Originally established to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, Pride Month has become a nearly worldwide celebration of LGBTQ+ people and communities.
To honor and celebrate Pride Month, Rosaria Pisa, chair of URI’s Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, recommends several books that offer moving accounts of the lives of LGBTQ+ people.
Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg
“This historical, part-autobiographical, novel represents one of the most powerful tellings of the long and fraught road of coming out first as a lesbian (butch-lesbian) in the 1970s, then discovering and claiming a transgender identity later in life. Feinberg reveals in pain-staking detail the complex process of finding the language for naming the self, shaping self-presentation to reflect your most authentic self, and identifying with a community that, in reflecting and accepting you, makes you visible and fully human. This story more than any other has impacted how I understand my gender and sexual identities. Going along on Feinberg’s journey, I found myself.”
This Bridge Called My Back, Cherrie L. Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua
“I was introduced to this book as a graduate student in the early 1990s. It remains a critical encounter with intersectional thinking and the politics of race, class, gender, and sexuality. As companions to this book, I recommend Cherrie Moraga’s Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Pasó por sus Labios (1983, South End Press, new edition 2021), a book that mixes essays, poetry, and journaling to capture the reality and magical realism of Chicana women and lesbians. I also recommend Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (2007) that takes-up the multiple borders, dimensions (e.g. cultural, social, psychic) and therefore identities we are forever crossing, shaping, and claiming. These three books that center marginalized experiences, with the last two capturing Chinana/Latinx experiences, remain timely engagements for delving into the personal, social, and political costs of naming/claiming selfhood while navigating the slippery terrains of power.”
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong
“I am currently reading this beautifully written novel that explores the intersection of masculinity, race, class, sexuality, and immigration. Vuong, a Vietnamese American, writes about the embodiment of intergenerational traumas rooted in war and diasporic liminality while also navigating life as a gay man in America.”
Homie, Danez Smith
“I am also currently reading this collection of poems by Danez Smith, a Black Queer, POZ poet and performer. The poems explore Blackness, masculinity, queerness, friendship, being and joy, and loss.”