LGBTQIA+ Voices Collection

The BIPOC cataloging project has created our next Voices collection of library resources in honor of Pride Month, the LGBTQIA+ Voices Collection. The goals of the BIPOC cataloging project are to highlight marginalized voices, to promote the authority of lived experiences, and to improve access and aid in the discovery of these voices. This collection gathers library resources from queer voices to highlight the authority of their lived experiences. I especially wanted to highlight BIPOC queer voices and those in the LGBTQIA+ community who also fall on the fringes such as transgender, gender nonconforming and non-binary creators. The collection will continue to be updated with newly acquired library materials and community suggestions.

Gender identity and sexual orientation are key elements of who we are as human beings. The LGBTQIA+ community is a community that intersects with many other communities. Understanding intersectionality is imperative in helping us love each other. All of us exist throughout our lives with multiple identities, some of those identities are static and some of those identities are fluid. Race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ability, social economic status, nationality, geographical location, language spoken, educational level, employment status and so many more. These are all different identities that make each and every human unique. Each of these identities has the potential to make you vulnerable to othering, oppression, discrimination, racism, ableism, trans and/or homophobia, and violence. Our identities shape and influence how we experience the world.

The United States is a binary society and attempts to shape and regulate culture with the violence of the law. Binary gender is a social construct that assigns certain roles and behaviors to members of society based on sex. Sexual orientation is another binary that others anyone who is not heterosexual. We have come to understand that sexual orientation is vast, varied and an idea enforced on others by the hegemonic society. A queer person should not be treated as less than because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

As a member of the BIPOC community, I understand about having a static identity, race. I am not a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, but I am an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community. I know the important role that Black queer people play in freedom struggles in America and throughout the diaspora. I understand the importance of two beautiful BIPOC transgender women, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, to the LGBTQ rights movement. Many of our recent social justice movements are led and sustained by the work of BIPOC Queer people.

We should acknowledge each other’s difference in how it shapes our lived experiences and how we move, function, and navigate society. I challenge you to make a conscious effort to connect with people who are visually or culturally different, while acknowledging these differences. Focus on how we connect with each other. We are all human beings who are wishing and seeking love. Love is fluid, intangible, unbounded and limitless.

Selected Resources from the LGBTQIA+ Voices Collection:

Queer People of Color in Higher Education

By Dr. Joshua Moon Johnson a Christian, gender nonconforming Asian American scholar.

Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature

By Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill a two-spirit, transgenger, disabled, mixed race Indigenous and African American scholar.

Queerly Autistic: The Ultimate Guide for LGBTQIA+ Teens on the Spectrum.

By Erin Ekins a queer neurodiverse autistic European American author.

Cemetery Boys

By Aiden Thomas a transgender Latinx author.

I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters

By Baynard Rustin an openly gay African American civil rights activist.

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity