LGBT Pride Month in June commemorates the Stonewall riots in New York's Greenwich Village, which ignited the gay rights movement in the United States in 1969. The Library celebrates Pride Month with LGBTQIA+ book recommendations, highlights from past programs, film offerings, and other resources.

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Read WITH PRIDE:

Explore suggested Pride Month reading from Library staff and community-created lists in our catalog that includes everything from history and non-fiction to popular fiction titles.

Have Pride, Take Pride: LGBTQIA+ Books and More
The Library has curated a topic guide featuring a list of books in all genres, links to history and LGBTQIA+ issues, podcasts, and other items.

View full list in catalog >



Pride Month 2020
A collection of books for all ages featuring stories revolving around LGBTQIA+ characters.

View full list in catalog >



Let Me Be Perfectly Queer
Stories about identity, acceptance, and love.

View full list in catalog >



Pride Picture Books
These picture books are a compilation of the history of LGBTQIA+ activists, characters in non traditional families, and characters celebrating their identities.

View full list in catalog >



LGBTQIA+ Comics
Browse a collection of gorgeously drawn, heartwarming, and courageous LGBTQIA+ graphic novels for youth.

View full list in catalog >



 

movies:

Watch a selection of cinema celebrating LGBT Pride Month - documentaries, dramas, comedies, and more - streamed to your computer or mobile device using the Library's free digital services such as hoopla or Kanopy.

Pride Month films on hoopla
About hoopla

Pride Month films on Kanopy
About Kanopy

 

Programs:

Listen to audio or watch video from some of the Library's past signature events that discuss LGBTQ history and experiences.
 

 
What's Your Pronoun? Beyond He & She

In a discussion of his book What’s Your Pronoun?, the University of Illinois' Dennis Baron examines the issue and lends some valuable historical context. The search for a gender-neutral pronoun actually goes back centuries; Shakespeare used the singular “they,” and people have been coining new gender pronouns (beyond “hir” and “zie”) for generations.

WATCH VIDEO  |  LISTEN TO AUDIO 

Find the book in our catalog
 

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The Ordinance Project: KC’s LGBT Landmark

 

At the height of the AIDS crisis, the Kansas City City Council added “sexual orientation” to the local Civil Rights Ordinance, barring discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and people with HIV/AIDS. In June 2018, on the 25th anniversary of the ordinance, the Library hosted a program that explored its legacy and compared and contrasted the struggle for LGBT rights then and now.

Filmmaker Austin Williams moderated the conversation, kicking off the event with a clip from his in-development documentary, The Ordinance Project, about the lead-up to and passage of the revised ordinance in June 1993. Panelists included Katheryn Shields, a council member then and now, and longtime activists Jon D. Barnett, Lea Hopkins, and Kay Madden . The program was co-presented by the Gay and Lesbian Archives of Mid-America, Out Here Now: Kansas City LGBT Film Festival and the Kansas City Human Rights Commission Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Issues. Listen to an audio recording of the discussion here.
 

LISTEN TO AUDIO 

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No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas

Traveling through a state whose national reputation is all too tied to Topeka’s gay-degrading Westboro Baptist Church, Writer C.J. Janovy found LGBT activists who fought in ways big and small for the respect of their neighbors, their communities, and their government, lending hope to those alarmed by the treatment of minorities in an increasingly polarized country. Janovy's 2018 book No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas was awarded the 2019 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for LBGTQ Nonfiction. Listen to audio from the presentation here.

LISTEN TO AUDIO 
Find the book in our catalog
Related blog: FYI Book Club Spotlights C.J. Janovy’s No Place Like Home and LGBT Advances in Kansas

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Queer Eye: Love Yourself, Love Your Life

Near the end of four months of filming in Kansas City, the stars of Netflix’ infectious reality series Queer Eye sat down at the Central Library in November 2018 to discuss their book Queer Eye: Love Yourself, Love Your Life. Makeover specialists Bobby Berk (interior design), Karamo Brown (culture), Tan France (fashion), Antoni Porowski (food and wine), and Jonathan Van Ness (grooming) also reflected on their Kansas City experiences. Watch video of the discussion or check out the book.

WATCH VIDEO 

 

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We're Here, We're Queer: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Kansas City

In this program from 2014,  a panel of local experts discussed how before the famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City sparked the modern gay rights movement, Kansas City had its own active gay rights community that was a meaningful participant in the larger national movement. Post-Stonewall, the city’s emerging gay and lesbian community strove to provide venues and services to address the growing needs of its members. Watch video of the discussion here.

Watch video


 

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Letters Never Sent

Sandra Moran’s first novel, Letters Never Sent, resonated deeply in the LGBT community when it was released. She discusses her story of three women, united by love and kinship and struggling to conform to the social norms of their times, which won 2013 Rainbow Awards for best lesbian historical romance and best lesbian debut novel. It earned the Golden Crown Literary Society’s General Fiction Award and Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award.

LISTEN TO AUDIO 
 

Library Resources:

Learn more about LGBT history and culture with the LGBT Studies in Video database. All you need is your Library card to get started.   

LGBT Studies in Video

The online Archives of Sexuality & Gender illuminates the experiences of not just the LGBTQ community as a whole but also individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations.

Archives of Sexuality & Gender

This page on our website lists a collection of LGBTQIA resources for the Kansas City community.

Kansas City Resources for LGBTQIA Community Members