Adult Non-Fiction

This list of reading resources to accompany North By Current was compiled by Veronda Pitchford of Califa Group, a non-profit library consortium, in San Francisco, California.

ADULT NON-FICTION

Anderson, Seth. LGBT Salt Lake. Charleston, South Carolina, Arcadia Publishing, 2017
LGBT Salt Lake recounts the history and survival of the LGBT community in Salt Lake City, Utah. From the early 1970s when a discernible "gay community" had emerged in Salt Lake City, laying the groundwork for future activism and institutions through the 1980s, amidst the devastation from the HIV/AIDS epidemic, marginalized communities valiantly worked to fight the disease and support each other. By the 1990s, LGBT Utahns had gained traction legally and politically with the formation of the first gay straight alliance at East High School and the election of the first openly gay person to the Utah legislature in 1998. In 2008, Salt Lake City’s transgender community became more visible in this new century that also included the community’s battle to gain marriage equality.

Bakker, Alex, et al. Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories. Calgary, Alberta Canada, University of Calgary Press, 2020
From the turn of the twentieth century to the 1950s, a group of transgender people on both sides of the Atlantic created communities that profoundly shaped the history and study of gender identity. By exchanging letters and pictures among themselves they established private networks of affirmation and trust, and by submitting their stories and photographs to medical journals and popular magazines they sought to educate both doctors and the public. The book draws on archives in Europe and North America to tell the story of this remarkable transatlantic transgender community. This book uncovers threads of connection between Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands to discover the people who influenced the work of authorities like Magnus Hirschfeld, Harry Benjamin, and Alfred Kinsey not only with their clinical presentations, but also with their personal relationships. Others of My Kind celebrates the faces, lives, and personal networks of those who drove twentieth-century transgender history.

Campbell Naidoo, Jamie, editor. Rainbow Family Collections: Selecting and Using Children’s Books with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Content (Children’s and Young Adult Literature Reference) by Naidoo, Jamie Campbell (2012) Hardcover. Santa Barbara, CA, ABC-CLIO, 2012
Research shows that an estimated 2 million children are being raised in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families in the United States; that the number of same-sex couples adopting children is at an all-time high; and that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) couples raising children live in 96 percent of all counties in the United States. Today's educators and youth librarians therefore need guidance in choosing, evaluating, and selecting high-quality children's books with LGBTQ content.

Gray, Mary, et al. Queering the Countryside. Amsterdam, Netherlands, Amsterdam University Press, 2016
The rural queer experience is often hidden or ignored, and presumed to be alienating, lacking, and incomplete without connections to a gay culture that exists in urban communities elsewhere. Queering the Countryside offers the first comprehensive look at queer desires found in rural America from a genuinely multi-disciplinary perspective. This collection of original essays confronts the assumption that queer desires depend upon urban life for meaning.

Kolk, Van Bessel der, MD. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Reprint, New York, NY, Penguin Publishing Group, 2015
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores numerous treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

Ostler, Blaire. Queer Mormon Theology: An Introduction. Newburgh, IN Common Consent Press, 2021
For most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its theology is only ever viewed through the authorized lens of Church Correlation. The book looks at the basic tenets of the religion through the eyes of a queer church member and starts with the premise that Mormon theology is inherently queer and always has been and, therefore, better suited than most religious traditions to embrace and celebrate the queerness of the individuals who, collectively, constitute the Kingdom of God.

Winfrey, Oprah, and Bruce Perry. What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. 1st ed., New York, New York, Flatiron Books: An Oprah Book, 2021
The book offers a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” to those who are experiencing trauma. In conversation throughout the book, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry focus on understanding people and behavior to create a subtle but profound shift in approach to trauma, to understand the past in order to clear a path to the future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.