Since 1994, February has been a dedicated time to educate ourselves on the history of, and current climate for, the LGBT+ community. The aim of the awareness-raising month is to promote equality and diversity for all, and make society a more inclusive, safe space. The LGBTQ+ community has made significant progress in recent years, but there is still work to be done, at home, in schools and in the workplace too.
So, we spoke to our colleagues to find out what resources they thought were important for people to use to find out more about the LGBT+ experience.
Read
The Stonewall Reader
Jason Baumann
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the book is a collection of essays and articles that charts the history surrounding the fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960’s. The Stonewall Uprising is considered to be the watershed moment in the fight for gay liberation with the book containing first hand accounts, diaries and periodic literature from the era.
Straight Jacket: Overcoming Society’s Legacy of Gay Shame
Matthew Todd
Part memoir, part ground-breaking polemic, the book looks beneath the shiny façade of contemporary gay culture and asks if gay people are as happy as they could be – and if not, why?
Meticulously researched, courageous and life-affirming, Straight Jacket offers invaluable practical advice on how to overcome a range of difficult issues. It also recognizes that this is a watershed moment, a piercing wake-up-call-to-arms for the gay and wider community to acknowledge the importance of supporting all young people - and helping older people to transform their experience and finally get the lives they really want.
Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman
Leslie Feinberg
A powerful journey through history in which Leslie Feinberg looks at people who have crossed the cultural boundaries of gender and charting their place in Transgender History. This is coupled with the author Leslie Feinberg’s own personal experiences.
The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life & Times of Harvey Milk
Randy Shilts
The Mayor of Castro Street is the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the state of California. The book details Milk’s personal and political life which mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.
Watch
Pride
An unlikely coalition is formed between a group of lesbian & gay activists and a group of Welsh Miners during the miner’s strike in 1984. The drama charts the early days of the formation of the group that led the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign – an important turning point in the progression of LGBT issues in the UK.
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
A Netflix original documentary that chronicles the lives of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, prominent figures in gay liberation and transgender rights movement in New York City from the 1960s to the 1990s. The film centers on the suspicious circumstances surrounding Johnson’s death in 1992, whilst looking at the wider impact of the ongoing battle for civil rights.
Dallas Buyers Club
This Oscar award winning biographical drama sees Matthew McConaughey play the role of Ron Woodroof, an AIDS patient diagnosed in the 1980’s and given just 30-days to live. The film charts his fight in securing different means of treatments from all over the world, working with an unlikely mix of social outcasts to form the ‘Dallas Buyers Club’.
It’s a Sin
The series examines the lives of a group of young gay men who are hit by the outbreak of a new deadly virus, HIV, after they move to London during the 1980s. Year by year, episode by episode, their lives change, as the mystery of a new virus starts as a rumour, then a threat, then a terror, and then something that binds them together in the fight.
It’s the story of their friends, lovers and families too, especially Jill, the girl who loves them and helps them, and galvanises them in the battles to come,” continues Channel 4. Together they will endure the horror of the epidemic, the pain of rejection and the prejudices that gay men faced throughout the decade.
Queer as Folk
Set in and around the Manchester 'scene', written by Russell T Davies, Queer as Folk documents the lives and loves of young gay men Stuart, Vince and Nathan.
Pose
Pose is about New York City’s African-American and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming drag ball culture scene in the 1980s and, in the second season, early 1990s. Blanca starts her own house, soon becoming mother to a gifted dancer and a sex worker in love with a yuppie client.
While the characters and the stories are fictional, the setting for the show and the cultural scene of balls and vogueing all took place.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
RuPaul’s drag race is a reality competition series. It documents RuPaul in the search for the next drag superstar. Ru plays the role of host, mentor and head judge, while contestants are given different challenges each week. You can watch the latest British series on BBC Iplayer now and catch up with the American series on Netflix.
Listen
A Gay and a NonGay
James Barr and Dan Hudson are two 28-year-olds who probably wouldn’t have met had not James happened to be friends with Dan’s girlfriend Talia. But then Talia took a month out of work and went abroad, and James and Dan started hanging out together.
Nothing unusual in that except that James is gay and Dan is straight, and out of their friendship came the idea for the podcast A Gay and a NonGay. In it the two of them – both radio professionals – chat about everything and nothing, bounce thoughts off each other, laugh at each other and discover things about each other’s world that they otherwise would never have known about.
The key to the show is not actually any of the subjects that come under discussion but the sheer likeability of both men, and the way they interact. And by not taking anything very seriously they manage to make some quite serious points.
Working Class History podcast
A series that focusses on an array of socio-economic struggles throughout history, the Working Class History podcast has some in-depth episodes chronicling key events in LGBT history. Some of the key events featured in the episodes include the Stonewall Riots and the story of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign featured in the film Pride.
The Road Here
Produced by London-based podcaster Jim Kemp, The Road Here showcases the stories of those who have shaped the fight for LGBT equality in the UK. Each episode hears the story of a different guest with Kemp providing the social and historical content of the era.
Making Gay History
Across the pond, Making Gay History follows a similar format in featuring lengthy interviews from those involved in the fight for equality in the US. Episodes include interviews with the author and activist Vito Russo, Bayard Rustin (mentor to Martin Luther King) and the activist and drag icon Sylvia Rivera.
What have you read, watched, or listened to on LGBT history? We’d love to hear your recommendations so join in the conversation on our Facebook page.
