Research Guides: American LGBTQIA+ History: Find Books

Librarian

Kristina Claunch

Contact:

936-294-1520
kclaunch@shsu.edu
Library (NGL) Room 223G

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Other Reference Books

Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America
Call Number: E-Book, Read Online
Comprehensive survey of lesbian and gay history and culture in the United States. Also includes a guide to archival sources, a chronology/timeline, a historical overview essay.
Proud Heritage: People, issues, and documents of the LGBT experience
Call Number: Read Online
Reference work tracing the roots and development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and issues in the United States from the pre-colonial period to the present day. Volume 2 in particular contains historical documents, from biblical times to the present, and volume 3 presents state laws and issues concerning LGBT rights.
glbtq.com - An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Highly acclaimed online encyclopedia.
General Editor: Claude J. Summers, William E. Stirton Professor in the Humanities Emeritus, University of Michigan-Dearborn. The encyclopedia closed in Aug 2015 but has been archived for continued access.
Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements
Call Number: REF HQ76.5 .M944 2013, 2nd floor
The Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements covers the history of this movement through a cross-referenced dictionary with over 1000 entries on specific countries and regions, influential historical figures, laws that criminalized same-sex sexuality, various historical terms that have been used to refer to aspects of same-sex love, and contemporary events and legal decisions.
Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An encyclopedia
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: REF HQ75.5 .L4395 2000, vol. 1-2
The Gay Almanac by National Museum and Archive of Lesbian and Gay History
Call Number: REF HQ76.3.U5 G367 1996
The most complete reference book available on gay culture and history. Includes a directory of gay organizations.
Supreme Court Cases on Gender and Sexual Equality, 1787-2001
Call Number: Read Online
Homosexuality and the Law: A dictionary
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available:REF KF4754.5.A68 S74 2001
This reference work provides important information about the role academic research has played in the ever-evolving laws covering homosexuality.
Gay and Lesbian Rights: A reference handbook
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: REF HQ76.3 .U5 N48 2009
This thoroughly updated edition provides readers with the background and resources needed to understand one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time.
Gender: Sources, perspectives, and methodologies
Call Number: Read Online

Online Maps

Guide to Lesbian & Gay New York Historical Landmarks
(New York City LGBT Historic Sites Project)

Browse the Collection

An excellent way to discover additional resources is to browse for books in relevant call number ranges.

HQ12 - HQ449 - Sexual life
HQ19 - HQ30.7 - Sexual behavior and attitudes. Sexuality
HQ74 - HQ74.2 - Bisexuality
HQ75 - HQ76.8 - Homosexuality. Lesbianism
HQ77 - HQ77.2 - Transvestism
HQ77.7 - HQ77.95 - Transexualism

To discover the call number ranges for broader, narrower, or different subjects, consult the Library of Congress Classification Outline.

Subject Headings

Subject headings allow you to find books according to broader and narrower topics.

Below are sample subjects. To browse for different, broader, or narrower subjects, go to the library catalog and click "Exact Search." Enter a term and click "subject."

You can start browsing for a broad subject like Education, then look for more specific subjects, such as Education England History 18th century.

Once you know some subject headings, you can also just use them as keywords during an advanced search, using the subject row.

Search the Library Catalog

Video Refresher: Intro to Searching the Catalog

Click the icon in the bottom right corner of the video player to view it in full screen!

Comprehensive Survey of American LGBT History, Pre-1492 to Present

A Queer History of the United States
Call Number: HQ76.3 .U5 B696 2011, 4th floor
Winner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction. The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.

A Sampling of Books at SHSU:
LGBT History, 1400-1850

Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850
Call Number: E98 .S48 G46 2011, 4th floor
Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850 probes gender identification, labor roles, and political authority within Native American societies from the colonial period through the nineteenth century to illustrate how these aspects of Native American life were altered through interactions with Europeans.
Long Before Stonewall
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: HQ76.3 .U5 H57 2007, 4th floor
Although the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City symbolically mark the start of the gay rights movement, individuals came together long before the modern era to express their same-sex romantic and sexual attraction toward one another, and in a myriad of ways. Long Before Stonewall seeks to uncover the many iterations of same-sex desire in colonial America and the early Republic, as well as to expand the scope of how we define and recognize homosocial behavior.

A Sampling of Books at SHSU:
20th Century LGBT History

Queer America: A GLBT history of the 20th century
Call Number: Read Online
This work focuses on 20th/21st- century U. S. history as it pertains to GLBT history. Major issues and events such as the Stonewall riot, Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military, same-sex marriage, gay rights, gay pride, organizations and alliances, AIDS, and legal battles and court cases are discussed. Also included are sidebars highlighting major debates, legal landmarks and key individuals. Includes a timeline and further reading sections concluding each chapter, as well as a full bibliography and black and white images.
Modern American Queer History
Call Number: HQ76.3.U5 M63 2001, 4th floor
In the twentieth century, countless Americans claimed gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender identities, forming a movement to secure social as well as political equality. This collection of essays considers the history as well as the historiography of the queer identities and struggles that developed in the United States in the midst of widespread upheaval and change.
Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The making of a homosexual minority in the United States, 1940-1970
Call Number: HQ76.8.U5D45 1983, 4th floor
Stonewall: The riots that sparked the gay revolution
Call Number: HQ76 .C315 2004, 4th floor
In 1969, a series of riots over police action against The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, changed the longtime landscape of the homosexual in society literally overnight. Since then the event itself has become the stuff of legend, with relatively little hard information available on the riots themselves. Now, based on hundreds of interviews, an exhaustive search of public and previously sealed files, and over a decade of intensive research into the history and the topic, Stonewall brings this singular event to vivid life in this, the definitive story of one of history's most singular events.
The Gilded Age Construction of American Homophobia
Call Number: Read Online - Or print is available: HQ76.45 .U5 H37 2003, 4th floor
The Gilded Age Roots of American Homophobia is an analysis of the negative response to the discovery of the homosexual in late 19th century America. This book investigates the responses of the emergent medical community to this problem, and concludes with a discussion of how the negative reception of the homosexual impacted the future social conception of gay men and women.
Becoming Visible: An illustrated history of lesbian and gay life in twentieth-century America
Call Number: HQ75.16.U6 M37 1998, 4th floor
The New York Public Library's groundbreaking 1994 "Becoming Visible" exhibit was the largest and most extensive display of lesbian and gay history ever mounted in a museum or gallery space. Now, the curators have expanded it, pairing an authoritative text with more than 300 compelling photographs, documents, and artifacts, many never-before published, from the library's collection and others, to trace a one-hundred-year history of same-sex social worlds and political life in America.
The Mayor of Castro Street: The life & times of Harvey Milk
Call Number: F869 .S353 M547 2008, 4th floor
A biography of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city official in the nation, recounts his public and personal life, and examines the emergence of the San Francisco gay community as a social and political force.
Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call chronicles and the early movement for homosexual emancipation
Call Number: Read Online
The Mattachine is the origin of the contemporary American gay movement. One of the major players in this movement was Hal Call, America's first openly gay journalist. Behind the Mask travels back to the times before Stonewall and its aftermath, to the beginnings of the modern homosexual movement and the lesser-known individuals who started it.
Different Daughters: A history of the Daughters of Bilitis and the rise of the lesbian rights movement
Call Number: HQ75.6 .U5 G36 2006, 4th floor
Nearly fifteen years before the birth of gay liberation, the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was the world’s first organization committed to lesbian visibility and empowerment. Like its predominantly gay male counterpart, the Mattachine Society, DOB was launched in response to the oppressive anti-homosexual climate of the McCarthy era. The small social group evolved over the next two decades into a national organization that counted more than a dozen chapters, and laid the foundation for today’s lesbian rights movement.