Books like Taking Liberties by Michael Bronski

A groundbreaking history of gay life in New York City from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Michael Bronski’s *A Queer History of the United States* traces how LGBT people have shaped and been shaped by American culture from Columbus to the 20th‑century social‑justice movements, using primary documents and social histories.

An anthology edited by Winston Leyland that collects essays, fiction and poetry about gay history, sexuality, and politics, including pieces on 1920s Harlem, Gay Liberation, and John Horne Burns.

Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories reverberates with the sound of “cripgay” voices rising to be heard above the din of indifference and bias, oppression and ignorance. This unique collection of compelling first-person narratives is at once assertive, bold, and groundbreaking, filled with characters—and character. Through the intimacy of one-on-one storytelling, gay men with mobility and neuromuscular disorders, spinal cord injury, deafness, blindness, and AIDS, fight isolation from society—and each other—to establish a public identity and a common culture. Queer Crips features more than 30 first-hand accounts from a variety of perspectives, illuminating the reality of the everyday struggle disabled gay men face in a culture obsessed with conformist good looks. Themes include rejection, love, sex, dating rituals, gaycrip married life, and the profound difference between growing up queer and disabled, and suffering a life-altering injury or illness in adulthood. Queer Crips is a forum for neglected cripgay voices speaking words that are candid, edgy, bold, dreamy, challenging, and sexy. The book is essential reading for academics and students working in lesbian and gay studies, and disability studies, and for anyone who's ever visited the place where queerness and disability meet.

"Breaks down the most commonly held misconceptions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their lives. "You Can Tell Just by Looking" unpacks enduring, popular, and deeply held myths about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, culture, and life in America. Some of these myths, such as "all religions condemn homosexuality," have been used to justify discrimination and oppression of LGBT people. Other myths, such as "LGBT people are born that way," have been adopted by LGBT communities and their allies. By discussing and dispelling these myths--including gay-positive ones--the authors challenge readers to question their own beliefs and to grapple with the complexities of what it means to be queer in the broadest social, political, and cultural sense"--

Exploring contemporary gay life with humor and honesty, That's Mr. Faggot to You continues Michael Thomas Ford's work.

A groundbreaking anthology that traces 25 years of black gay male literature, featuring 47 stories, poems, excerpts, and essays by iconic writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Essex Hemphill, and Marlon Riggs, among others.

A unique anthology of twenty‑eight gay American writers, from Edmund White to rising voices, sharing never‑before‑published stories of their coming out between 1949 and 1995.

A collection of Larry Kramer’s forceful essays that galvanized the gay community through political activism, health advocacy, and personal narrative.

A curated anthology of LGBTQ poetry from 1950 to the present, featuring American voices from the gay and lesbian communities.

Roxane Gay’s collection of essays confronts the pervasive violence against women, from sexual harassment to rape and child abuse, weaving personal testimony with cultural critique.

A candid memoir of Cleve Jones, activist, and AIDS advocate, tracing his rise in 1970s San Francisco, his partnership with Harvey Milk, and his battles against the AIDS crisis, culminating in founding the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Memorial Quilt.