Expand knowledge and understanding with some recommended reading
Last Pride, we put out a call to all people who dedicate their careers to good, to not leave trans people behind. We shared specific actions, big and small, to welcome trans and gender non-conforming people into your spaces, into your language, and into your work.
This year is, unfortunately, no different. The Trump administration is laser-focused on scapegoating and dehumanizing just 1% of the population to push forward its agenda. We wish we had positive news to report, but as of June 2026, 793 bills targeting trans people have been introduced.
If you don’t know someone personally who is trans, it can be easy to look away and think it’s a niche issue that doesn’t apply to you. But these policies impact absolutely everyone. Growing transphobia, like attacks on other marginalized people, goes hand-in-hand with authoritarianism. The current barrage of anti-trans legislation is the type of systematic erasure that can and has happened to minority groups throughout history.
If you don’t allow trans people access to healthcare, or you revoke drivers’ licenses overnight, if you don’t say that they have equal protection under the laws of this country, you’re creating a framework for the erasure of an entire group of people. And whatever is being done to trans people could be done to you.
The antidote to division and hate is empathy and understanding. Protecting our collective human rights requires us to clearly see the humanity in one another, and that means getting to know one another. This Pride, get to know queer people! We put together some of our favorite books and documentaries on the subject of queerness, gender, and the historic fight for gender liberation that we can’t give up on now.
We hope this inspires you to go a level deeper, start a book club, and explore the rich queer history we all benefit from!
What we’re reading and watching this Pride month
Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman
Leslie Fienberg
This groundbreaking book—far ahead of its time when first published in 1996 and still galvanizing today—interweaves history, memoir, and gender studies to show that transgender people far from being a modern phenomenon, have always existed and have exerted their influence throughout history.
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
Julian Serano
In a series of incisive essays, Serano draws on gender theory, her training as a biologist, her career in queer activism, and her own experiences before and after her gender transition to examine the deep connections between sexism and transphobia.
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
Kate Bornstein
Gender Outlaw was decades ahead of its time when it was first published in 1994. On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein’s transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female.
The Right To Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools
Stuart Biegel
The Right to Be Out begins with a history of the dramatic legal developments concerning the rights of LGBT persons since 1968. Stuart Biegel then turns to what K-12 schools should do-and in many cases have already done-to implement right-to-be-out policies. He examines recent legal and public policy changes that affect LGBT students and educators in the K-12 public school system.
Disclosure
An in-depth look at Hollywood’s depiction of transgender people and the impact of those stories on transgender lives and American culture.
The Dads
On a fishing trip with Matthew Shepard’s father, five disparate dads discuss their love, hopes and fears for their trans kids in this short documentary.
