SHELF CARE AT THE BLUE BENCH: JUNE READING LIST
Welcome to the Shelf Care reading list by The Blue Bench! Every month, we curate a reading list of books showcasing powerful voices and talented storytelling. These books delve into topics related to sexual assault, identity, trauma, healing, hope, community, and resilience.
The books highlighted in this month’s list are by authors who identify as LGBTQ+ in recognition of Pride Month. [TW/CW: These books may contain topics related to sexual assault, domestic violence, drug use, racism, violence, and other topics that may be triggering]
We are adding a special book every month, a banned book of the month. Books depicting sexual violence often get placed on banned book lists. We believe that silencing authors who’ve written about sexual violence perpetuates stigmas around the issue.
Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement
By Jennifer Patterson
This book is an anthology of stories and writings from queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming survivors, who have been engaging in anti-sexual violence work for decades. This collection centers their voices and stories, and makes connections from this anti-violence movement to disability justice, sex worker rights, restorative justice, racial justice, gender affirming care, and the prison industrial complex. Where many systems have failed queer and trans survivors, this anthology lifts them up and honors their voices and lived experiences.
Jennifer Patterson is a writer and creative who began her anti-violence work as a sexual assault crisis counselor. She currently focuses on creative outlines as a method of healing from trauma.
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
By Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith
This collection of essays brings together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics to understand how gender, race, ability, and sexuality interact under the prison system. A critique on the way policing, surveillance, and imprisonment affects the trans community, this book sheds light on a historically invisible topic.
Eric A. Stanley is a queer activist, academic and experimental filmmaker. Nat Smith is an activist, and a member of Trans/gender Variant in Prison Committee and is an organizer with Critical Resistance.
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
By Audre Lorde
This biomythography (a combination of history, biography, and myth) is about Lorde’s experience of intersectionality throughout her life. This book discusses the challenges of growing up in 1930s Harlem and being legally blind, fighting for dignity and basic rights in Jim Crow America, and finding love and strength in the New York City lesbian scene. Written as a love letter to the women in her life that have given her strength, this book is a celebration of the Black lesbian experience.
Audre Lorde is an iconic queer Black poet and activist. She is known for her technical skill and powerful emotional expression as a poet.
By Alison Bechdel
This graphic novel tells the story of the author’s dysfunctional relationship with her father as well as understanding her sexuality. This queer exploration of a broken and abusive home, suicide, and grief was a New York Times Bestseller. This graphic novel was also adapted into a musical.
Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist and author. Known for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, she found critical and commercial success with Fun Home. She is also known for originating the Bechdel Test.
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
By Randy Shilts
This book addresses how the AIDS epidemic happened, and how it was able to spread so far before being taken seriously in the American public. Shilts answers these questions by making it clear that the federal government put budget ahead of the nation’s welfare, and that health experts placed political relevancy ahead of addressing the public health crisis. This book both commemorates the heroes of science, public health, and the LGBTQ+ community, as well as an indictment on the institutions and systems that failed America.
Randy Shilts was one of the first openly gay journalists to write for a major publication. His writings focused on LGBTQ+ issues and the struggle for rights. Shilts’ work on And the Band Played On made Shilts a trusted expert on the AIDS epidemic.
BANNED BOOK OF THE MONTH
By James Baldwin
This classic novel explores sexuality and self-discovery. Set in 1950s Paris, an American who envisions himself with a typical conventional life struggles to repress his impulses. He proposes to a young American woman, and embarks on an affair with an Italian man, and is conflicted about his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two of them. Critics and readers agree that this book has helped them feel less alone, and helps guide through feelings of shame and isolation, while understanding the importance of love.
James Baldwin was an American writer and activist. He has had critical accolades across his work, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. Baldwin is known for writing on themes of fundamental human questions, social and psychological issues and complexities.
