LGBTQ - Nonfiction

This list has been created by a Library Assistant at Wake County Public Libraries (WCPL) and encompasses *most* of the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus other identitites such as, intersex, asexual, aromantic, demisexual, demiromantic, nonbinary, genderqueer, and more) titles categorized under "Nonfiction" and "Biography" in the WCPL collection as of March 11, 2025.

Showing 41 - 60 of 266  There are a total of 266 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Exile and Pride"
Star rating for Exile and Pride
Author:
Description:
First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics. Eli Clare's revelatory writing about his experiences as a white disabled genderqueer activist/writer established him as one of the leading writers on the intersections of queerness and disability and permanently changed the landscape of disability politics and queer liberation. With a poet's devotion to truth and an activist's...
Book cover for "Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable"
Star rating for Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable
Description:
Eric A. Stanley examines the forms of violence levied against trans/queer and gender nonconforming people in the United States and shows how, despite the advances in LGBTQ rights in the recent past, forms of anti-trans/queer violence is central to liberal democracy and state power.
Book cover for "The risk it takes to bloom"
Star rating for The risk it takes to bloom
Description:
"A passionate, powerful memoir by a trailblazing Black transgender activist, tracing her life of transformation and her work towards collective liberation. In 2017, Raquel Willis took to the National Women's March podium just after the presidential election of Donald Trump, primed to tell her story as a young Black transgender woman from the South. Despite having her speaking time cut short, the appearance only deepened her commitment to speaking...
Book cover for "Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese restaurant"
Star rating for Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese restaurant
Author:
Average Rating:
2.7 stars
Description:
"Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone from the city's first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned...
Book cover for "In the form of a question"
Star rating for In the form of a question
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"An inspirational and bold memoir from the most successful woman ever to compete on Jeopardy!--and an exploration of what it means to ask questions of the world and of yourself. ANSWER: Who Is Amy Schneider? In eighth grade, Amy was voted 'Most likely to appear on Jeopardy!' by her classmates. Decades later, this trailblazer finally got her chance. Not only did she walk away with $1.3 million while captivating the world with her impressive forty-game...
Book cover for "Inverse cowgirl"
Star rating for Inverse cowgirl
Description:
"From a celebrated activist on the forefront of fighting for intersex representation and rights-and a subject of the forthcoming documentary Every Body, from the filmmakers behind RBG-a funny, thought-provoking collection of essays about owning your identity and living your truth"--
Book cover for "Fair play"
Star rating for Fair play
Description:
"A richly reported and provocative look at the history of women's sports and the controversy surrounding trans athletes by a leading LGBTQ+ sports journalist. For decades women have been playing competitive sports thanks in large part to the protective cover of Title IX. Since passage of that law, the number of women participating in sports and the level of competition in high school, college, and professionally, has risen dramatically. In Fair Play,...
Book cover for "He/she/they"
Star rating for He/she/they
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"He/She/They uses storytelling and the art of conversation to give us the fundamental language and context of gender so that we can meet people where they are and pave the way to understanding, acceptance, and inclusion. As a transgender man, inclusion advocate, and LGBTQ educator, Schuyler Bailar is more than familiar with the myriad questions that come up. In [his book], he addresses them head on, such as why being transgender is not a choice, why...
Book cover for "Sipping Dom Pérignon through a straw"
Star rating for Sipping Dom Pérignon through a straw
Author:
Description:
"Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu's rousing memoir about being both profoundly disabled and profoundly successful without trading one for the other. Eddie Ndopu grew up loving pop music and reruns of The Bold and the Beautiful, and as an adult he would become a globe-trotting disability activist. By his early twenties, he had rocketed through every boundary put in front of him-a queer, Black wheelchair user-challenging bias at the highest echelons...
Book cover for "XOXO, Cody"
Star rating for XOXO, Cody
Author:
Description:
"The beloved Peloton Instructor and Dancing with the Stars finalist chronicles his journey from small town North Carolina to New York City stardom in an empowering essay collection that reveals his secret to success: not taking yourself-or life-too seriously. Cody Rigsby has a lot of opinions: Kevin is the hottest Backstreet Boy; grape jelly is a crime against nature; if you wear flip-flops in New York City, you do not love yourself. But if there...
Book cover for "Nobody needs to know"
Star rating for Nobody needs to know
Description:
"Pidgeon Pagonis always felt like their life was a constant attempt to fit in with other girls--a feeling that was only exacerbated when puberty failed to hit. They never understood why...until they uncovered the secret that had haunted their childhood. Bouncing between their Chicago home and the city's children's hospital, Pidgeon weathered a series of traumatic surgeries, fabrications, and misdirections. It wasn't until college that Pidgeon pieced...
Book cover for "Congratulations, the best is over!"
Star rating for Congratulations, the best is over!
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"The beloved bestselling author of Here for It presents a collection of heartening, thoughtful, and laugh-out-loud funny essays about the lifelong search for community and returning home. After going viral "reading" the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas is ready to live his best life. Or, if not, at least his best-ish life. Now, in this collection...
Book cover for "Gays on Broadway"
Star rating for Gays on Broadway
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"This is a chronological review of both the plays and the people that brought the world of homosexuals, bisexuals, transexuals, metrosexuals, and the sexually fluid to the American stage. The plays--which take in a few foreign imports--treat strong gay content (e. g., The Boys in the Band or The Killing of sister George), or minor gay content (Season In the Sun, The Nervous Set), or even a phrase in passing (as in New Faces of 1956's joke about Rome's...
Book cover for "Baking yesteryear"
Star rating for Baking yesteryear
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "Transister"
Star rating for Transister
Description:
"The story of a family in transition, this is a raw, honest, sometimes humorous account of author Brookes's journey as her young child grapples with gender identity and becomes her authentic self. Brookes has longed to become a mother for as long as she can remember, and she harbors a fierce determination to parent her children differently--better--than her own mentally ill mom parented her. To create a 'normal' family. And when she gives birth to...
Book cover for "Talking to my angels"
Star rating for Talking to my angels
Description:
"Twenty years after the success of her first memoir, the New York Times bestseller The Truth Is--, the Grammy and Oscar award-winning rocker and trailblazing LGBTQIA icon takes stock of the intervening years, recounting the euphoric triumphs and the life-altering tragedies of her life"--
Book cover for "Lesbian love story"
Star rating for Lesbian love story
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "Fieldwork"
Star rating for Fieldwork
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"With her first book, Regan announced herself as a writer whose extravagant, unconventional talents matched her abilities as a lauded chef. In her follow-up, she digs even deeper to express the meaning and beauty we seek in the landscapes, and stories, that reveal the forces which inform, shape, and nurture our lives"--
Book cover for "Couplets"
Star rating for Couplets
Description:
"A dazzling, genre-bending debut about one woman's coming-out, coming-of-age, and coming undone"--
Book cover for "My sister"
Star rating for My sister