June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, a yearly celebration that honors lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) individuals and communities around the world. Observed every June in the U.S. to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, Pride Month first began as a celebration of “Gay Pride Day.” Since then, it has evolved to span an entire month filled with global events, parades, concerts, and other community celebrations. If you’re interested in learning more about the history of Pride Month, check out this page from the Library of Congress!
FSU Libraries are celebrating Pride this June by highlighting resources centered around LGBTQIA+ stories, experiences, and histories. All of the books, movies, and videos below are freely available to the FSU community. Other support and resources are also listed at the end of this post. Let’s celebrate Pride while taking care of ourselves and one another!
Lastly, if you find yourself on FSU’s main campus this June, stop by Strozier or Dirac and grab a copy of our LGBTQIA+ History at FSU Libraries zine. Happy Pride Month from FSU Libraries!
Table of Contents
Books
¡Hola Papi! : How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons
by John Paul Brammer
LGBTQ advice columnist John Paul Brammer writes a “wise and charming” (David Sedaris) memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey from a queer, mixed-race kid in America’s heartland to becoming the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation.
¡Hola Papi! is available in the Pop Lit Collection located on the main floor of Strozier Library.
Image and description via Amazon.
Detransition, Baby: A Novel
by Torrey Peters
The lives of three women—transgender and cisgender—collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in “one of the most celebrated novels of the year” (Time).
Detransition, Baby is available online through FSU Libraries.
Image and description via Amazon.
The Thirty Names of Night: A Novel
by Zeyn Joukhadar
Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along. This book is a timely exploration of how we all search for and ultimately embrace who we are.
The Thirty Names of Night is available in the General Collection at Strozier. Place a hold online and pick it up at your preferred library!
Image and description via Amazon.
How to Find a Princess
by Alyssa Cole
Bestselling author Alyssa Cole’s second Runaway Royals novel is a queer Anastasia retelling, featuring a long-lost princess who finds love with the woman investigator tasked with tracking her down.
How to Find a Princess is available in the Pop Lit Collection at Strozier.
Image and description via Amazon.
My Brother’s Husband, Vol. 1
by Gengoroh Tagame
Yaichi is a work-at-home dad in Tokyo; formerly married to Natsuki, and father to their young daughter, Kana. Their lives suddenly change with the arrival of a Canadian named Mike Flanagan, who declares himself to be the widower of Yaichi’s estranged gay twin, Ryoji. What follows is an unprecedented and heartbreaking look at the state of a largely still-closeted Japanese gay culture: how it’s been affected by the West, and how the next generation can change the preconceptions about it and prejudices against it.
My Brother’s Husband is available in the Graphic Novels Collection by Pop Lit on the main floor of Strozier.
Image and description via Amazon.
Postcolonial Love Poem
by Natalie Diaz
Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz’s second collection unravels notions of American goodness and creates something more powerful than hope―in it, a future is built, future being a matrix of the choices we make now, and in these poems, Diaz chooses love.
Postcolonial Love Poem is available in the General Collection at Strozier.
Image and description via Gray Wolf Press.
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
by Saeed Jones
How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.
How We Fight for Our Lives is available in the Pop Lit Collection at Strozier and online.
Image and description via Amazon.
I Wish You All the Best
by Mason Deaver
When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of the house and forced to move in with their older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas. Struggling with an anxiety disorder, Ben’s attempts to keep a low profile in a new school during their senior year are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, takes Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life. I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity.
I Wish You All the Best is available in the Pop Lit Collection at Strozier.
Image and description via Amazon.
You Exist Too Much
by Zaina Arafat
A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine).
You Exist Too Much is available in the General Collection at Strozier.
Image and description via Catapult.
Movies & Videos
Paris is Burning (1990)
Directed by Jennie Livingston
A chronicle of New York’s drag scene in the 1980s, focusing on balls, voguing and the ambitions and dreams of those who gave the era its warmth and vitality.
Paris is Burning is available online via Kanopy.
Image and description via IMDb
Moonlight (2016)
Directed by Barry Jenkins
A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood.
Moonlight is available online via Kanopy
Image and description via IMDb.
Milk (2008)
Directed by Gus Van Sant
The story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California’s first openly gay elected official.
Milk is available in the Strozier Library Open DVD collection next to Pop Lit and can be checked out on a 3-day loan.
Image and description via IMDb.
TEDTalks: A Short History of Trans People’s Long Fight for Equality (2019)
by Samy Nour Younes
Transgender activist and TED Resident Samy Nour Younes shares the remarkable, centuries-old history of the trans community, filled with courageous stories, inspiring triumphs — and a fight for civil rights that’s been raging for a long time. “Imagine how the conversation would shift if we acknowledge just how long trans people have been demanding equality,” he says.
Available online via Films on Demand
Image and description via TED.
Other Resources
FSU Counseling & Psychological Services
250 Askew Student Life Building
942 Learning Way
Tallahassee, FL 32306
Walk-in and Appointment Hours: M – F, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
(850) 644-TALK (8255)
University Health Services
Health and Wellness Center
960 Learning Way
Tallahassee, FL 32306
Hours: M – F, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
(850) 644–6230
FSU Case Management Services
Suite 4128 University Center A
282 Champions Way
Tallahassee, FL 32306
Hours: M – F, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
(850) 644-9555
PFLAG List of Support Hotlines
Includes the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: (800) 273-8255 (online chat available).
Map of All Gender Restrooms on Campus
This post was written by Alaina Faulkner, Student Engagement Associate.
Featured image created by Laura Pellini, Graphic Design Specialist.