Feature: We’re Here. We’re Queer. And We’re Still Fighting.

Today kicks off Banned Books Week, and October is also LGBTQ+ History Month. We want to start it with something that is both a celebration and a reminder of why these designations matter.

We’re Here, We’re Queer! A History of LGBTQ+ Activism by David Roberts is out this week, and it arrives at a moment when the history it contains is being actively suppressed in schools and libraries across the country. David, who gave us the award-winning Suffragette: The Battle for Equality, has turned his illustrated historical lens toward queer activism, tracing the fight for LGBTQ+ rights decade by decade, from the coded language of 1960s London through Stonewall, the AIDS crisis, the Mattachine Society, and into the present. Hundreds of portraits. Watercolor, ink, and graphite. Harvey Milk, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Alan Turing, and many more people who rarely make the history books.

David Roberts and Juno Dawson, who wrote the afterword, have books on challenged lists. Suffragette has faced challenges. This Book Is Gay, Juno’s amazing guide for queer youth, has been one of the most challenged books in the United States since its release. The people who made this book know what it is like to have their art targeted, and they continue to make art anyway.

In her afterword, Juno writes about the fight for queer rights as a rollercoaster ride of triumph and exhaustion, about how queer people are all warriors simply by embracing their identities in a world that is hostile toward them, and about how it starts with each of us. As you may have seen, I am stepping into a new chapter this week. I have accepted the role of Executive Director at Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Columbus’s LGBTQ+ youth organization. I have spent my career working with communities that systems have failed, and I am walking into a role that is deeply personal and with one core reminder: that queer young people deserve to be seen, supported, and celebrated, not just survived. The hostility Juno names in that afterword is a living truth to our community and to the young people KYC serves every day.

It’s Banned Books Week and we are featuring books by authors who have experienced censorship as well as other content related to censorship. David’s Suffragette: The Battle for Equality and Juno’s This Book is Gay (and several more!) have been challenged and censored. If you’re looking for ways to fight censorship, we recently posted an interview with Dr. Alyssa Chrisman on ways you can help!

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
Bookshop
Goodreads

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.