Adult Nonfiction

By: Lindz Amer, 2023, Paperback

An essential guide for parents and caregivers to raising queer-friendly children in a gender-affirming space.

In the face of so many injustices across society for LGBTQ+ people, it can be easy for parents of young children to feel helpless and hopeless. While they may not be able to address every problem across the country, there's a simple place to start: right at home.

Rainbow Parenting is an indispensable stepping stone for adults who want to raise and teach kids in a queer and gender-affirming way, but might not know how. Lindz Amer, the creator of Queer Kid Stuff, an award-winning LGBTQ+ educational webseries for children and families, is an expert guide, leading readers through practical applications, important LGBTQ+ history, key lessons in intersectionality, pronouns, social justice, and more. Divided by sections that address kids' individual ages―from infancy to kindergarten―this joyful and approachable book shares a bit of hope and starts with the understanding that anyone can spread queer joy.

By giving parents and their kids a vocabulary to express themselves, Rainbow Parenting ultimately aims to create more empathetic adults―and spreads a message of radical acceptance in a world where it's sometimes dangerous to just be yourself.

By: Bruesehoff, Jamie (Author), Bruesehoff, Rebekah (Afterword), 2023, Paperback

Dare to dream of a church and a world transformed by the bold celebration of transgender and gender-diverse children. The debate around transgender children rages, with some Christians being the loudest voices against loving and supporting these young people. So, now more than ever, people of faith need to be grounded in God's call to love and affirm young people in who God created them to be. Raising Kids beyond the Binary bypasses the sound bites to give readers a vivid picture of who transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive young people are and what they need to thrive. Drawing on the author's experience as a mother walking with and learning from her own transgender child, as well as working with hundreds of families across the country doing the same, this book helps parents navigate the emotional, spiritual, and logistical landscape of raising a gender-diverse child. Grounded in the unequivocal truth of God's deep love and limitless creativity, this book compels readers to move past ""all are welcome"" to loving and celebrating transgender and gender-diverse youth in the brilliance of their uniqueness, the wisdom of their self-awareness, and the joy of their authenticity. Faith leaders and adults who work with youth will also find the book a helpful tool for gaining insight and building safer and more welcoming congregations for these children. Rich with personal stories, research, and practical steps, this book dares to dream of a church and a world transformed by the bold and joyful acceptance and celebration of transgender and gender-diverse children and youth. These children need us, and the world needs them.

By Samantha Allen, 2020, Paperback

A transgender reporter's "powerful, profoundly moving" narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states (New York Times Book Review), offering a vision of a stronger, more humane America.

Ten years ago, Samantha Allen was a suit-and-tie-wearing Mormon missionary. Now she's a GLAAD Award-winning journalist happily married to another woman.

By:  Gregory D. Smithers (Author), Raven E. Heavy Runner (Foreward), 2022, Paperback

A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender, sexuality, and resistance that reveals how, despite centuries of colonialism, Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations.

Reclaiming Two-Spirits decolonizes the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground in order to save them.

Before 1492, hundreds of Indigenous communities across North America included people who identified as neither male nor female, but both. They went by aakíí’skassi, miati, okitcitakwe or one of hundreds of other tribally specific identities. After European colonizers invaded Indian Country, centuries of violence and systematic persecution followed, imperiling the existence of people who today call themselves Two-Spirits, an umbrella term denoting feminine and masculine qualities in one person.

Drawing on written sources, archaeological evidence, art, and oral storytelling, Reclaiming Two-Spirits spans the centuries from Spanish invasion to the present, tracing massacres and inquisitions and revealing how the authors of colonialism’s written archives used language to both denigrate and erase Two-Spirit people from history. But as Gregory Smithers shows, the colonizers failed—and Indigenous resistance is core to this story. Reclaiming Two-Spiritsamplifies their voices, reconnecting their history to Native nations in the 21st century.

By: Noah Levine (Author), 2014, Paperback

Bestselling author and renowned Buddhist teacher Noah Levine adapts the Buddha's Four Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path into a proven and systematic approach to recovery from alcohol and drug addiction—an indispensable alternative to the 12-step program.

While many desperately need the help of the 12-step recovery program, the traditional AA model's focus on an external higher power can alienate people who don't connect with its religious tenets. Refuge Recovery is a systematic method based on Buddhist principles, which integrates scientific, non-theistic, and psychological insight.

Viewing addiction as cravings in the mind and body, Levine shows how a path of meditative awareness can alleviate those desires and ease suffering. Refuge Recovery includes daily meditation practices, written investigations that explore the causes and conditions of our addictions, and advice and inspiration for finding or creating a community to help you heal and awaken.

Practical yet compassionate, Levine's successful Refuge Recovery system is designed for anyone interested in a non-theistic approach to recovery and requires no previous experience or knowledge of Buddhism or meditation.

By: Juan-Carlos Perez-Cortes (Author), Amanda Foy (Translator), 2022, Paperback

One of the best-selling books on relationships in Europe during the last two years, studied and debated by consensual non-monogamy activists and polyamory discussion groups, has been translated and adapted here to bring to the English-speaking audience a less self-centered and more radical framework for sustainable interpersonal relations based on intense communication and free, conscientious commitments.


The proposal was born in Sweden in 2005, was developed over 15 years, and then this title was originally published in Spain in the spring of 2020. Since then, one edition after another has sold out (in 2023, the fifth Spanish edition will hit the bookstores), and translations into other languages and publishing projects in other countries have been released, showing that there was and still is a global need to know and understand alternative structures when it comes to relating to each other.


The most enthusiastic reception of this monograph has been in those communities already interested in these relational alternatives to the hegemonic monogamous system and groups more focused on lifestyle-politics activism of anti-patriarchal, anarchist and anti-capitalist inspiration. Reading sessions, analysis courses, seminars, and workshops of varied scopes, extensions, and approaches have been organized. Likewise, these topics have been collected in press articles, radio and TV programs, interviews, podcasts, and other digital and printed formats. This translation maintains most of the original content, adapting only the necessary contextual elements so that English-speaking readers can interpret the examples, references, comparisons, and anecdotes with greater familiarity.



The book's audience covers various profiles regarding age, gender, sexual orientation and preferences, geographical and socio-cultural origin, etc. One reason is that the work brings together both visions: political and relational. It historically structures the elements leading to the emergence of this framework, starting with the philosophical and political theoretical foundations, the freethought tradition, social developments, feminist, queer, sex-positive activisms, etc., while also addressing more personal aspects.


The feedback from readers suggests that this volume has inspired and helped them not to "feel like weirdos" and to have pride and confidence in their decisions and choices regarding relationships.

By: Lynee Lewis Gaillet (Editor), Helen Gaillet Bailey (Editor), 2019, Hardcover

An examination of women's work, rhetorical agency, and the construction of female reputation

Before the full and honest tale of humanity can be told, it will be necessary to uncover the hidden roles of women in it and recover their voices from the forces that have diminished their contributions or even at times deliberately eclipsed them. The past half-century has seen women rise to claim their equal portion of recognition, and Remembering Women Differently addresses not only some of those neglected―it examines why they were deliberately erased from history.

The contributors in this collection study the contributions of fourteen nearly forgotten women from around the globe working in fields that range from art to philosophy, from teaching to social welfare, from science to the military, and how and why those individuals became either marginalized or discounted in a mostly patriarchal world. These sterling contributors, scholars from a variety of disciplines―rhetoricians, historians, compositionists, and literary critics―employ feminist research methods in examining women's work, rhetorical agency, and the construction of female reputation. By recovering these voices and remembering the women whose contributions have made our civilization better and more whole, this work seeks to ensure that women's voices are never silenced again.

By: Louie Lauger (Author), 2022, Paperback, Illustrated

A lively, informative, and engaging guide to gender by an author-illustrator who helps readers understand the multiplicity of answers to “What even is gender?”

Queer, cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, androgynous, maverique, intergender, genderfluid. Louie and their cat (a.k.a. “Cat”) take you on a journey through the world of gender—without claiming to have it all figured out or knowing the perfect definition for this widely complex subject. Gender is tricky to understand because it’s a social construct intersecting with many other parts of our identity, including class, race, age, religion. For a long time, people thought of gender as binary: male/female, pirate/princess, sports/shopping. Now, we’re starting to understand it’s not that simple. That’s what this book is about: figuring out what gender means, one human being at a time, and giving us new ways to let the world know who we are.

Boy, girl, either/or, neither/nor, everything in between: gender is a spectrum, and it’s hard to know where you fit, especially when your position isn’t necessarily fixed—and the spectrum keeps expanding. That’s where Rethinking Gender can help: it gives you a toolbox for empathy, understanding, and self-exploration. Louie’s journey includes a deep dive into the historical context of LGBTQIA+ rights activism and the evolution of gender discourse, politics, and laws—but it also explores these ideas through the diversity of expressions and experiences of people today.

In Rethinking Gender Louie offers a real-world take on what it means to be yourself, see yourself, and see someone else for who they are, too.

Questions explored in Rethinking Gender include:

• What is cisgender? Dysphoria? Non-binary? Intersex? Intersectionality?
• Are sex and gender biological? Cultural? Social? Personal?
• What do race, religion, age, and education have to do with it?
• How do we recognize stereotypes, and what can we do about them?
• Do physical characteristics determine sex, and, if not, what does?
• How common is it not to fit in the box checked M or F?
• When is surgery or medical intervention called for, and who gets to decide?
• How have ideas about gender changed over time?
• What is gender identity, how do we know ours, and how do we talk to someone whose gender is different from our own?

By: Jane Sherron de Hart (Author), 2020, Paperback

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“A vivid account of a remarkable life.” —The Washington Post

In this comprehensive, revelatory biography—fifteen years of interviews and research in the making—historian Jane Sherron De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her meticulous jurisprudence.

At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs is her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to “repair the world,” with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II.

Ruth’s journey begins with her mother, who died tragically young but whose intellect inspired her daughter’s feminism. It stretches from Ruth’s days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School to Cornell University to Harvard and Columbia Law Schools; to becoming one of the first female law professors in the country and having to fight for equal pay and hide her second pregnancy to avoid losing her job; to becoming the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and arguing momentous anti-sex discrimination cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

All this, even before being nominated in 1993 to become the second woman on the Court, where her crucial decisions and dissents are still making history. Intimately, personably told, this biography offers unprecedented insight into a pioneering life and legal career whose profound mark on American jurisprudence, American society, and our American character and spirit will reverberate deep into the twenty-first century and beyond.

REVISED AND UPDATED WITH A NEW AFTERWORD

By: Melville House (Editor), 2020, Paperback

The newest entry in the increasingly popular series collects fascinating and in-depth interviews with Bill Moyers, Nina Totenberg, and more, and conversations (with Antonin Scalia and high school students) from throughout the long, ground-breaking career of one of the greatest, most influential, and most exciting legal minds in American history.

From her start in Depression-era New York, to her final days at the pinnacle of the American legal system, Ruth Bader Ginsburg defied convention, blazing a trail that helped bring greater equality to women, and to all Americans. In this collection of in-depth interviews -- including her last, as well as one of her first -- Ginsburg details her rise from a Brooklyn public school to becoming the second woman on the United States Supreme Court, and her non-stop fight for gender equality along the way. Besides telling the story behind many of her famous court battles, she also talks openly about motherhood and her partnership with her beloved husband, her Jewishness, her surprising friendship with her legal polar opposite Justice Antonin Scalia, her passion for opera, and, in one of the collection's most charming interviews, offers advice to high school students wondering about the law. It is, in the end, both an engrossing look into a fascinating life, and an inspiring tribute to an American icon.

By Catherine Connell, 2014, Paperback

How do gay and lesbian teachers negotiate their professional and sexual identities at work, given that these identities are constructed as mutually exclusive, even as mutually opposed? Using interviews and other ethnographic materials from Texas and California, School’s Out explores how teachers struggle to create a classroom persona that balances who they are and what’s expected of them in a climate of pervasive homophobia. Catherine Connell’s examination of the tension between the rhetoric of gay pride and the professional ethic of discretion insightfully connects and considers complicating factors, from local law and politics to gender privilege. She also describes how racialized discourses of homophobia thwart challenges to sexual injustices in schools. Written with ethnographic verve, School’s Out is essential reading for specialists and students of queer studies, gender studies, and educational politics.

By: Jessica Valenti (Author), 2017, Paperback

New York Times Bestseller

“Sharp and prescient… The appeal of Valenti’s memoir lies in her ability to trace objectification through her own life, and to trace what was for a long time her own obliviousness to it…Sex Object is an antidote to the fun and flirty feminism of selfies and self-help.” – New Republic

Hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the most visible and successful feminists of her generation,” Jessica Valenti has been leading the national conversation on gender and politics for over a decade. Now, in a memoir that Publishers Weekly calls “bold and unflinching,” Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes on women’s lives, from the everyday to the existential. From subway gropings and imposter syndrome to sexual awakenings and motherhood, Sex Object reveals the painful, embarrassing, and sometimes illegal moments that shaped Valenti’s adolescence and young adulthood in New York City.

In the tradition of writers like Joan Didion and Mary Karr, Sex Object is a profoundly moving tour de force that is bound to shock those already familiar with Valenti’s work, and enthrall those who are just finding it.

By: Jennifer Palmieri (Author), 2022, 

Take action and shatter the glass ceiling with this empowering and optimistic feminist guide from the #1 New York Timesbestselling author of Dear Madam President.

In an era marked by a frustrating sense of stagnation for women, Jennifer Palmieri has found a way to move beyond the bounds of
patriarchy. Building on the lessons shared in Dear Madam President, Palmieri argues that women have gone as far as they can in a world made for men, and it is time to break from it.

She Proclaims declares what most women know in their souls but have yet to say out loud-that they deserve something better than a life where men hold a vast majority of power and women continue to be undervalued. It is a manifesto for the second century of feminism that no longer chases a man's elusive path but proclaims the value, ambition, and emotion women have had all along to change their world by changing how they engage in it.

This book celebrates the accomplishments and history of the women's movement, and through personal reflections and stories of other inspirational female leaders, Jennifer shares concrete advice and insights she's learned from her journey out of a man's world that will inspire you to boldly chart your own course in life.

By: Jacob Tobia, 2019, Paperback

A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it's like to grow up not sure if you're (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.

As a young child in North Carolina, Jacob Tobia wasn't the wrong gender, they just had too much of the stuff. Barbies? Yes. Playing with bugs? Absolutely. Getting muddy? Please. Princess dresses? You betcha. Jacob wanted it all, but because they were "a boy," they were told they could only have the masculine half. Acting feminine labelled them "a sissy" and brought social isolation.

It took Jacob years to discover that being "a sissy" isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a source of pride. Following Jacob through bullying and beauty contests, from Duke University to the United Nations to the podiums of the Methodist church--not to mention the parlors of the White House--this unforgettable memoir contains multitudes. A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, and a hilarious guidebook for wearing tacky clip-on earrings in today's world, Sissy guarantees you'll never think about gender--both other people's and your own--the same way again.

By:  Audre Lorde, Foreword by Cheryl Clarke, 2007, Paperback

In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published.

These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is . . . ”