The best books on queer movement building

Are any of the books I’ve selected International Studies texts? Let’s debate that later! This one was published in a Feminist Media Studies list. 

This book illuminates and humanizes the connections between activists working for LGBTQ rights and activists working for immigrant rights. Chávez foregrounds insights from women of color. It was one of the first academic books I read during my doctoral work that helped me understand how to bridge movement insights with political theory while staying committed to the activists I write about.

Chávez takes care in her work, always taking the continuing urgency of the coalitional queer and migrant politics seriously.

While I was getting my PhD at the University of Massachusetts – Boston, Chávez came to our campus and gave a talk. I was inspired by how connected her work is to the movements she writes about, and I aim to do the same.

You get exactly what’s on the tin with this one, and from an insider’s vantage point.

Thoreson uses an ethnographic approach to look at how Outright (formerly the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) works in both the United States, where the group is headquartered, and through regional offices.

Thoreson shows us how movements behave, and with a critical eye to the role of Global North actors in these relationships. I was especially interested to hear about this idea that certain actors can behave as "brokers" to promote and translate certain human rights ideas. I see this practice among those who queer peace and security by building coalitions across gender justice movements.

Working for human rights of any kind is messy work. Long-term activism depends on very specific people and personalities to make meaningful change. This book's ethnographic research illuminates these transnational relationships.

What a gift of a book.

This book is a foundational text in Black women’s studies and includes the statement by the Black lesbian feminist Combahee River Collective, which just celebrated 50 years. In the statement, they write, "We believe that sexual politics under patriarchy is as pervasive in Black women's lives as are the politics of class and race."

I appreciate the book because it shows the rich history of Black women’s writing and movement building, including the important role of Black lesbian feminist sisterhood. It was so exciting to read the letter written by Lorraine Hansberry to the lesbian periodical The Ladder in 1957, in which she links homophobia to the sexual oppression experienced by all women. I can’t help but scribble in the margins: see, lesbians have always been here! 

Although queer organizing is so often presented as something that is new or emerging, this book challenges that simple view through a robust anthology of American Black lesbian feminist work. It also serves to remind us that, as Black American lesbian feminist Audre Lorde says, none of us lead single-issue lives.

This book, perhaps the most straightforwardly peace and conflict book on my list, looks at the global queer Palestinian solidarity movement.

Atshan writes, "if we pay close attention to them, it becomes clear that the activists sustaining the queer Palestinian movement along with other queer Palestinians attempting to lead their everyday lives have been engaged in compelling epistemological work to make sense of their experiences and to communicate those insights to one another and to the world."

I value this book because it considers the complexity of how queer Palestinian activists engage in boycotts and education campaigns about sexuality while also confronting campaigns of Pinkwashing from Israel. Atshan shows how queer Palestinians are refusing Zionism on their own terms, in the face of empire.

Although this is often overlooked, activists can also be perpetrators of violence and engage in racist and queerphobic behavior.  

The book highlights transformative and restorative justice approaches to community accountability, drawing on examples from reproductive justice, sex work alliances, and disability justice. The approaches to community accountability are queer and trans-led and prioritize people of color as experts in defining safety and security.

There is so much I learned from this book, including how to offer grounded resources through accessible writing. I appreciate how the book shows that community accountability is possible, and that we must always look within our own communities to understand the harm we are personally responsible for first, before being able to support anyone else.