Books

A classmates-to-friends-to-lovers romance that's equal parts raunchy, heartfelt, queer, and Mexican-American, centered on college football (the REAL football)!

Gabriel Piña knows who he is: a college goalkeeper, a future Liga MX or MLS star, and definitely straight. He’s starting his freshman year with a lot of eyes on him and even more potential, but he’s got this. Nothing will have him straying off the path to greatness.

That is, until his philosophy classmate Vale volunteers to tutor him. Vale, the same guy who Gabi, in a moment of history repeating itself, might’ve kissed very briefly—and only once—just to help him out at a party. Vale, the smart, supportive, compassionate new friend with beautiful brown eyes and a smile that keeps Gabi, for completely inexplicable reasons, constantly in a daydream.

As a friendship blooms and the two spend more and more time together, Gabi finally begins to recognize something about himself: maybe he’s not as straight as he thought he was. But a larger and darker realization lingers. Someone like Gabi—a brown, Mexican futbolista with dreams of playing for El Tri—can’t also be bisexual. He’s seen the way his teammates and community react to queerness in their sport. It would be the exact type of straying off path that destroys his future.

Or, maybe Gabi could be brave enough to embrace all those parts of himself and forge his own path, one that includes a boyfriend and the beautiful game.

A sports romance for those who keep rewatching Bend It Like Beckham and rereading Red, White & Royal Blue and the incredible collection of queer soc—football romances out there, Futbolista follows the first semester of one guy's freshman year of college, navigating who he is, who he’s allowed to be, and who he wants to be.

“Vélez stuns with her corporeal descriptions and baroque literary allusions. This is a knockout.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From NYC-based Colombian writer Fátima Vélez comes debut novel Galapagos, following a group of bohemian artists who are dying of AIDS as they embark on a surreal final voyage through the Galapagos Islands, their bodies cloaked in the skins of the dead.

Lorenzo is a painter who doesn’t paint. He spends his days watching Jeanne Moreau films, luxuriating in his partner Juan B’s bed, and swapping letters with his lovers. Then, one day, his nail falls off. Then another nail, then all of them. Thus begins a journey of decomposition that carries him from Colombia to Paris, from Paris to the French countryside, and on a final journey to the Galápagos Archipelago.

As they cruise the islands on a custom-made ship, Lorenzo and his friends and lovers drink, swap stories, and feast gluttonously, even as their bodies succumb to an unspeakable disease. In this contemporary plague novel, rife with pathos and humor, ailing bodies are torn between desire and decay, lust and friendship, creativity and destruction. Vélez revolutionizes the novel form, pushing language to its extreme as she tests the limits of how we understand illness, sexuality, the body, and what it means to make art in the face of our own mortality.

The book that started it all! USA TODAY bestselling author Rachel Reid's beloved Game Changers series starts here, with a secret-relationship romance set in the world of professional hockey.

New York Admirals captain Scott Hunter takes his pregame rituals very seriously. When a particular smoothie precedes Scott's breaking his on-ice slump, he’s desperate to recreate the magic…and to get to know the sexy, funny guy behind the counter.

Kip Grady knew there was more to Scott’s frequent visits than blended fruit, but he never let himself imagine being invited back to Scott’s penthouse. Or kissed with reckless abandon—and more. What goes on between them is hot, incredible and frequent…but also only on Scott’s terms and always behind his closed apartment doors.

Scott needs Kip in his life, but with playoff season approaching, the spotlight on him is suddenly brighter than ever. He can’t afford to do anything that might derail his career or the public’s image of what a hockey captain should be. Kip is ready to go all in with Scott—but how much longer will he have to remain a secret?

Need more Reid? Don't miss The Shots You Take—a sweet and sexy hockey romance about two ex-best friends with benefits who are about to discover whether you can ever really have a second chance. Available now!

Game Changers

Book 1: Game Changer
Book 2: Heated Rivalry
Book 3: Tough Guy
Book 4: Common Goal
Book 5: Role Model
Book 6: The Long Game

In the 1990s, a South Carolina town built its first botanical garden. For a small town, that was big news. For a small Southern town, that it was led by two gay men and a feminist was astounding.

Their lives and plant choices raised eyebrows as the Garden became a national showcase for new styles, even earning recognition on HGTV's "Secrets of Great Gardens."

One of the young men, Jenks Farmer, had previously left the conservative South but returned with a mission: to challenge traditional notions of garden beauty, which clung to formality and associated certain plants with stigmas of poverty and race.

These Garden Disruptors challenged genteel social norms of race, homophobia, and sexism while shoveling compost, searching for plants, and planting flowers. The crew of creative misfits built a garden that attracts millions of people today.

In this novel-like true story, Jenks Farmer's soulful voice shares the story of a mismatched crew of real, dirty-handed gardeners who not only planted the garden but set its mission.

Through these characters, Jenks also recounts the history of elitist horticulture, of sexual and racial discrimination in gardens, and of how social norms changed drastically in the South during the period of garden buildings.

A ten-page resource zine on current and accessible abortion care. Topics in this little zine include: How to find a reputable clinic in your area, how to fund your abortion, hotlines for counseling, and much more. All in a very easy-to-read format that is suitable for everyone with hand-drawn illustrations.

A 12 page zine packed with different herbs that assist the female reproductive system and recipes for how to use herbs to manage uncomfortable symptoms relating to PMS, periods, pregnancy, and perimenopause. Herbs can be powerful when used correctly and can also nourish the body in all its life stages. This is a great little hand-illustrated primer on herbal care!

This zine is not too long, but full of helpful information on how to get through an uncomfortable medical procedure like a champ. It also touches on art therapy, aftercare, and creating good habits of self care. Hand-drawn illustrations and the entire zine is in black and white.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN AWARD FOR POETRY

A collection of poetry reclaiming Catholic prayers and biblical passages to empower girls, women, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

The extreme level of sass in Emily Austin's Gay Girl Prayers does not mean that this collection is irreverent. On the contrary, in rewriting Bible verses to affirm and uplift queer, feminist, and trans realities, Austin invites readers into a giddy celebration of difference and a tender appreciation for the lives and perspectives of "strange women."

Packed with zingy one liners, sexual innuendo, self-respect, U-Hauling, and painfully earnest declarations of love, this is gayness at its best, harnessed to a higher purpose and ready to fight the powers that be.

By:  Marni Brown, Baker A. Rogers, & Martha Caldwell, 2022, Paperback

Create a more gender-inclusive climate in your classroom and school. This important book breaks down issues of gender and sexuality at the individual, interactional, and institutional level and shows how you can cultivate an atmosphere of acceptance and belonging for all students.　

You’ll learn key concepts and terms educators need to know to support students, how gender and sexuality identities develop and influence mental health, why we should take an intersectional approach with students, and the importance of creating psychological safety in the classroom. You’ll also gain practical suggestions on how to disrupt unconscious bias, represent diverse voices, counteract microaggressions, use gender-neutral language and preferred pronouns, address gender bullying, provide safe zones, and craft inclusive school statements. Each chapter contains examples, anecdotes from teachers and students, best practices, and resources to help you along the way.

Appropriate for educators of all grade levels, this book’s clear, helpful advice will help you ensure that your students feel visible, affirmed, and safe, so they can thrive in school and beyond.

Help kids make sense of who they are and how they feel with this illustrated guide to understanding and answering questions about gender. 

What is gender and what does it mean to you? What are ways people express their gender? What if you don’t feel like the gender everyone says you are? This new resource is here to help kids make sense of who they are and how they feel.
 
As you grow up, you receive lots of messages about gender. Most kids start to define their own gender identity as early as age four! But what if the messages you receive don’t seem to describe you? What if the things you like don’t match who people say you are? What if you don’t even know what gender you are?
 
From the illustrator behind What Are Your Words? and other books on gender and personal identity, comes a resource for all kids, of any gender. This fun, heavily illustrated chapter book explains the basics of gender identity—what it is, what it means, and how to support yourself and others no matter who you are.

By: Kate Bornstein, 2016, Paperback

“I know I’m not a man ... and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a woman, either.... The trouble is, we’re living in a world that insists we be one or the other.” With these words, Kate Bornstein ushers readers on a funny, fearless, and wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity.

On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein’s transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female, from a self-described nonbinary transfeminine diesel femme dyke who never stops questioning our cultural assumptions.

Gender Outlaw was decades ahead of its time when it was first published in 1994. Now, some twenty-odd years later, this book stands as both a classic and a still-revolutionary work—one that continues to push us gently but profoundly to the furthest borders of the gender frontier.

This groundbreaking and inspiring collection of dozens of our most original trans voices is an essential exploration of gender today

"Smart, sexy, and entertaining."--Jack Halberstam

Transgender narratives have made their way from the margins to the mainstream and back again, and today's trans and nonbinary people, genderqueers, and other sex/gender radicals are writing a drastically new world into being.

Edited by the original gender outlaw, Kate Bornstein, together with writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, Gender Outlaws collects and contextualizes the work of this generation's trans and genderqueer forward thinkers--new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world's most respected publications.

Gender Outlaws includes essays, commentary, comic art, and conversations from a diverse group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

2020 ALA Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

"It’s also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." — SLJ (starred review)

For readers of What Fresh Hell is This? and Next Level, a queer, gender-affirming guide to navigating menopause—find gender euphoria, learn how to advocate for your healthcare, and empower yourself

Prompts, tools, and expert wisdom for living well through menopause and beyond

The diverse menopause experiences of nonbinary, trans, and other queerbodied individuals have been overlooked—and actively invisibilized—for far too long. Genderqueer Menopause is an indisputable and empowering resource for those navigating symptoms and seeking gender-affirming care during the menopause transition.

Author, menopause doula and coach, and genderqueer educator Lasara Firefox Allen, MSW, pushes back against the norms of mainstream menopause care, asserting that menopause should not—and will not—be suffered in silence. They help you:

* Gain tools to enhance your awareness of premenopausal, perimenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal life

* Reframe negative beliefs and internalized bias

* Push back against heteronormative medical standards of care

* Manage symptoms like brain fog, sleep problems, and genitourinary and menstrual changes

* Hear from the voices of trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people

* Demystify menopause and define your own experience

Allen’s perspective centers the genderqueer experience and the community’s needs from an affirming frame. Genderqueer Menopause challenges conventional narratives surrounding menopause and guides readers through this life transition using practical resources and exercises.

Genderqueer Menopause is a powerful resource for gender expansive folx to empower themselves, find relief, and gain support. Menopause can be a time of both grief and celebration for many of those in the trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer communities. Use this book to ease the process and live well.

Part activist memoir, part crash course in Jewish and Palestinian history, Genocide Bad dismantles Zionist propaganda and maps a course towards collective liberation in ten unapologetic essays.

Part activist memoir, part crash course in Jewish and Palestinian history, Genocide Bad dismantles Zionist propaganda in ten unapologetic essays. Drawing connections between Biblical promises and exploding pagers, medieval dress codes and modern-day apartheid, Kern sketches a sweeping history of imperialism with their characteristic blend of far-ranging research, pop-culture insights, and scathing humor.

Kern, a former teacher, journalist, novelist, and book influencer, gained international recognition as an anti-Zionist Jewish activist in the days after October 7th, 2023. At a time when social media was flooded with “I Stand with Israel” posts, Kern started sharing content encouraging their followers to read Palestinian books, learn Palestinian history, and question Western reporting on Palestine—videos which went viral into tens of millions of views.

Despite facing hate messages, death threats, and exile from the Zionist Jewish community, Kern has remained steadfast in their advocacy over the past year. They’ve posted daily videos on Palestinian, Jewish, and colonial history, and they’ve raised over $500,000 in direct aid for families in Gaza—all while navigating the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting a newborn. In Genocide Bad, Kern reflects on the life experiences that led them to anti-Zionist activism, while capturing and expanding upon their online educational content.

Kern doesn’t flinch when confronting the horrors of genocides past and present, but there is also tremendous hope contained in these pages—hope that springs from examples of courage and resilience in the face of extreme violence, and from the kinds of resistance that might just lead to our collective liberation.