
Brad Gooch brings the iconic artist, Keith Haring, to life in this new biography. After reading this, I had a new appreciation for the artist whose drawings seem to be everywhere, even 30 years after his death. The scenes of Haring cruising in the East Village or Times Square as he’s exploring his sexuality paint a picture of a different era in New York City. Haring’s efforts to bring attention to the AIDS crisis through art, which would be the cause of his untimely death, is wildly important as well.
Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
James Kirchick is evidence of why historians are so important. In Secret City, Kirchick paints a picture of Washington where gay men (they were almost entirely men) not just had active roles in government, but were running it. Kirchick spent years reading between the lines of historical documents and conversations to eke out who might have been queer and in the closet. More scandalized controversies of earlier generations are looked at through a new context in this book. He explains why queer men were scattered all through the ranks of diplomacy and how the Lavendar scare affected Washington and beyond for years.
Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin
Colman Domingo’s masterful and Oscar-nominated performance in RUSTIN gave attention to a critical but often overlooked civil rights leader. But John D'Emilio’s brilliant 2003 biography of the openly-gay architect of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington did it first. D’Emilio goes back to Rustin’s Quaker beginnings in Pennsylvania and explains how that informed his approach to civil and gay rights. There’s a lot of history in this book, but there’s a lot of appreciation for the Black gay man who moved the country forward in a lot of ways. A critically important read.
The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America
Frank Kameny isn’t a household name, but Eric Cervini explains why he’s the Godfather of the queer rights movement in this historical book. Kameny was fired from his job as an astronomer working for the Army because of his homosexuality in the 1950s. He spent the rest of his life fighting for gay rights and inclusion. Kameny explores the gay-rights movement before Stonewall and shows how these groups were making progress in Washington, New York, and other outposts around the country. But Kameny wasn’t a perfect leader; he was volatile, often excluded women and LGBTQ Americans of color, and had a rigid stubbornness that could become a fault. Still, his work was admirable and paved the way for a lot of the queer rights seen today.