Book Recommendations: Queer YA History for Queer History Month

Books are being pulled from school libraries. State legislatures are passing laws that erase queer and trans people from curricula. The federal government has scrubbed LGBTQ+ history from public-facing websites and archives. October is LGBTQ+ History Month, and the fight to keep our history accessible has never been more visible or more urgent.

In Cincinnati, the Ohio Lesbian Archives has been doing this work since 1989, before anyone called it a fight. Founded by Phebe Beiser and Victoria Ramstetter, who were both editors of the community newsletter Dinah, it grew from the materials that newsletter collected and donated over the years. Since 2006 it has lived in the basement of Clifton United Methodist Church, holding buttons, banners, photos, flyers, pamphlets, periodicals, and novels. One of only a handful of lesbian and queer archives in the country.

In Philadelphia, Giovanni’s Room opened in 1973, named for James Baldwin’s novel. It survived homophobic landlords, multiple relocations, near closure, and five decades of American political life. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission recognized it as the country’s first LGBT bookstore. It’s still open, now run by Philly AIDS Thrift, still stocking the books that have always mattered.

Queer and trans history is not preserved by our power structures. It gets banned, buried, and revised. That’s how much of our history has survived: in basements and bookstores, because the community saves itself. When we lose access to it, we lose the thread that connects us to the people who built the world we’re living in now. These books are part of that thread.

We're Here, We're Queer!: A History of LGBTQ+ Activism: (An Illustrated History of Queer Activists, Civil Rights, Pride, Protest, and the Fight for Equality - For Teens)

by David Roberts
Published by: Candlewick Press
on October 6, 2026
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A gorgeously illustrated, accessible celebration of queer activism—its history, people, and culture—by the New York Times best-selling creator of Suffragette.
This illustrated history of LGBTQ+ activism brings to life stories of resistance, friendship, love, fear, division, unity, and astonishing perseverance in the face of discrimination and oppression. From the secret slang adopted by gay Londoners in the 1960s to decades of sit-ins and marches, from the Stonewall uprising to the dazzling history of drag, this is a wide-ranging and inclusive account of a multifaceted movement that continues to this day. Evocative prose puts readers deeply into key moments and showcases the words and personalities of figures from queer history, including Harvey Milk, Julian Hows, Carla Toney, Crystal LaBeija, We’wha, Vincent Jones, Marsha P. Johnson, Alan Turing, Sylvia Rivera, and many more. Masterful and joyful artwork by beloved author-illustrator David Roberts makes this a keepsake book for queer families and anyone who values the history of this struggle. David Roberts includes hundreds of portraits, giving faces AND voices to often overlooked heroes. He includes a personal introduction and fact-filled timelines; back matter includes a bibliography and an afterword from This Book Is Gay author Juno Dawson.

YA Queer History Picks

• We’re Here, We’re Queer! by David Roberts: A joyful, illustrated introduction to LGBTQ+ history for younger readers, tracing key moments and figures in accessible, vibrant terms. A good first book for youth trying to understand where they come from.
• All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson: George’s memoir in essays about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey is one of the most challenged books in the country. It’s also one of the most important. Raw, specific, and written for young people who need to see themselves in the fullness of who they are.
• Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known by George M. Johnson, illustrated by Charly Palmer: The queer Harlem Renaissance existed. It shaped American art, music, literature, and culture. Groge and Charley bring that history forward in a book that is visually stunning and a fun way to read history.
• And If I Die Before I Wake by George M. Johnson (releasing this year!): George’s next book continues his work of filling in the gaps. We’ll have more to say when it’s out, but it’s already on our list.
• Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin: Six transgender and gender-neutral young people tell their own stories in their own words, with photographs. Susan steps back and lets her subjects lead, which makes this feel less like a book about trans teens and more like a book by them. The language is from 2014, so some terms have shifted since publication, but the voices haven’t aged. This is oral history doing what oral history does best: making sure people exist on the record.
• Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett: Trans people have always existed, across cultures and centuries. This book documents that with care and scope, for anyone who has been told that trans identity is a recent invention.
• The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America by David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels: The AIDS crisis did not end. It reshaped every institution it touched and took people we cannot get back. David and Gabriel chronicle that history for young readers without softening it.
• Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings: Jazz wrote this at seventeen, making it direct, warm, and grounded in the specific experience of growing up publicly as a transgender girl. Where much of this list confronts erasure and survival, Jazz’s story is about living openly and finding community.
• Fight AIDS!: How Activism, Art, and Protest Changed the Course of a Deadly Epidemic and Reshaped a Nation by Michael G. Long: Where The Fight of Our Lives centers the human toll, Fight AIDS! centers the movement that fought back. ACT UP, protest art, civil disobedience, community organizing. A book about what it looks like when people refuse to be ignored.
• The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets by Gayle E. Pitman: June 28, 1969. Gayle puts the riots in their full context: who was there, what led to that night, and what it set in motion. Essential history.
• Gender Rebels: 30 Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Expansive Heroes Past and Present by Katherine Locke, illustrated by Shanee Benjamin: Thirty figures across history and culture, profiled with specificity and care. The kind of book that makes a young person feel like they have ancestors.
• Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe: The most challenged book in the country for multiple years running. Maia’s graphic memoir about gender identity and coming out is quiet, careful, and deeply personal.
• Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Memoir by Lewis Hancox: A graphic memoir about being a trans teenager, told with humor and honesty. Lewis doesn’t shy away from the hard parts, but this is ultimately a book about surviving and becoming yourself.
• High School by Tegan and Sara Quin: Twin sisters, alternating chapters, Calgary in the mid-90s. Tegan and Sara narrate their own audiobook, which makes the audio edition worth seeking out. A memoir about becoming queer, becoming musicians, and becoming yourselves before you have language for any of it.