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What does LGBTQIA+ stand for?
- Check out this helpful referenceThis is meant to act as a starting point and is by no means comprehensive.
Helpful Resources:
Health, Medical, and Wellness Resources
- The PROUD Gender Center at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital"We are committed to providing a safe and supportive environment where you can get the medical care you need at all stages of your life...Our goal is to provide health services to the LGBTQIA community in an evidence-based, culturally-competent manner. We currently provide care for people age 18 and older." Note: The resources say for the transgender community, but all LGBTQIA+ folks are welcome.
- Point of PridePoint of Pride is a non-profit that provides products such as free binders and femme shapewear as well as scholarships for gender-affirming care. note: trans on this site refers to any non-cis identifying individuals (language taken from site).
Emergency Resources
- The Trevor Project's Get HelpResources are available via chat, call, or text. "Connect to a crisis counselor 24/7, 365 days a year, from anywhere in the U.S. It is 100% confidential, and 100% free." Text START to 678678. See additional information by clicking "see more"
- Safe Place's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Youth Resources"All youth coming to a Safe Place site are to be treated with the same care and concern. There is not a separate designation to identify "LGBTQ friendly" sites as Safe Place provides an outlet to safety for all young people in crisis. Safe Place communities are full of accepting, compassionate, and supportive providers who care about the safety and success of young people. If you are a young person in need of immediate help and safety, no matter your race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other way you identify yourself, you may go to any location with this sign to receive help."
RVCC Resources
Community
- Trans LifeLine 877-565-8860"Trans Lifeline’s Hotline is a peer support phone service run by trans people for our trans [and non-binary] and questioning peers. Call us if you need someone trans [or non-binary] to talk to, even if you’re not in crisis or if you’re not sure you’re trans." Note, site specifies trans and non-binary folks answer phones here. (877) 565-8860
- TrevorSpace"TrevorSpace is an affirming, online community for LGBTQ young people between the ages of 13-24 years old. With over 400,000 members across the globe, you can explore your identity, get advice, find support, and make friends in a moderated community intentionally designed for you."
- Inclusive Sex Ed from Planned Parenthood"Planned Parenthood also believes in making sex education more equitable. For example, LGBTQ youth deserve to learn in settings that are inclusive of their experiences. Far too many LGBTQ youth are sitting in classrooms where their teachers and textbooks fail to address their experiences. Planned Parenthood teamed up with other sex education advocates to call on educators to make sex education LGBTQ-inclusive. Read the call to action."
- QTBIPOC Mental Health and Well-BeingThe Human Rights Campaign has compiled a list of resources to assist LGBTQ+ BIPOC individuals to find mental health and treatment from professionals who are familiar with their experiences.
Speaker Resources
- PROUD Gender Center of NJ at RWJRobert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) New Brunswick is committed to providing top-quality health care to the LGBTQIA+ community. As part of its portfolio of patient care offerings, RWJUH is proud to offer the services of an LGBTQIA+ Health Navigator.
- Babs Siperstein PROUD CenterLGBTQIA Health Services at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset
- Rae of Origami CustomsWe strive to offer people of any size, shape, age, ability, and gender expression a safe way to have customized clothing items that meet their needs.
- Organizations that Origami Customs Partners withWe are on a mission to get these gender-affirming pieces to those who need them. We hear feedback all the time that these items make a difference in the lives of trans and gender diverse folks (even more for younger folks), and we want to make them as accessible as possible.
That's why we run programs to get these products to people facing access barriers, free of charge.
Free Resources
EBooks available to read online:
Unashamed: a coming-out guide for LGBTQ Christians
Unashamed serves as a guide for Christians considering coming out, tackling tough subject matters such as demolishing internalized homophobia, finding an affirming faith community, reestablishing your worth as a child of God, navigating difficult family conversations (especially in cases where family is involved in church leadership/ministry), and healing from the pain of rejection. Unashamed encourages LGBTQ Christians to embrace their unique identities and to celebrate the diversity placed inside them by God.
Coming Out: the new dynamics
Nicholas Guittar draws on deeply personal interviews with young people to enhance our understanding of "coming out," revealing the changing dynamics of sexual identity. Guittar explores how mainstream norms continue to assert their influence over those with nonnormative sexualities. He also highlights the wide spectrum of coming out experiences. His important work sheds light on why, even though fewer people may remain closeted today than in the past, coming out is not a one-time event, but a lifetime process.
Sexual Intimacy for Women: a guide for same-sex couples
Sexual Intimacy for Women helps female couples examine the emotional, physical, and psychological aspects of their relationships, with the goal of creating more intimacy. Exercises and client-based anecdotes from Dr. Corwin’s years of experience with same-sex couples help women overcome common issues around orgasm, body image, identity, aging, and parenthood. Dr. Corwin dispels myths, examines the intricacies of female desire, and gives advice to help couples achieve long-lasting, healthy, and fulfilling relationships.
Gay Men Choosing Parenthood
This book reveals how very natural and possible gay parenthood can be. What factors influence this decision? How do the experiences of gay dads compare to those of heterosexual men? How effectively do professional services such as support groups serve gay fathers and prospective gay fathers? What elements of the social climate are helpful―and hurtful? Gay Men Choosing Parenthood challenges a great deal of misinformation, showing how gay fathers from different backgrounds adapted, perceived, and constructed their options and their families.
Homophobia: the state of sexual bigotry today
The author takes us across sites in America - from city streets to hospitals, schools, broadcast stations, and churches to police departments―showing how homophobia is still very much alive. While the problem may be less acute it is still chronic, and while it may not take as many lives, it ruins perhaps even more, he explains. Homophobia is a phenomenon that in significant respects parallels mental illness, adds the psychiatrist. Education alone will not stem the homophobic tide. We also need to uncover and treat the psychoneurotic dimension of homohatred.
Aging With HIV: a gay man's guide
The book describes the nine changes common to gay men as they age with HIV, discusses the four challenges of aging, and offers a unique ten-step path to optimal aging with HIV, helping the reader to tailor the book's suggestions to the realities of their lives. Woven throughout the book are first-person narratives from men who recount what worked--and did not work--for them. In addition, Rapid Research, Fast Fact, and Self-Reflection boxes highlight the latest research and challenge readers to take stock of the present--and plan for the future.
The End of Straight Supremacy: realizing gay liberation
This book presents a cohesive theory of gay life under straight domination. Beginning with a critique of formal equality law, centering on the 'like-straight' demands of liberal equality theory as highlighted in Lawrence v. Texas, the author moves to criticize the gay movement itself, challenging the assimilation politics behind the movement's blithe acceptance of discrimination in the guise of free speech and pornography in the name of sexual liberation, as well as same-sex marriage and transsexuality as tools of straight hegemony.
Black Gay Man: essays
This book is a celebration of black gay male identity as well as a powerful critique of the structures that allow for the production of that identity. Written as a bold and nuanced attempt to question prevailing ideas about community, desire, politics and culture.
Books available at Evelyn S. Field Library
Books on the LGBTQ community and issues can be found in the library collection upstairs in the following sections:
HQ76 This section covers issues of marriage and family life for the LGBTQ community.
HQ77 This section focuses on issues of being transgender.
This Book Is Gay
"The book every LGBT person would have killed for as a teenager, told in the voice of a wise best friend. Frank, warm, funny, USEFUL." --Patrick Ness, bestselling author Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer. Transgender. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. There's a long-running joke that, after "coming out," a lesbian, gay guy, bisexual, or trans person should receive a membership card and instruction manual. THIS IS THAT INSTRUCTION MANUAL. You're welcome. Inside you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask: from sex to politics, hooking up to stereotypes, coming out and more. This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBT also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention hilarious illustrations. You will be entertained. You will be informed. But most importantly, you will know that however you identify (or don't) and whomever you love, you are exceptional. You matter. And so does this book. One of The Guardian's Best Books of the Year "This egregious gap has now been filled to a fare-thee-well by Dawson's book..." - Booklist(Starred)
Gender Queer: a Memoir
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. "It's also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." -- SLJ (starred review)
All Boys Aren't Blue
*An Amazon Best Book of the Year optioned for television by Gabrielle Union!* In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.
Marriage and Health : the well-being of same-sex couples
This collection of essays presents new perspectives that address current opportunities and challenges faced by people in same-sex unions in multiple domains of well-being, including physical and mental health, social support, socialized behaviors, and stigmas. The book offers a broad view of same-sex couples' experiences by examining not only marriage and civil unions, but also dating and cohabiting relationships as well as same-sex sexual experiences outside of relationships.
The Testosterone Files: my hormonal and social transformation from female to male
Max Wolf Valerio's observations about transitioning from a lesbian to a heterosexual male both challenge and confirm our assumptions about gender. As Valerio undergoes the physical and emotional changes associated with testosterone treatment, he is intrigued by his eye-opening discoveries about the nature of masculinity and femininity.
The Children of Harvey Milk
The gay rights movement has achieved social transformation at a dizzying pace, upending conventional views on sex, love, marriage, the family, and equality itself. While most scholars understand the movement as a broad-based social movement and the author argues that the most important catalyst of gay rights is openly gay politicians who brought about a more positive attitude towards homosexuality, both among other politicians and the general public. This book tells the epic stories of courageous men and women around the world who came forward to make their voices heard during the struggle for equal rights.
Whipping Girl
Biologist and trans woman Julie Serano reveals a unique perspective on femininity, masculinity, and gender identity. A provocative manifesto, Whipping Girl tells the powerful story of Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist. Serano shares her experiences and observations-both pre- and post-transition-to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.
The Complete Guide to Gay and Lesbian Manners
This book is encyclopedic in its approach and is filled with practical wisdom, lively wit, and much insight, It covers everything: from coming out to being out in the workplace; from dealing with the joy and complexity of same-sex weddings and commitment ceremonies (including how to propose and write meaningful vows) to handling the legal paperwork every couple needs.
Transgender Health Issues
Transgender individuals face unique challenges when it comes to their physical, psychological, and social health and well-being. This accessible reference investigates these concerns in depth, offering readers insights into topics such as discrimination and access to health care.
Expanding the Rainbow: exploring the relationships of Bi+, polyamorous, kinky, ace, intersex, and trans people
This book is a collection of research on the relationships of people who identify as bi+, poly, kinky, asexual, intersex, and/or trans that is written to be accessible to an undergraduate audience. The volume highlights a diverse range of identities, relationship structures, and understandings of bodies, sexualities, and interpersonal relationships.
Queer Media Images
Queer Media Images: LGBT Perspectives presents fifteen chapters that address how the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities are depicted in the media.
The Marrying Kind?
As the fight for same-sex marriage rages across the United States and lesbian and gay couples rush to marriage license counters, the goal of marriage is still fiercely questioned within the LGBT movement. This book draws on empirical research to examine the debates and how they are affecting marriage equality campaigns.
The Gay Revolution
The fight for gay, lesbian and trans civil rights is the most important civil rights issue of the present day. Based on rigorous research and more than 150 interviews, The Gay Revolution tells this unfinished story not through dry facts but through dramatic accounts of passionate struggles.
Gay Fathers, Their Children and the Making of Kinship
Based on ten years of fieldwork among gay families living in the rural, suburban, and urban area of the eastern United States, the author presents a meticulously argued ethnography of gay men and the families they have formed.
Transgender Cinema
Transgender Cinema gives readers the big picture of how trans people have been depicted on screen.
Queer Game Studies
Video games have developed into a rich, growing field at many top universities, but they have rarely been considered from a queer perspective. Immersion in new worlds, video games seem to offer the perfect opportunity to explore the alterity that queer culture longs for, but often sexism and discrimination in gamer culture steal the spotlight. Queer Game Studies provides a welcome corrective, revealing the capacious albeit underappreciated communities that are making, playing, and studying queer games.