All the Queer Black Books I Haven't Read

[image description: a bookshelf with books organized by the color of their spines to form a rainbow]

As a bi bibliophile, I always look forward to celebrating pride month on this blog.

Normally I post about a particular LGBTQ+ book and what it means to me. I’ve been thinking a lot about how we owe the Stonewall Uprising to black transgender women. (I don’t like calling it a riot because it makes it sound like they were throwing bricks at cops for no reason. Not that there’s ever a bad reason to throw bricks at cops, but I digress.)

Those Black transgender women whom we credit with Stonewall are Marsha P. Johnson, Zazu Nova, and Jackie Hormona. I thought this year I would honor them by making a post about Black transgender authors and their books.

And that was when I discovered yet another gap in my reading life.

I’ve read books by Black authors. I’ve read books by queer authors. I’ve read queer books by Asian, Arab, Latinx, Indian, and other POC and marginalized authors. But the number of books I’ve read specifically by Black queer people is embarrassingly low. And the number of books I’ve read by Black transgender people is even more embarrassing: zero.

I’m eating a slice of rainbow-striped humble pie. To look at the list of books I’ve read over the past decade, you’d think it was basically only white people who are queer, with a handful of exceptions.

The more I read, the more I realize there’s so much I don’t know. The more I realize how much I don’t know, the more I want to learn.

Going forward in my book buying, I’ll be keeping an eye out for Black transgender authors. I want to honor their words and experiences and I know they have important things to say.