Reading for LGBTQ+ History Month

October is LGBTQ+ History Month, observed in the United States since 1994. Many other countries also celebrate and study LGBTQ+ history in October, so we’ve collected some of our most popular stories on a range of topics—from transgender legal battles to cookbooks—that highlight the histories of the LGBTQ+ community. As always, links to free JSTOR scholarship are included with each story.

LGBTQ+ Rights

The Long History of Same-Sex Marriage

Matthew Wills June 2, 2022 Same-sex marriages, in all possible configurations and with all possible motivations, have taken place throughout the history of the United States.

From Handcuffs to Rainbows: Queer in the Military

Morgan Godvin June 26, 2023 The US military has done an about face on LGBTQ+ rights in just over a decade.

O Canada: A Refuge for LGBTQ+ People Worldwide?

Mena Davidson April 24, 2023 Canada welcomes those facing persecution for sexual orientation or gender identity—but the process to claim asylum may not be straightforward.

“Protecting Kids” from Gay Marriage

Livia Gershon September 6, 2024 Leading up to a 2004 debate about same-sex marriage, conservatives shifted their focus away from moral issues and toward arguments about children’s welfare.

Transgender Legal Battles: A Timeline

Mena Davidson May 12, 2022 New laws regarding transgender youth are based on the assumption that the gender binary is natural.

The Legal Struggles of the LGBTQIA+ Community in India

Noor Anand Chawla April 6, 2024 A recent judgement by the Supreme Court of India put off the question of allowing same-sex marriage, but it still may be seen as a victory for the community.

How Gay Marielitos Changed Immigration

Matthew Wills October 9, 2021 In 1980, the policy of denying entry into the US based on homosexuality ran smack into anticommunism.

Proposition 6 (The Briggs Initiative): Annotated

Liz Tracey October 28, 2022 Proposition 6, better known as the Briggs Initiative, was the first attempt to restrict the rights of lesbian and gay Americans by popular referendum.

Parents’ Rights, Sex, and Race in 1970s Florida

Livia Gershon October 13, 2023 Save Our Children is remembered as an effort to keep gay people out of public life. But it was also rooted in the movement against school integration.

Lesbians and the Lavender Scare

Livia Gershon April 6, 2025 Lesbian relationships among government workers were seen as a threat to national security in the 1950s. But what constituted a lesbian relationship was an open question.

Stonewall National Monument Declaration: Annotated

Liz Tracey June 24, 2025 In June 2016, President Obama proclaimed the first LGBTQ+ national monument in the United States at the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City.

Building a Movement

Gay Radicalism, Made in Kentucky

Livia Gershon August 6, 2024 Gay rights activist Lige Clarke embraced non-monogamy, LSD, and unconventional spirituality, tying many of his radical ideas to his upbringing in Kentucky.

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated

Liz Tracey June 13, 2022 Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.

How LGBTQ Groups Supported Striking Miners vs. Thatcher

Livia Gershon January 6, 2022 During a national miners strike, LGBT activists became unexpected allies, united against the Thatcher government.

Gay Bars and Gay Rights

Matthew Wills June 25, 2021 One of the flash points in the LGBTQ+ movement was liquor licenses, which were the subject of important legal cases.

How LGBTQ+ Activists Got “Homosexuality” out of the DSM

Ray Levy Uyeda May 26, 2021 The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in American culture.

Daughters of Bilitis

Ashawnta Jackson October 1, 2022 The first lesbian rights organization in the United States originated as “a social club for gay girls.”

Filmmaker Marlon Riggs: “Notice Is Served”

The Editors June 11, 2020 The award-winning Black gay filmmaker, author, and activist Marlon Riggs left a legacy of protest against racism and homophobia.

Liberation on the Dance Floor

Ashawnta Jackson July 8, 2022 Motown’s foray into gay liberation music may have been short-lived, but it made an outsized impact on queer culture.

Stonewall National Monument Declaration: Annotated

Liz Tracey June 24, 2025 In June 2016, President Obama proclaimed the first LGBTQ+ national monument in the United States at the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City.

Rollerena: New York’s Fairy Godmother

Emilie Hardman June 24, 2026 A newly digitized archive traces a roller-skating queer icon from Pride marches and discos to AIDS activism.

Making Queer Community

Searching for Queer Spaces

Ashley Gardini September 12, 2023 The dominant heteroview of architectural history means we may lose our queer spaces and their histories before we even know they exist.

The Long Shadow of the Jolly Bachelors

Hannah Steinkopf-Frank June 20, 2024 More than a century ago, Charlotte Cushman presided over a group of queer female artists who supported one another’s creativity and left a pioneering, if overlooked, legacy.

The Origins of LGBTQ-Affirming Churches

Livia Gershon March 23, 2021 As far back as the 1940s, religious LGBTQ people organized groups and congregations that welcomed them.

In The Gay Cookbook, Domestic Bliss Was Queer

Erin Blakemore January 10, 2021 Chef Lou Rand Hogan whipped up well-seasoned wit and served a gay take on home life during the early-1960s craze for camp.

How Queer Jews Reclaimed Yiddish

Julia Métraux June 5, 2022 Queer Yiddishkeit challenges the notion that Yiddish is inherently heteronormative or conservative.

Notes on Queer Conception and the Redefinition of Family

Sara Jaffe January 27, 2021 Feminist scholars refer to the “intensely communal, queer, and playful nature” of DIY LGBTQ conception, but Fertility, Inc. is another story.

Preserving Queer History

The Oral Histories of the AIDS Crisis

Liz Tracey June 3, 2026 The voices of artists and activists illuminate the human experience behind the AIDS epidemic.

Preserving the Art of Ed Aulerich-Sugai

Emilie Hardman May 6, 2026 An artist’s work is traced through memory, stewardship, and decades of care.

From the Black Queer South to the World

emerald faith rutledge September 6, 2023 Across its twelve-year lifespan, Atlanta-basedVenus magazine brought southern voices to the larger Black queer print media network.

Out of the Card Catalog Closet

Matthew Wills October 14, 2022 Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance. 

Discovering the “Gay Lifestyle” through 1970s Magazines

Livia Gershon June 9, 2021 The gay men's magazinesQQ and Ciao! were unabashedly liberated, but they still catered to an exclusive audience.

“There Was Grit and Talent Galore”

Lindsy Van Gelder June 18, 2020 Lindsy Van Gelder—author of that famousNew York Post article about bra-burning feminists—reflects on the alternative LGBTQ+ press of the 1970s.

Teaching LGBTQ+ History: Queer Women’s Experiences in Prison

Brittany Marshall October 24, 2022 This instructional guide is the first in a series of curricular content related to the Reveal Digital American Prison Newspaper collection on JSTOR.

Julie Enszer: “We Couldn’t Get Them Printed,” So We Learned to Print Them Ourselves

Catherine Halley June 19, 2020 The editor of the lesbian feminist magazineSinister Wisdom talked to us about lesbian print culture, feminist collectives, and revolution.

Gay Mass Consumption Before Stonewall

Matthew Wills June 29, 2023 In the 1960s, the Mattachine Society had only a few thousand members. But tens of thousands of men subscribed to physique magazines published by gay entrepreneurs.

Queer Culture

Queer Representation in Pre-Code Hollywood

Betsy Golden Kellem June 25, 2025 Before the establishment of the Hollywood Production Code in the 1930s, filmmakers deployed gender and sexuality stereotypes for glamour, humor, and drama alike.

10 Modern and Contemporary Poems by Queer Writers

Patrick Dundon June 11, 2026 Love poems, political declarations, lyrical confessions, and formal experiments by Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Ocean Vuong, Eileen Myles, and more.

Olivia: An Oft-Overlooked Lesbian Novel

Emily Zarevich March 10, 2023 It took some fifteen years to bring Dorothy Strachey Bussy’s remarkableroman à clef to print, thanks to André Gide’s lukewarm reception.

Queer YA: The Early Decades

Livia Gershon December 17, 2021 While queer YA has exploded over the past decade, it began in the middle of the 20th century, with the first kiss in 1969.

Hollywood Goes to Its First Lesbian Bar and Can’t Stop Staring

Matthew Wills June 11, 2021The Killing of Sister George was the first Hollywood movie to depict a lesbian bar. Director Robert Aldrich was obsessed with its authenticity.

Venn Diagram of LGBTQ+ and Gaming Communities Goes Here

Nick Fiorellini June 2, 2021 Video games offer many LGBTQ+ people avenues for meaning, community, and escape, but in-game cultures of harassment still pose serious problems.

One Name, Two Writers: The Story of Michael Field

Emily Zarevich July 9, 2022 Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper worked within the constraints of Victorian society, building a writing career and a relationship under an assumed name.

Ismat Chughtai’s Quilt and Queer Desire

Sakhi Thirani September 2, 2023 Long before India decriminalized homosexuality—in September 2018—the short story "Lihaaf" sparked outrage and a lawsuit for its depiction of same-sex, intergenerational intimacy.

Four Flowering Plants That Have Been Decidedly Queered

Sarah Prager January 29, 2020 The queer history of the pansy and other flowers.

Is There an LGBTQ+ Canon?

Livia Gershon March 30, 2025 An English professor considers the questions raised about selecting queer works for study and discussion when planning a course on LGBTQ+ literature.

The Catholic Turn of Oscar Wilde’s Lover

Angelica Frey June 5, 2026 Lord Alfred Douglas’s journey from Hellenism to Catholic mysticism shows how queer Victorians sought meaning and redemption through religion.

Gender and Identity

Gender in the History Classroom

Livia Gershon March 14, 2023 High school teachers sometimes struggle to teach about ways different societies have conceptualized gender. Here’s a look at a few practical approaches.

Defining and Redefining Intersex

Matthew Wills August 18, 2024 The transatlantic circulation of ideas between Baltimore and Zurich consolidated and standardized treatments of intersex infants in the 1950s.

The Complicated Gender of Sumatran Tombois

Livia Gershon January 26, 2024 Indonesian tombois are understood as men in many public contexts, but their families of origin often treat them as female in some respects and male in others.

In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm

Sarah Prager June 10, 2020 So tender was Emperor Ai’s love for his "male companion" that, when he had to get up, instead of waking his lover, he cut off the sleeve of his robe.

Health and Medicine

90 Years On: The Destruction of the Institute of Sexual Science

Liz Tracey May 31, 2023 In May 1933, Nazi-led student groups organized public burnings of "un-German" books, including those held in the library of the Institute for Sexual Science.

Community Care in the AIDS Crisis

Brendan McHugh January 20, 2021 The Shanti Project’s work in caring for people with AIDS provides valuable lessons in the efficacy of mutual aid in fighting disease.

Defining and Redefining Intersex

Matthew Wills August 18, 2024 The transatlantic circulation of ideas between Baltimore and Zurich consolidated and standardized treatments of intersex infants in the 1950s.

How LGBTQ+ Activists Got “Homosexuality” out of the DSM

Ray Levy Uyeda May 26, 2021 The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in American culture.

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