Library Research Guides: Gender Studies: Playlists

Transfeminine Worlds: Works by Trans Women & Other Femme Folk

Introduction
In recognition of Women's* History Month in March, we have curated a selection of materials and resources from our collections to honor the contributions of transgender women across the arts, from fiction and poetry, to feature films and documentaries, to podcasts. We have also put together a sampling of important transgender studies texts, to help ground an understanding of transgender identity and embodiment.

As an introduction to this feature, we have also created a playlist of music by transwomen and other artists who explore and embody femininity outside of cisnormative conceptions of gender. In this extensive, genre-spanning mix, you'll find a variety of musical styles and sounds, including hip hop, electronic, ambient, heavy metal, and punk, among others. To learn more about this, feel free to explore some of the resources we used to make the playlist:

"A Brief History of Queer and Trans Women in American Music" (udiscovermusic.)
"themstory: A Century in Genderqueer Music" (them)
"A Brief History of Transgender People in Music" (video, Polyphonic)
"Black Trans Women in Music" (video, Shea Diamond)
"Exploring the Trans Roots of Hyperpop" (Orange Mag)
"How Hyperpop Gives Trans Artists a Voice" (Ringtone)
"How SOPHIE and Other Trans Musicians Are Using Vocal Modulation to Explore Gender" (Pitchfork)
"7 Trans Women Who Are Redefining the Future of Pop Music" (them)
"7 Transgender Musicians Changing the Music Industry" (Insider)
"11 Transgender & Non-Binary Musicians You Need to Know" (Billboard)

*Note: Trans women are women. For the purposes of this feature, we have chosen to center feminine expression and embodiment, and so include contributions from artists and scholars who identify as women, whether cisgender or transgender, as well as nonbinary and genderqueer individuals who are femme, femme-of-center, or who identify with or perform femininity in some way. For more on these concepts, check out this article from the ACLU ("Trans Women are Women") or explore some of the resources from this feature on "The Metaphysics of Gender" from the Philosophy Research Guide.

Beyond the Playlist
As with many of these national commemorations, one month is never enough to fully honor and celebrate the history and culture of marginalized communities, let alone heal the legacies (and ongoing reality) of harm and systemic oppression they've experienced. We recognize that resisting and rejecting (trans)misogyny and cisheteropatriarchy cannot be manifested simply through resource lists and guides, however important and well-intentioned, and that justice and liberation for women, expansively defined, and all who challenge and live outside of binary gender is the work of generations. We are, nevertheless, committed to doing what we can to work towards a different, more equitable and caring future.

If you'd like to engage more deeply with Women's History Month, units across the Libraries have created a number of interrelated resources and features to provide more holistic coverage of this commemoration. You'll find those, below:

The Sounds of Women's History Month (Media Studies)
Feminism & Feminist Philosophies (Philosophy)
In Memoriam: bell hooks (Philosophy)
Feminist Fiction in German (Germanic Studies/Comparative Literature)
Spotlight on Victorian Women Writers Project (English & American Literature)
Women of Ukraine (Area Studies)
Women's History Month Streaming and DVD Resources (Media Services)
Primary Sources on Women in University Collections (Archives & Special Collections)
Youth Materials on Women's History and Women’s Lives (Education Library)

Anthologies

We Want It All by Andrea Abi-Karam (Editor); Kay Gabriel (Editor)
ISBN: 9781643620336
Publication Date: 2020-11-24
Editors Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel offer We Want it All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics as an experiment into how far literature, written from an identitarian standpoint, can go as a fellow traveler with social movements and revolutionary demands. Writing in dialogue with emancipatory political movements, the intergenerational writers assembled here imagine an altogether overturned world in poems that pursue the particular and multiple trans relationships to desire, embodiment, housing, sex, ecology, history, pop culture, and the working day.
Troubling the Line by Trace Peterson; T. C. Tolbert (Editor)
ISBN: 9781937658106
Publication Date: 2013-03-01
The first of its kind, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, gathers together a diverse range of 55 poets with varying aesthetics and backgrounds. In addition to generous samples of poetry by each trans writer, the book also includes "poetics statements"--reflections by each poet that provide context for their work covering a range of issues from identification and embodiment to language and activism. Poets include Samuel Ace, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Micha Cardenas, kari edwards, Duriel Harris, Joy Ladin, Dawn Lundy Martin, Eileen Myles, Trish Salah, Max Wolf Valerio, John Wieners, Kit Yan, and more.
Subject to Change by H. Melt (Editor)
ISBN: 9781943977437
Publication Date: 2017-11-16
Subject to Change is an anthology celebrating the work of five poets who are unapologetically trans: Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Christopher Soto, beyza ozer, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Kay Ulanday Barrett. Featuring poetry and interviews, this collection is a testament to the power of trans poets speaking to one another--about family, race, class, disability, religion, and the body. This anthology includes a range of trans experiences and poetics, expanding the possibilities of what it means to be both trans and a writer in the twenty-first century. ----- Subject to Change is revolutionary, a culture and power border-smasher & a piercing examination of brilliant, painful, and transcendent Trans consciousness and experience. It is personal document, a set of trans community-journey notations and an at-the-edge howl of love for love. Each poet goes beyond poetry, that is, beyond being the gendered & genre-ed. Each writer calls out a manifesto against death, against "being pulled apart," against frozen progressive social movements and the "homelessness" of being. What does Freedom, Bravery, Self-realization look like? Enter these five poets--their questions, their investigations, their bodies on paper, their humanity. A superb diamond, in motion. I love this book. You will too. -- Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the United States, 2016-17
Nepantla by Christopher Soto (Editor)
ISBN: 9781937658786
Publication Date: 2018-05-01
The first major literary anthology for queer poets of color in the United States. In 2014, Christopher Soto and Lambda Literary Foundation founded the online journal Nepantla, with the mission to nurture, celebrate, and preserve diversity within the queer poetry community, including contributions as diverse in style and form, as the experiences of QPOC in the United States. Now, Nepantla will appear for the first time in print as a survey of poetry by queer poets of color throughout U.S. history, including literary legends such as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Ai, and Pat Parker alongside contemporaries such as Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Robin Coste Lewis, Joy Harjo, Richard Blanco, Erika L. Sánchez, Jericho Brown, Carl Phillips, Tommy Pico, Eduardo C. Corral, Chen Chen, and more!
Sovereign Erotics by Qwo-Li Driskill (Editor); Daniel Heath Justice (Editor); Deborah Miranda (Editor); Lisa Tatonetti (Editor)
ISBN: 9780816502424
Publication Date: 2011-10-01
Two-Spirit people, identified by many different tribally specific names and standings within their communities, have been living, loving, and creating art since time immemorial. It wasn't until the 1970s, however, that contemporary queer Native literature gained any public notice. Even now, only a handful of books address it specifically, most notably the 1988 collection Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. Since that book's publication twenty-three years ago, there has not been another collection published that focuses explicitly on the writing and art of Indigenous Two-Spirit and Queer people. This landmark collection strives to reflect the complexity of identities within Native Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Two-Spirit (GLBTQ2) communities. Gathering together the work of established writers and talented new voices, this anthology spans genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and essay) and themes (memory, history, sexuality, indigeneity, friendship, family, love, and loss) and represents a watershed moment in Native American and Indigenous literatures, Queer studies, and the intersections between the two. Collaboratively, the pieces in Sovereign Erotics demonstrate not only the radical diversity among the voices of today's Indigenous GLBTQ2 writers but also the beauty, strength, and resilience of Indigenous GLBTQ2 people in the twenty-first century. Contributors: Indira Allegra, Louise Esme Cruz, Paula Gunn Allen, Qwo-Li Driskill, Laura Furlan, Janice Gould, Carrie House, Daniel Heath Justice, Maurice Kenny, Michael Koby, M. Carmen Lane, Jaynie Lara, Chip Livingston, Luna Maia, Janet McAdams, Deborah Miranda, Daniel David Moses, D. M. O'Brien, Malea Powell, Cheryl Savageau, Kim Shuck, Sarah Tsigeyu Sharp, James Thomas Stevens, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, William Raymond Taylor, Joel Waters, and Craig Womack

Collections

Body Rites by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
ISBN: 9781927494509
Publication Date: 2015-05-01
In Bodymap, Lambda Award-winner Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha sings a queer disabled femme-of-colour love song filled with hard femme poetics and disability justice. In this volume, Leah Lakshmi maps hard and vulnerable terrains of queer desire, survivorhood, transformative love, sick and disabled queer genius and all the homes we claim and deserve.
Day/break by Gwen Benaway
ISBN: 9781771665735
Publication Date: 2020-04-02
day/break, poet Gwen Benaway's fourth collection of work, explores the everyday poetics of the trans feminine body. Through intimate experiences and conceptualizations of trans life, day/break asks what it means to be a trans woman, both within the text and out in the physical world. Shifting between theory and poetry, Benaway questions how gender, sexuality, and love intersect with the violence and transmisogyny of the nation state and established literary institutions. In beautiful lyric verse, day/break reveals the often-unseen other worlds of trans life, where body, self, and sex are transformed, becoming more than fixed binary locations.
Feeld by Jos Charles
ISBN: 9781571315052
Publication Date: 2018-08-14
Jos Charles's revolutionary second collection of poetry, feeld, is a lyrical unraveling of the circuitry of gender and speech, defiantly making space for bodies that have been historically denied their own vocabulary. "i care so much abot the whord i cant reed." In feeld, Charles stakes her claim on the language available to speak about trans experience, reckoning with the narratives that have come before by reclaiming the language of the past. In Charles's electrifying transliteration of English--Chaucerian in affect, but revolutionary in effect--what is old is made new again. "gendre is not the tran organe / gendre is yes a hemorage." "did u kno not a monthe goes bye / a tran i kno doesnt dye." The world of feeld is our own, but off-kilter, distinctly queer--making visible what was formerly and forcefully hidden: trauma, liberation, strength, and joy. Urgent and vital, feeld composes a new and highly inventive lyrical narrative of what it means to live inside a marked body.
Gumbo Ya Ya by Aurielle Marie
ISBN: 9780822966661
Publication Date: 2021-09-21
Gumbo Ya Ya, Aurielle Marie's stunning debut, is a cauldron of hearty poems exploring race, gender, desire, and violence in the lives of Black gxrls, soaring against the backdrop of a contemporary South. These poems are loud, risky, and unapologetically rooted in the glory of Black gxrlhood. The collection opens with a heartrending indictment of injustice. What follows is a striking reimagination of the world, one where no Black gxrl dies "by the barrel of the law" or "for loving another Black gxrl." Part familial archival, part map of Black resistance, Gumbo Ya Ya catalogs the wide gamut of Black life at its intersections, with punching cultural commentary and a poetic voice that holds tenderness and sharpness in tandem. It asks us to chew upon both the rich meat and the tough gristle, and in doing so we walk away more whole than we began and thoroughly satisfied.
Prayers for My 17th Chromosome by Amir Rabiyah
ISBN: 9781943977420
Publication Date: 2017-11-14
Amir Rabiyah is a magician who has tasted salt of the creation story's sea. The cleaving of human to spirit found in Prayers for My 17th Chromosome is a blood tangle that will kiss your cells till you sweat / constellations. Rabiyah reminds their reader that to exist in between boxes of national belongings, migrations, queer kinships, and disability is not to swallow war. Rather, in these verses, complications find respite in one another, [becoming] the endless, / the source, / the horizon / awakening.
There Is a Case That I Am by torrin a. greathouse
ISBN: 9780997826753
Publication Date: 2017-09-25
In There is a Case That I Am, torrin a. greathouse goes on a profoundly courageous journey, delving into the self, in search of knowledge and definition. These poems are delicately wrapped gifts, full of terror and hope, anguish and humor. greathouse softly sings an elegy for a body still breathing. They are “afraid of the red stains they make of / these queer bodies,” yet they will teach you to smile with a bloody mouth. This phenomenal collection of vulnerable strength, of existing in the in-between, in an everything, will show you all the ways pain can be both ugly and exquisite.
There Should Be Flowers by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
ISBN: 9781937865733
Publication Date: 2016-08-15
"Espinoza's debut is a searing interrogation of the world and the self at once. Here, the body is a fixation-as if to look away from it, even briefly, is to risk having it erased. As such, this is a book of unblinking human preservation, and how we trespass ourselves seeking safer spaces. "There is nothing I love more than an honest storm," Espinoza writes. There Should Be Flowers is a storm to ravage and rearrange us from our crushing certainties. This book doesn't need a blurb. It simply needs to be read." -Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Transverse by Lindsay Choi
ISBN: 9781733038430
Publication Date: 2021-11-01
TRANSVERSE weaves between languages and forms, cultivating the questions and lacunae that emerge in their encounter. In the three parts that make up the book, music, mathematics, philosophical logic, and lyric convention come in and out of relation to press upon questions of form and meaning-making, and attend to the moments when coherence appears to take place or dissolve. Following sonic and visual echos, practices and plays upon citation, TRANSVERSE traces and distorts logics of allegory, repetition, and representation, moving towards an inquiry into the nature of our encounter with and recognition of the world. "Both desperately philosophical and tenderly present, 최Lindsay in the writing of their book length TRANSVERSE recognizes language as both limit and threshold, impasse and passage. As the poetry unfolds, a reality comes into being. And that reality is, in turn, a realm of existence from which the language of the poetry can speak, however indirectly, to us, the readers of the book. An inevitably indirect, incomplete and yet excessive communication transpires, one that can't help but reveal an incomplete and yet overflowing existence. One might term it a realm of the ghostly sublime, but itís a realm of social and physical materiality, too, requiring both linguistic invention and answerability. There are few poets capable of rendering difficult and complex thinking into a work of rigorous and exquisite beauty, but this is exactly what ? Lindsay has done. TRANSVERSE is magnificent."--Lyn Hejinian Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. LGBTQIA Studies.
Water I Won't Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
ISBN: 9781556596179
Publication Date: 2021-04-20
Both radically tender and desperate for change, Water I Won't Touch is a life raft and a self-portrait, concerned with the vitality of trans people living in a dangerous and inhospitable landscape. Through the brambles of the Pennsylvania forest to a stretch of the Jersey Shore, in quiet moments and violent memories, Kayleb Rae Candrilli touches the broken earth and examines the whole in its parts. Written during the body's healing from a double mastectomy--in the wake of addiction and family dysfunction--these ambitious poems put new form to what'sbeen lost and gained. Candrilli ultimately imagines a joyful, queer future: a garden to harvest, lasting love, the insistent flamboyance of citrus.
X/ex/exis by Raquel Salas Rivera
ISBN: 9780816544073
Publication Date: 2021-08-17
Written in the early days of the rise of world-wide fascism and the poet's gender transition, x/ex/exis: poemas para la nación/poems for the nation accepts the invitation to push poetic and gender imaginaries beyond the bounds set by nation. From teen dysphoria, to the incarceration of anticolonial activists Oscar López and Nina Droz Franco, to the entanglement of church and state, these poems acknowledge the violence of imposed binaries. For Salas Rivera, the x marks Puerto Rican transness in a world that seeks trans death, denial, and erasure. Instead of justifying his existence, he takes up the flag of illegibility and writes an apocalyptic book that screams into an uncertain future, armed with nothing to lose. In today's post-disaster Puerto Rico and a world shaped by the recurring waves of an ecological apocalypse, Salas Rivera's words feel visionary, mapping a decolonizing territory, a body, and identity of both soil and heart.
Crossbones on My Life by Mason Olaya-Smith
ISBN: 9781736396315
Publication Date: 2021-02-20
Poetry. African & African American Studies. Latinx Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. California Interest. CROSSBONES ON MY LIFE borrows its title from an invocation by Assotto Saint and honors the memory of snap queens, black lesbians, gay latinos, two-spirit natives, feral city youth, trans icons, and 'round the way girls. This debut chapbook from Mason J. chronicles their first-hand experiences with the HIV pandemic, brown girlhood, and sexuality, urban development/gay meccas, queercore cruising, leather daddies, Ghostship, gender identity, hood life, love, loss of a hometown, and more.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
ISBN: 9781250789068
Publication Date: 2021-09-28
Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
ISBN: 9780983242239
Publication Date: 2013-03-01
Nevada is the darkly comedic story of Maria Griffiths, a young trans woman living in New York City and trying to stay true to her punk values while working retail. When she finds out her girlfriend has lied to her, the world she thought she’d carefully built for herself begins to unravel, and Maria sets out on a journey that will most certainly change her forever.
A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett
ISBN: 9781627290050
Publication Date: 2014-09-01
Eleven unique short stories that stretch from a rural Canadian Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn, featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love. These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable.
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom
ISBN: 9780994047137
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
FIERCE FEMMES AND NOTORIOUS LIARS: A DANGEROUS TRANS GIRL'S CONFABULOUS MEMOIR is the highly sensational, ultra-exciting, sort-of true coming-of-age story of a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents' abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who live in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, the protagonist blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, she joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
ISBN: 9780765379948
Publication Date: 2016-01-26
From the former editor-in-chief ofio9.com, a stunning Nebula Award-winning and Hugo-shortlisted novel about the end of the world--and the beginning of our future An ancient society of witches and a hipster technological startup go to war in order to prevent the world from tearing itself apart. To further complicate things, each of the groups' most promising followers (Patricia, a brilliant witch and Laurence, an engineering "wunderkind") may just be in love with each other. As the battle between magic and science wages in San Francisco against the backdrop of international chaos, Laurence and Patricia are forced to choose sides. But their choices will determine the fate of the planet and all mankind. In a fashion unique to Charlie Jane Anders,All the Birds in the Sky offers a humorous and, at times, heart-breaking exploration of growing up extraordinary in a world filled with cruelty, scientific ingenuity, and magic.
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
ISBN: 9780593133378
Publication Date: 2021-01-12
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men. Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese--and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby--and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it--Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family--and raise the baby together? This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
I've Got a Time Bomb by Sybil Lamb
ISBN: 9781627290111
Publication Date: 2014-06-12
The year is 286. The city of Morteville has been flooded by a devastating hurricane but Sybil D'Lye has never been happier. She's making out with girls, squatting an abandoned mansion, and looting every pharmacy within wading distance. Everything's going swimmingly until the night Sybil is beaten with a pipe and left for dead. Though doctors are able to reconstruct her skull, her mind is altogether another matter. Thus begins her incredible and unbelievable journey, looking for love among the loners, losers, and leave-behinds in the forgotten corners of Amerika. Based on a true* story. *Guaranteed minimum 88% true content by weight
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
ISBN: 9781250078407
Publication Date: 2016-05-03
The award-winning, big-hearted novel about being seen for who you really are, and a love story you can't help but root for Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone. But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past. But Amanda's terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it. Because the secret that Amanda's been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love? Stonewall Book Award Winner Walter Dean Myers Honor Book for Outstanding Children's Literature iBooks YA Novel of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Year A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist A Zoella Book Club Selection A Barnes & Noble Best YA Book of the Year A Bustle Best YA Book of the Year IndieNext Top 10 One of Flavorwire's 50 Books Every Modern Teenager Should Read
Meanwhile, Elsewhere: science fiction and fantasy from transgender writers by Cat Fitzpatrick (Editor); Casey Plett (Editor)
ISBN: 1627290184
Publication Date: 2017-09-07
The #1 post-reality generation device approved for home use This manual will prepare you to travel from multiverse to multiverse. No experience is required. Choose from twenty-five preset post-realities Rejoice at obstacles unquestionably bested and conflicts efficiently resolved. Bring denouement to your drama with THE FOOLPROOF AUGMENTATION DEVICE FOR OUR CONTEMPORARY UTOPIA.

Fairest: a memoir by Meredith Talusan
ISBN: 9780525561309
Publication Date: 2020-05-26
A singular, beautifully written coming-of-age memoir of a Filipino boy with albinism whose story travels from an immigrant childhood to Harvard to a gender transition and illuminates the illusions of race, disability, and gender Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a "sun child" from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni's Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.
Redefining Realness: my path to womanhood, identity, love & so much more by Janet Mock
ISBN: 9781476709123
Publication Date: 2014-02-04
In 2011, Marie Claire magazine published a profile of Janet Mock in which she publicly stepped forward for the first time as a trans woman. Since then, Mock has gone from covering the red carpet for People.com to advocating for all those who live within the shadows of society. Redefining Realness offers a bold new perspective on being young, multiracial, economically challenged and transgender in America.
Trans: a memoir by Juliet Jacques; Sheila Heti (Afterword by)
ISBN: 9781784781675
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
'Six weeks before sex reassignment surgery (SRS), I am obliged to stop taking my hormones. I suddenly feel very differently about my forthcoming operation.' In July 2012, aged thirty, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery-a process she chronicled with unflinching honesty in a serialised national newspaper column. Trans tells of her life to the present moment- a story of growing up, of defining yourself, and of the rapidly changing world of gender politics. Fresh from university, eager to escape a dead-end job, she launches a career as a writer in a publishing culture dominated by London cliques and still figuring out the impact of the Internet. She navigates the treacherous waters of a world where, even in the liberal and feminist media, transgender identities go unacknowledged, misunderstood or worse. Yet through art, film, music, politics and football, Jacques starts to become the person she had only imagined, and begins the process of transition. Interweaving the personal with the political, her memoir is a powerful exploration of debates that comprise trans politics, issues which promise to redefine our understanding of what it means to be alive. Revealing, honest, humorous, and self-deprecating, Trans includes an epilogue with Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?, in which Jacques and Heti discuss the cruxes of writing and identity.
Dirty River by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
ISBN: 9781551526003
Publication Date: 2015-11-03
A transformative memoir by a queer disabled person of colour and abuse survivor. Lambda Literary Award and Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction finalist In 1996, poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, carrying only two backpacks, caught a Greyhound bus in America and ran away to Canada. They ended up in Toronto, where they were welcomed by a community of queer punks of colour offering promises of love and revolution, yet they remained haunted by the reasons she left home in the first place. This passionate, riveting memoir is a mixtape of dreams and nightmares, of immigration court lineups and queer South Asian dance nights; it is an intensely personal road map and an intersectional, tragicomic tale that reveals how a disabled queer woman of colour and abuse survivor navigates the dirty river of the not-so-distant past and, as the subtitle suggests, "dreams their way home." "The LGBTIQ community should lift its ears to receive Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Their vision stands to rearrange the ways we approach community, creating art, and loving. Every time I've heard them read, I've come away new." -Tara Hardy
She's Not There: a life in two genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan
ISBN: 076791404X
Publication Date: 2003-07-29
The exuberant memoir of a man named James who became a woman named Jenny.She’s Not Thereis the story of a person changing genders, the story of a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret; above all, it is a love story. By turns funny and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the remarkable territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family.She’s Not Thereis a portrait of a loving marriage—the love of James for his wife, Grace, and, against all odds, the enduring love of Grace for the woman who becomes her “sister,” Jenny. To this extraordinary true story, Boylan brings the humorous, fresh voice that won her accolades as one of the best comic novelists of her generation. With her distinctive and winning perspective,She’s Not Thereexplores the dramatic outward changes and unexpected results of life as a woman: Jenny fights the urge to eat salad, while James consumed plates of ribs; gone is the stability of “one damn mood, all the damn time.” While Boylan’s own secret was unusual, to say the least, she captures the universal sense of feeling uncomfortable, out of sorts with the world, and misunderstood by her peers. J
Tranny: confessions of punk rock's most infamous anarchist sellout by Laura Jane Grace; Dan Ozzi (As told to)
ISBN: 9780316387958
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
The provocative transgender advocate and lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me! provides a searing account of her search for identity and her true self. It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings-banging on a drum kit made of pickle buckets-to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones. They suffered legal woes, a revolving door of drummers, and a horde of angry, militant punks who called them "sellouts" and tried to sabotage their shows at every turn. But underneath the public turmoil, something much greater occupied Gabel-a secret kept for 30 years, only acknowledged in the scrawled-out pages of personal journals and hidden in lyrics. Through a troubled childhood, delinquency, and struggles with drugs, Gabel was on a punishing search for identity. Not until May of 2012 did a Rolling Stone profile finally reveal it: Gabel is a transsexual, and would from then on be living as a woman under the name Laura Jane Grace. Tranny is the intimate story of Against Me!'s enigmatic founder, weaving the narrative of the band's history, as well as Grace's, with dozens of never-before-seen entries from the piles of journals Grace kept. More than a typical music memoir about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll-although it certainly has plenty of that-Tranny is an inside look at one of the most remarkable stories in the history of rock.
Conundrum by Jan Morris
ISBN: 015122563X
Publication Date: 1974-04-01
The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man's man. Except that appearances, as James Morris had known from early childhood, can be deeply misleading. James Morris had known all his conscious life that at heart he was a woman. "Conundrum"," "one of the earliest books to discuss transsexuality with honesty and without prurience, tells the story of James Morris's hidden life and how he decided to bring it into the open, as he resolved first on a hormone treatment and, second, on risky experimental surgery that would turn him into the woman that he truly was.
Crossing by Deirdre N. McCloskey
ISBN: 0226556689
Publication Date: 1999-11-10
We have read the stories of those who have "crossed" lines of race and class and culture. But few have written of crossing--completely and entirely--the gender line. Crossing is the story of Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Donald), once a golden boy of conservative economics and a child of 1950s and 1960s privilege, and her dramatic and poignant journey to becoming a woman. McCloskey's account of her painstaking efforts to learn to "be a woman" unearth fundamental questions about gender and identity, and hatreds and anxieties, revealing surprising answers.

Scholarly Texts

Transgender History: the roots of today's revolution by Susan Stryker
ISBN: 9781580056892
Publication Date: 2017-11-07
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.
Trap Door: trans cultural production and the politics of visibility by Reina Gossett (Editor); Eric A. Stanley (Editor); Johanna Burton (Editor)
ISBN: 9780262036603
Publication Date: 2017-12-15
Essays, conversations, and archival investigations explore the paradoxes, limitations, and social ramifications of trans representation within contemporary culture. The increasing representation of trans identity throughout art and popular culture in recent years has been nothing if not paradoxical. Trans visibility is touted as a sign of a liberal society, but it has coincided with a political moment marked both by heightened violence against trans people (especially trans women of color) and by the suppression of trans rights under civil law. Trap Door grapples with these contradictions. The essays, conversations, and dossiers gathered here delve into themes as wide-ranging yet interconnected as beauty, performativity, activism, and police brutality. Collectively, they attest to how trans people are frequently offered "doors"--entrances to visibility and recognition--that are actually "traps," accommodating trans bodies and communities only insofar as they cooperate with dominant norms. The volume speculates about a third term, perhaps uniquely suited for our time: the trapdoor, neither entrance nor exit, but a secret passageway leading elsewhere. Trap Door begins a conversation that extends through and beyond trans culture, showing how these issues have relevance for anyone invested in the ethics of visual culture. Contributors Lexi Adsit, Sara Ahmed, Nicole Archer, Kai Lumumba Barrow, Johanna Burton, micha cárdenas, Mel Y. Chen, Grace Dunham, Treva Ellison, Sydney Freeland, Che Gossett, Reina Gossett, Stamatina Gregory, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Robert Hamblin, Eva Hayward, Juliana Huxtable, Yve Laris Cohen, Abram J. Lewis, Heather Love, Park McArthur, CeCe McDonald, Toshio Meronek, Fred Moten, Tavia Nyong'o, Morgan M. Page, Roy Pérez, Dean Spade, Eric A. Stanley, Jeannine Tang, Wu Tsang, Jeanne Vaccaro, Chris E. Vargas, Geo Wyeth, Kalaniopua Young, Constantina Zavitsanos
Histories of the Transgender Child by Julian Gill-Peterson
ISBN: 9781452958156
Publication Date: 2018-10-23
A groundbreaking twentieth-century history of transgender children With transgender rights front and center in American politics, media, and culture, the pervasive myth still exists that today's transgender children are a brand new generation--pioneers in a field of new obstacles and hurdles. Histories of the Transgender Child shatters this myth, uncovering a previously unknown twentieth-century history when transgender children not only existed but preexisted the term transgender and its predecessors, playing a central role in the medicalization of trans people, and all sex and gender. Beginning with the early 1900s when children with "ambiguous" sex first sought medical attention, to the 1930s when transgender people began to seek out doctors involved in altering children's sex, to the invention of the category gender, and finally the 1960s and '70s when, as the field institutionalized, transgender children began to take hormones, change their names, and even access gender confirmation, Julian Gill-Peterson reconstructs the medicalization and racialization of children's bodies. Throughout, they foreground the racial history of medicine that excludes black and trans of color children through the concept of gender's plasticity, placing race at the center of their analysis and at the center of transgender studies. Until now, little has been known about early transgender history and life and its relevance to children. Using a wealth of archival research from hospitals and clinics, including incredible personal letters from children to doctors, as well as scientific and medical literature, this book reaches back to the first half of the twentieth century--a time when the category transgender was not available but surely existed, in the lives of children and parents.
Invisible Lives: the erasure of transsexual and transgendered people by Viviane Namaste
ISBN: 0226568105
Publication Date: 2000-12-15
Invisible Lives is the first scholarly study of transgendered people--cross-dressers, drag queens and transsexuals--and their everyday lives. Through combined theoretical and empirical study, Viviane K. Namaste argues that transgendered people are not so much produced by medicine or psychiatry as they are erased, or made invisible, in a variety of institutional and cultural settings. Namaste begins her work by analyzing two theoretical perspectives on transgendered people--queer theory and the social sciences--displaying how neither of these has adequately addressed the issues most relevant to sex change: everything from employment to health care to identity papers. Namaste then examines some of the rhetorical and semiotic inscriptions of transgendered figures in culture, including studies of early punk and glam rock subcultures, to illustrate how the effacement of transgendered people is organized in different cultural sites. Invisible Lives concludes with new research on some of the day-to-day concerns of transgendered people, offering case studies in violence, health care, gender identity clinics, and the law.

Essays

I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom
ISBN: 9781551527758
Publication Date: 2019-10-15
What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith? In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, acclaimed poet and essayist Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.
Care Work: dreaming disability justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepznia-Samarasinha
ISBN: 9781551527383
Publication Date: 2018-10-30
In their new, long-awaited collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime disability justice activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centres the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Leah writes passionately and personally about creating spaces by and for sick and disabled queer people of colour, and creative "collective access" -- access not as a chore but as a collective responsibility and pleasure -- in our communities and political movements. Bringing their survival skills and knowledge from years of cultural and activist work, Piepzna-Samarasinha explores everything from the economics of queer femme emotional labour, to suicide in queer and trans communities, to the nitty-gritty of touring as a sick and disabled queer artist of colour. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of colour are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.
Whipping Girl: a transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity by Julia Serano
ISBN: 9781580051545
Publication Date: 2007-05-14
Biologist and trans woman Julie Serano reveals a unique perspective on femininity, masculinity, and gender identityA provocative manifesto, Whipping Girl tells the powerful story of Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist. Serano shares her 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 stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. 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.In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about transsexuality, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activist must work to embrace and empower femininity-in all of its wondrous forms.
Gender Outlaw: on men, women, and the rest of us by Kate Bornstein
ISBN: 0415908973
Publication Date: 1994-05-12
Gender Outlaw is the work of a woman who has been through some changes--a former heterosexual male, a one-time Scientologist and IBM salesperson, now a lesbian woman writer and actress who makes regular rounds on the TV (so to speak) talk shows. In her book, Bornstein covers the "mechanics" of her surgery, everything you've always wanted to know about gender (but were too confused to ask) addresses the place and politics of the transgendered and intterogates the questions of those who give the subject little thought, creating questions of her own.

Other Nonfiction

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves by Laura Erickson-Schroth (Editor)
ISBN: 9780199325351
Publication Date: 2014-06-10
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. Inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves, the classic and powerful compendium written for and by women, Trans Bodies,Trans Selves is widely accessible to the transgender population, providing authoritative information in an inclusive and respectful way and representing the collective knowledge base of dozens of influential experts. Each chapter takes the reader through an important transgender issue, such as race,religion, employment, medical and surgical transition, mental health topics, relationships, sexuality, parenthood, arts and culture, and many more.Anonymous quotes and testimonials from transgender people who have been surveyed about their experiences are woven throughout, adding compelling, personal voices to every page. In this unique way, hundreds of viewpoints from throughout the community have united to create this strong and pioneeringbook. It is a welcoming place for transgender and gender-questioning people, their partners and families, students, professors, guidance counselors, and others to look for up-to-date information on transgender life.

Feature Films

The Matrix by Lana & Lilly Wachowski
Neo (Reeves)-mild-mannered software author by day, feared hacker by night-is recruited into a cell of cyber-rebels, led by Morpheus (Fishburne) and the warrior Trinity (Moss). They have made a fundamental discovery about the world: It does not exist. It is only a seedy utopia where humanity is preserved, protected, and endlessly recycled by a mega-computer. Cypher (Pantoliano) turns traitorous for access to comforts unmatched by the drab post-apocalyptic real world, while Agent Smith (Weaving) dismisses humans as "a plague"--for which non-organic life is "the cure." In a dystopian future, the "real" world as we know it is nothing more than a computer construct, created by an all-powerful artificial intelligence. A small group of humans has found a way out of the construct, and are now fighting for the future of the human race.
Drunktown's Finest by Sydney Freeland
Call Number: Wells Library - Media Services - Video Browsing
Publication Date: 2015
Three young Native Americans - an adopted Christian girl, a rebellious father-to-be, and a promiscuous transsexual - strive to escape the hardships of life on an Indian reservation.

Documentaries

Prodigal Sons by Kimberly Reed
Returning home to Montana for her high school reunion, filmmaker Kimberly Reed (previously the school quarterback and now a transgender woman) hopes for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother. But along the way she uncovers stunning revelations (including a connection to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth), intense sibling rivalries, and unforeseeable twists of plot and gender that force them to face challenges no one could imagine.

Documentary Series

True Trans with Laura Jane Grace
The story of Punk rock singer Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! who came out as a woman in 2012, and other members of the trans community whose experiences are woefully underrepresented and misunderstood in the media.
My Genderation Documentary Films
A selection of documentaries by My Genderation

Short Films

Atlantic is a Sea of Bones by Tourmaline Gossett
An experimental short film drawing from the Lucille Clifton poem of the same name and starring Egyptt LaBeija about how small every day acts of refusal, resistance, and existence—such as performance and self expression—have a tremendous impact on the world.
Southern for Pussy by Zachary Drucker
Looking ahead to a world in which a protagonist’s transness is not the crux of their story arc, Southern for Pussy (2015) simply finds a mother and daughter discussing pussy. Written by the performers, Zackary Drucker and Penny Sori (Drucker’s real-life mother), Southern for Pussy is semi-autobiographical and presents an evolved relationship in which honesty has no boundaries. Circling around hot button topics such as online dating, sex, aging, and anatomy, the film proposes an advanced world where transness is incidental and so embedded in everyday life that it’s not even mentioned by name.
Get Off My Turf! by Fox Fisher & Owl Fisher
Get Off My Turf! is a short film about a transgender woman who finds out that her neighbour is transphobic. The film delves into some of the modern depictions of transphobia and explores friendship, solidarity and conflict between two very different women.
A Trans With a Movie Camera by Frances Damian Arpaia
A non-narrative cine-essay that collaboratively explores the potentials for trans-feminine representation in film.
Soless by Carman Spoto
A transgender woman begins to lose track of reality as she navigates the space between what is natural and what is artificial.
An Ode to Unfinished Projects by Iris Utroske
December 26th, 2019. The afterimage of 14 months of abuse and codependency. Fearing the possibility of reestablishing contact with my ex, I'd cut communications with everyone he hadn't already removed me from. I was alone, I couldn't make anything, and this video was the explosion - a compilation of unfinished projects woven into a story of isolation and self-loathing. All of that to say, just the memories of a dead crow, //schizoid simulacra of a child who never was.
Uma noite sem lua by Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro
The limit of the languages used to describe our transfigurations is the word. The word Travesti is a limit, an invitation and a reminder. And my darkness pre-exists with race and gender. The community is both poison and honey. I am bantu. I am the messenger who announces the transmutation that we call Travesti.

One From the Vaults
One From the Vaults, a trans history podcast by Morgan M Page. We bring you all the dirt, gossip, and glamour from trans history!

Transgeneral
Transgeneral is a weekly podcast covering a range of topics with guest speakers from our community. Hosted by two trans women: Chelsey and Charlotte.

The Black Girl Dangerous Podcast with Raquel Willis
BGD Podcast was a podcast all about current events, pop culture and whatever the hell else was happening on social media discussed from a dope intersectional lens. Host Raquel Willis and the illustrious guests of the week used hilarity and insight to give you everything you need.

Hoodrat to Headwrap
A Decolonized Podcast for lovers on the margins, join your resident sexuality educator Ericka Hart and Deep East Oakland's very own Ebony Donnley, as we game give, dismantle white supremacy and kiki in the cosmos somewhere between radical hood epistemological black queer love ethics, pop culture, house plants and a sea of books.

Queer Sex Ed
Each month, Sara and Jay explore topics in sex health, relationships, queer identities, BDSM, kink, sex work, and more. Queer Sex Ed is an imperative statement. When we call to "Queer" Sex Ed, it is a call-to-arms for sexual health educators, schools, parents, and people in all types of relationships to intentionally "queer" the institutions of sexual communication, sexual health, interpersonal relationships, and relationship structure.

What the Trans!?
UK-based news podcast for trans and non-binary folks and our allies. Join snarky trans fact-finding team Michelle and Ashleigh as they dissect the news, interview guests and chat about pop culture.

Primetime
Dig into the hidden history of television with Vox’s critic-at-large, Emily VanDerWerff. Each season, we explore the tragic, comedic, and occasionally world-changing stories that have marked a medium that’s dominated the global conversation for the last 75 years.

Marsha's Plate
Marsha’s Plate is a lively podcast where three friends come together every Thursday to share opinions and perspectives through a black trans lens. Hosted By Diamond Stylz, Mia Mix, and Zee. All Houston-Based digital strategist, civil right advocates, and TPOC. As poor black trans people, We stand at the intersections of racial oppression, gender inequality, and the consequences of phobias of all of our identities. So our voices is often silenced in just as many intersectional ways.

GenderGP
The GenderGP Podcast is a series of interviews and discussions hosted by GenderGP Founder, Dr Helen Webberley and GenderGP Lead Therapist, Marianne Oakes, covering all aspects of life as a member of the trans community. Chatting with experts, healthcare professionals, influencers and most importantly, transgender people themselves, the GenderGP Podcast aims to provide information, insight and inspiration to those on their own gender journey. It also aims to be a valuable source of information for family, friends, and anyone looking to understand more about this wonderfully diverse community.

Women's Equality Day 2020

In honor of Women's Equality Day, which commemorates the passage, ratification, and later certification of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920 (and this year is also a celebration of the 100th anniversary thereof), we present a series of playlists honoring the contributions of women, femmes, and trans+nonbinary folks in music across genres (many of which have traditionally excluded or undervalued their work).

We recognize, additionally, that, despite the work of many women of color suffragettes (read more here), the 19th Amendment only guaranteed the right to vote for some (read: white) women; BIPOC women had to wait many years before suffrage was accorded to them, and even then (even today) many people, including BIPOC, remain disenfranchised.

You can read more about the work of IU historians, and the history of suffrage in Indiana, here.

Scroll through to see the playlists we've created.

Image from Getty Images, courtesy of Gabriel Hackett

Retrospective of folk artists from the 60s & 70s. From chart topping artists like Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez to lesser known artists like Linda Perhacs and Elizabeth Cotten, explore the sound of female artists who shaped the course of folk, rock, and pop music into the 21st century.

Tomorrow is My Turn: A Look at Women of Color in Folk Music, Past and Present (Medium: Festival Peak)

"How Joni Mitchell Made Ladies of the Canyon and Galvanized the Singer Songwriter Movement" (Louder Magazine)

"Buffy Sainte-Marie: 75 Things to know about the Canadian Icon" (CBC Magazine)

Elizabeth Cotten- Folkways Spotlight

Retrospective of punk acts, from its inception through recent times. Explore the sounds of femme artists in punk and the ways they evolved the genre.

Blondie, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Page

"For Laura Jane Grace, Punk was a Form of Armor" (NPR)

"ESG's Otherworldly Sound" (The New Yorker)

Queer-feminist punk: an anti-social history

Revenge of the she-punks: a feminist music history from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot

Retrospective of artists (pop, rock, folk, etc.) from the 80s & 90s (and even a few from the early 00s). Explore the ways femme artists influenced the transitional decades from the 20th to 21st centuries.

"Liz Phair is not your Feminist Spokesmodel" (The New York Times)

"From the Archives: Tracy Chapman on NPR" (NPR)

"Erykah Badu: Godmother of Soul" (The New Yorker)

Retrospective of women and femmes in hip hop, from the 80s to today. Explore how femme artists have shaped the sound of hip hop across its evolution.

"Inside the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" (Rolling Stone Magazine)

"Princess Nokia: 'At My Shows, Girls Can Take Up Space the Way Men Do'" (The Guardian)

"Rapper Kodie Shane: Confident, Young, Black, Queer, and About to Take Over" (Billboard Magazine)

God save the queens: the essential history of women in hip-hop

The new ladies of the canyon; folk and indie artists from the early 00s to today. Explore the influence of "ladies of the canyon" as it plays out in the next generation's music.

"Mitski is the 21st Century's Poet Laureate of Young Adulthood" (NPR)

"Weyes Blood on Stunning New LP, the Titanic Sinking, and Climate Change" (Rolling Stone Magazine)

"Courtney Barnett Talks About Taking on Misogyny and Self-Doubt with Her New Album" (Pitchfork)

Bisexual Awareness Day (9/23)

September 23rd is a day designated for recognizing and celebrating bisexual people, their history, and their community. Bisexuality is the quality or characteristic of being sexually and/or romantically attracted to people of one’s own gender as well as another gender or genders. This playlist brings together songs by, about, and for bisexual people in honor of the B in LGBTQ+! From artists suspected of being bisexual or bicurious (Britney Spears, Harry Styles), to out & proud bisexuals (Janelle Monae, Frank Ocean) this playlist encompasses a variety of genres (punk, pop, indie, r&b) through time. From Billie Holliday to Demi Lovato, bisexuals have always existed, despite attempts to erase their queerness. Enjoy this playlist on Bisexual Awareness Day (September 23rd) or any time you want to celebrate bi pride!

Click through the tabs to see some of the media we've highlighted to celebrate bisexual identity and experience.

Bi: Notes for a bisexual revolution by Shiri Eisner
Call Number: HQ74 .E35 2013
ISBN: 1580054749
Publication Date: 2013
Depicted as duplicitous, traitorous, and promiscuous, bisexuality has long been suspected, marginalized, and rejected by both straight and gay communities alike. Bi takes a long overdue, comprehensive look at bisexual politics, from the issues surrounding biphobia/monosexism, feminism, and transgenderism to the practice of labeling those who identify as bi as either "too bisexual" (promiscuous and incapable of fidelity) or "not bisexual enough" (not actively engaging romantically or sexually with people of at least two different genders). In this forward-thinking and eye-opening book, feminist bisexual and genderqueer activist Shiri Eisner takes readers on a journey through the many aspects of the meanings and politics of bisexuality, specifically highlighting how bisexuality can open up new and exciting ways of challenging social convention. Informed by feminist, transgender, and queer theory, as well as politics and activism, Bi is a radical manifesto for a group that has been too frequently silenced, erased, and denied -- and a starting point from which to launch a bisexual revolution.
Bi Any Other Name by Loraine Hutchins (Editor); Lani Kaahumanu (Editor)
ISBN: 1555831745
Publication Date: 1994-07-01
Bisexual People Speak Out More than seventy women and men from all walks of life describe their lives as bisexuals.
Bisexuality by D. Joye Swan (Editor); Shani Habibi (Editor)
ISBN: 3319715348
Publication Date: 2018-03-19
This pathbreaking volume brings together a diverse body of sexual, behavioral, and social science research on bisexuality. Arguing for a clear, evidence-based definition of bisexuality and standardized measures for assessing sexual orientation, it spotlights challenges that need to be addressed toward attaining these goals. The book's deep trove of findings illuminates the experiences of bisexual men and women in key aspects of life, as well as common mental health issues in the face of stigma, prejudice, and outright denial from the heterosexual and homosexual communities. Throughout, contributors examine the paradoxical invisibility of bisexuality even as society and science have become more inclusive of lesbians and gay men, and emphasize the critical role of thoughtful, respectful support across societal and mental health domains. Among the topics covered: Defining bisexuality: challenges and importance of and toward a unifying definition. Plurisexual identity labels and the marking of bisexual desire. Binegativity: attitudes toward and stereotypes about bisexuals. Female bisexuality: identity, fluidity, and cultural expectations. Romantic and sexual relationship experiences among bisexual individuals. Bisexuality is a substantial reference for psychologists, scholars and graduate students in LGBTQIA+ studies, and clinicians seeking both theoretical and applied perspectives on the research into bisexuality. It also offers instructors a supplemental research-based textbook option for teaching courses related to sexuality and bisexuality.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
ISBN: 9781555977887
Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction "[These stories] vibrate with originality, queerness, sensuality and the strange."--Roxane Gay "In these formally brilliant and emotionally charged tales, Machado gives literal shape to women's memories and hunger and desire. I couldn't put it down."--Karen Russell In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella "Especially Heinous," Machado reimagines every episode ofLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious,Her Body and Other Partiesswings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
ISBN: 0440328810
Publication Date: 1988-04-01
Set in the contemporary Paris of American expatraites, liasons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. James Baldwin's brilliant narrative delves into the mystery of loving with a sharp, probing imagination, and he creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the heart.
Ode to Lata by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla
ISBN: 1893329135
Publication Date: 2002-02-01
"Banker by day, and denizen of Los Angeles' clubs by night, the protagonist of Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla's first novel is navigating between more than just a day job and an active social life. In Ode to Lata, Ali has left behind a tempestuous childhood in postcolonial Kenya, the overprotective mother who raised him on a steady diet of Hindi cinema, an emotionally abusive bisexual lover, and confused memories of his father's violent death at the hands of his mistress. Now his mother's messages ramble on his answering machine when he wants no one but his one obsession, Richard, to call. Passionate and unflinchingly honest in its narrative, Ode to Lata scavenges the depths of one man's misguided search for love in a world of emotionally-void encounters and tangled memories. All the while, Ali's story is intertwined with the unraveling of his parents' own doomed relationship and the film music of Bollywood's eminent singer Lata Mangeshkar (Diva of Indian film music and the namesake of the book's title). And it is this hopelessly romantic music that scores their tormented lives and goads them to pursue love through chaos and ecstasy."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

TV
The Bisexual (Hulu)
Sex Education (Netflix)
The L Word (Hulu)
Broad City (Hulu)

Webseries
Strangers (Facebook Video)
Brown Girls

Movies
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Nowhere (1997)
Appropriate Behavior (2014)
Disobedience (2017)
Moonlight (2017)

Gender Studies

Transfeminine Worlds: Works by Trans Women & Other Femme Folk

Women's Equality Day 2020

Bisexual Awareness Day (9/23)

View all Library Hours