June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month! Observed each year, Pride Month is an opportunity to honor the lives and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people. While the month is almost over, FSU Libraries provides year-round access to valuable research about and by LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities.
Queer theory emerged in the 1990s, influenced largely by the gay liberation movement in the United States.* In examining social and political institutions, queer theorists and researchers challenge established norms in higher education, resulting in LGBTQIA+ studies across disciplines often being less accepted, visible, or accessible.**
When supported and shared, however, research can expand the “field of queer possibilities,” creating new, complex directions for academia with real-world applications.* Responsible and ethical research can help LGBTQIA+ people learn about their history, advocate more effectively, receive better services, and ultimately live healthier, more empowered lives.**
Considering the importance of this research, we’ve selected 14 LGBTQIA+ databases and peer-reviewed journals available online via lib.fsu.edu. This list acts as a starting point for locating credible academic articles related to queer culture, education, health, psychology, law, and more. Click each title to easily access the resources below!
Feel free to reach out to the subject librarian or research specialist in your discipline for more personalized research help. If you’re looking for more recent LGBTQIA+ books or movies, and student resources, check out our post from Pride Month 2023.
Happy researching and happy Pride!
*/** see references
Databases
Click here to view all databases offered through the Libraries.
LGBT Thought and Culture
LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting the key works and archival documentation of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day.
Additional Info
The collection contains 150,000 pages of rare archival content, including seminal texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and ephemera, creating research opportunities and course material for educators of cultural studies, history, women’s and gender studies, political science, sociology, and more (source).
LGBT Magazine Archive
LGBT Magazine Archive delves into the rich history of LGBTQ+ culture, activism, and society through the digital backfiles of over 40 influential magazines.
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This collection covers newsworthy and social justice topics including activism, homophobia, transgender issues, psychological matters, counseling for sexual minorities, radical feminism, and LGBTQ+ family life. Dating back to the 1950s, this digital collection features major periodicals devoted to a variety of readerships, covering prominent topics like health, lifestyle, politics, social attitudes, law, activism, LGBTQ+ rights, arts, and literature. You’ll get access to six decades of backfiles that libraries haven’t typically collected (source).
GenderWatch
GenderWatch enhances gender and women’s studies, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research by providing authoritative perspectives from 1970 to present.
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This well-established and highly reviewed resource offers over 300 titles, with more than 250 in full text, from an array of academic, radical, community and independent presses. Researchers may access more than 219,000 full articles on wide-ranging topics like sexuality, religion, societal roles, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, healthcare, and the workplace (source).
Peer-Reviewed Journals
Search for more journals through OneSearch here.
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Providing a much-needed forum for interdisciplinary discussion, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies publishes scholarship, criticism, and commentary in areas as diverse as law, science studies, religion, political science, and literary studies.
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Its aim is to offer queer perspectives on all issues touching on sex and sexuality. In an effort to achieve the widest possible historical, geographic, and cultural scope, GLQ particularly seeks out new research into historical periods before the twentieth century, into non-Anglophone cultures, and into the experience of those who have been marginalized by race, ethnicity, age, social class, body morphology, or sexual practice. A notable feature is “The GLQ Archive,” a special section featuring previously unpublished or unavailable primary materials that may serve as sources for future work in lesbian and gay studies (source).
Transgender Studies Quarterly
Over the past two decades, transgender studies has become fertile ground for new approaches to cultural analysis. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly offers a high-profile venue for innovative research and scholarship that contest the objectification, pathologization, and exoticization of transgender lives.
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It publishes interdisciplinary work that explores the diversity of gender, sex, sexuality, embodiment, and identity in ways that have not been adequately addressed by feminist and queer scholarship. Its mission is to foster a vigorous conversation among scholars, artists, activists, and others that examines how “transgender” comes into play as a category, a process, a social assemblage, an increasingly intelligible gender identity, an identifiable threat to gender normativity, and a rubric for understanding the variability and contingency of gender across time, space, and cultures. Major topics addressed in the first few issues include the cultural production of trans communities, critical analysis of transgender population studies, transgender biopolitics, radical critiques of political economy, and problems of translating gender concepts and practices across linguistic communities (source).
Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture
Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture is a double-blind peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the study of representations and expressions of queerness in its various forms.
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It aims to publish cutting-edge scholarship on noteworthy topics at the intersection of media/popular culture and queerness in gender/sexuality. Its contents are international in scope and represent a wide variety of disciplines, with a particular emphasis on perspectives and approaches from the humanities, social sciences, and the arts (source).
Journal of LGBT Youth
The Journal of LGBT Youth is an international interdisciplinary research forum dedicated to improving the quality of life for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, two-spirit, intersex, queer, questioning, and allied youth.
Additional Info
This quarterly journal presents peer-reviewed scholarly articles, book reviews, practitioner-based essays, policy analyses, and revealing narratives from young people from a wide-range of discourses, contexts, and theoretical disciplines. The papers and works published are committed to advancing knowledge and public understanding, advocacy, scholarship, and support for sexual and gender minority youth. The wide-ranging topics include, but are not limited to formal and non-formal education, family, work, health, sports, leisure, law, media, peer culture, religious/faith-based institutions, and the visual, performance, and creative arts (source).
International Journal of Transgender Health
International Journal of Transgender Health, together with its partner organization the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), offers an international, multidisciplinary scholarly forum for publication in the field of transgender health in its broadest sense for academics, practitioners, policy makers, and the general population.
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The journal welcomes contributions from a range of disciplines, such as: endocrinology, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, psychiatry, psychology, speech and language therapy, sexual medicine, sexology, family therapy, public health, sociology, counselling, law, and medical ethics (source).
Transgender Health
Transgender Health is the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to addressing the healthcare needs of transgender individuals throughout their lifespan and identifying gaps in knowledge as well as priority areas where policy development and research are needed to achieve healthcare equity.
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Transgender Health is the premier source for authoritative, multidisciplinary research, discussion, and debate on the healthcare needs of this patient population. Transgender Health coverage includes: best practices, protocols, and guidelines to ensure optimal care; disparities in treatment and barriers to care; health services research; cultural competency; mental health and well-being; sexually transmitted infections; and hormone therapy and surgery (source).
Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling
The Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling publishes manuscripts that report cutting-edge empirical research, best practices, and emerging trends and issues focused on counseling the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual ally, pansexual, or other sexual minority communities at all developmental stages of life.
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Manuscripts should be of interest to clinical mental health and school counselors, counselor educators, and other helping professionals who work in a variety of settings including schools, mental health agencies, family service agencies, colleges and universities, addiction and offender treatment settings, and sexual health centers (source).
LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal
LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal is the first journal to address the unique experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals in the context of the family.
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The journal publishes original research, as well as theoretical and review papers on topics exploring the impact of sexual orientation and gender identity on all aspects of family experience – including family structure, relationships, communication, therapy, and functioning. Aimed at an international audience, the LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal is interdisciplinary in scope and provides a forum for peer reviewed scholarship from both researchers and practitioners (source).
Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services
Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services provides empirical knowledge and conceptual information related to sexual minorities and their social environment.
Additional Info
Filled with innovative ideas and resources for the design, evaluation, and delivery of social services for these populations at all stages of life, the journal is a positive influence on the development of public and social policy, programs and services, and social work practice. Dedicated to the development of knowledge which meets the practical needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in their social context, Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services is a forum for studying, for example, the connection between the public issues of homophobia and heterosexism and the personal, day-to-day experiences of people affected by these attitudes (source).
Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality
Founded in 1991, the Tulane Journal of Law & Sexuality: A Review of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Law is the first student-edited law review in the country devoted solely to covering legal issues of interest to the LGBTQ+ community.
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The Journal is also the official legal journal of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. To fully address the legal developments impacting the LGBTQ+ community, the Journal publishes on a wide range of topics, including constitutional, employment, family, health, military, and insurance law. The Journal publishes works by academicians, practitioners, and students that take theoretical and practical approaches to analyzing those issues, and many more. Published annually, the Journal has broad national and international circulation (source).
Sexuality, Gender & Policy
Sexuality, Gender & Policy (SGP) is a peer-reviewed journal focusing on the social, political, and cultural dimensions of sexuality, as well as policy-relevant research on issues related to sexual health, sexual rights, and sexuality education.
Additional Info
The journal seeks to further expand opportunities for scholars to publish fully-rounded research on the historical development of sexuality and gender studies, current topics and methods in the field, and cutting-edge debates on theories and issues focusing on sexuality, gender, culture, and policy. It aims to examine and expand traditional definitions and boundaries within the realm of gender and sexuality, while acknowledging conditions of inequality, marginality, and post-coloniality. It covers the social sciences, cultural history, cultural anthropology, public policy, as well as queer theory, feminist, gender, and LGBT studies (source).
References
*Allen, L. (2015). Queering the academy: new directions in LGBT research in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(4), 681–684. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2015.1055052
Allen connects queer theory to its political roots of the gay liberation movement (p. 681) and discusses the impact of new research (p. 682).
**Meezan, W., & Martin, J. I. (2009). Doing Research on LGBT Populations: Moving the Field Forward. In Handbook of Research with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations (1st ed., pp. 415–427). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203886861-31
Meezan and Martin note that LGBT research directly affects researchers’ “success” in higher education (p. 416) but can bring awareness and better advocacy for marginalized queer communities (p. 424-5).
This post was written by Alaina Faulkner, Student Engagement Associate at FSU Libraries.

