LGBTQ+ History Month 2025 Book List

 

 

 

This LGBTQ+ History Month we have created a handy book list to help you find fiction and non-fiction titles that address the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation and queer history and culture in general.

 

Queer City by Peter Ackroyd

In 'Queer City', Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way - through the story of its gay population. In Roman Londinium the city was dotted with lupanaria ('wolf dens' or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure. Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early 19th century. He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to gay liberation, disco music, and the horror of AIDS.

 

 

A Gay History of Britain: love & Sex between men since the middle ages by Matt Cook

‘A narrative history of man-on-man sex and love from the Anglo Saxon period to the present day, this book explores some of the key issues of homosexuality.

 

Trans Britain edited by Christine Burns

Over the last five years, transgender people have seemed to burst into the public eye. From our television screens to the ballot box, transgender had suddenly become part of the zeitgeist.

 

This apparently overnight emergence, though, is just the latest stage in a long and varied history. The renown of Paris Lees and Hari Nef has its roots in the efforts of those who fought for equality before them, but were met with apathy - and often outright hostility - from mainstream society. 'Trans Britain' chronicles this journey in the words of those who were there to witness a once invisible community grow into the powerful movement we recognise today: activists, film-makers, parents, broadcasters, an actress, a rock musician and a priest, among many others.

 

A Short History of Queer Women by Kirsty Loehr

From Anne Bonny and Mary Read who sailed the seas together disguised as pirates, to US football captain Megan Rapinoe declaring 'You can't win a championship without gays on your team', via countless literary salons and tuxedos, 'A Short History of Queer Women' sets the record straight on women who have loved other women through the ages.

 

The Queens' English: The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary Of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases by Chloe Davis<

A reference guide to the LGBTQIA+ community's contributions to the English language - an intersectional, inclusive, playfully illustrated glossary featuring more than 800 terms and phrases created by and for queer culture.