LGBTQ2S+ Life, Culture and History
This summer update your reading, watching, listening lists to include stories of people from the LGBTQ2S+ community. For many LGBTQ2S+ folks, books, movies, tv shows and podcasts may be a resource they turn to for connection, understanding, and entertainment. These resources about the LGBTQ2S+ experience have the power to educateand empower their audiences, making us question what we take for granted in our relationships and social world. Queerness opens up possibilities to explore the relationship between desires, identity, and relationship, and disrupts the binary between biology and culture, and between men and women. This list provides readers the opportunity to learn about Queer Theory and to engage with personal experiences of coming out, self-discovery and creating an identity and community,, providing a vital opportunity for self-reflection and allyship for readers.
Reading
1. Joy at Work by Kondo & Sonenshein
The workplace is a magnet for clutter and mess. Who hasn't felt drained by wasteful meetings, disorganized papers, endless emails, and unnecessary tasks? These are the modern-day hazards of working, and they can slowly drain the joy from work, limit our chances of career progress, and undermine our well-being. There is another way. In Joy at Work, bestselling author and Netflix star Marie Kondo and Rice University business professor Scott Sonenshein offer stories, studies, and strategies to help you eliminate clutter and make space for work that really matters. Using the world-renowned KonMari Method and cutting-edge research, Joy at Work will help you overcome the challenges of workplace mess and enjoy the productivity, success, and happiness that come with a tidy desk and mind.
2. Queer Theory Now by McCann and Monaghan
This short textbook provides an introduction to queer theory, exploring its key genealogies and terms as well as its application across various academic disciplines and to contemporary life more generally. The authors engage with a wide range of developments in queer theory thinking including discussions of identity politics, transgender theory, intersectionality, post-colonial theory, Indigenous studies, disability studies, affect theory, and more. In offering an updated reflection on the present tensions that queer theory must negotiate, as well as its unfolding future(s), Queer Theory Now is an ideal resource for anyone starting out on their queer theory journey; for students who want to get a grasp of the basic concepts, for teachers looking for a textbook for their queer theory course, or for scholars who want a quick go-to resource for key queer theory ideas and terms.
3. Teaching to Transgress Bell Hooks
In Teaching to Transgress, Bell Hooks--writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual--writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal. Bell Hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom?
4. The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole
Both Cole’s activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We’re In. Puncturing the bubble of Canadian smugness and naive assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year—2017—in the struggle against racism in this country. It was a year that saw calls for tighter borders when Black refugees braved frigid temperatures to cross into Manitoba from the States, Indigenous land and water protectors resisting the celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, police across the country rallying around an officer accused of murder, and more.
5. Disrupting Queer Inclusion by Dryden and Lenon
Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging seeks to unsettle the assumption that inclusion equals justice. The contributors detail how the fight for acceptance engenders complicity in a system that fortifies white supremacy, furthers settler colonialism, advances neoliberalism, and props up imperialist mythologies. They do this by highlighting the uneven relationships produced by normative articulations of sexual citizenship in a wide range of contexts – in prisons, at Pride House, Pride marches, fetish fairs, and the feminist porn awards – as well as within the laws and regulations governing marriage, hate crimes, citizenship, blood donation, and refugee claims.
6. A Positive view of LGBTQ by Riggle and Rostosky
A Positive View of LGBTQ2S+ starts a new conversation about the strengths and benefits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ2S+) identities. Positive LGBTQ2S+ identities are affirmed through inspiring firsthand accounts. Focusing on how LGTBQ-identified individuals can cultivate a sense of wellbeing and a personal identity that allows them to flourish in all areas of life, the authors explore a variety of themes. Through personal stories from people with a variety of backgrounds and gender and sexual identities, readers will learn more about expressing gender and sexuality; creating strong and intimate relationships; exploring unique perspectives on empathy, compassion, and social justice; belonging to communities and acting as role models and mentors; and, enjoying the benefits of living an authentic life. Providing exercises in each chapter, the book offers those who identify as LGBTQ2S+ and those who support and love them, as well as those seeking to better understand them, an opportunity to explore and appreciate these identities.
7. Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer Stephanie Chambers and Jane Farrow 
Toronto is home to multiple and thriving queer communities that reflect the dynamism of a global city. Any Other Way is an eclectic and richly illustrated local history that reveals how these individuals and community networks have transformed Toronto from a place of churches and conservative mores into a city that has consistently led the way in queer activism, not just in Canada but internationally. From the earliest pioneers to the parades, pride and politics of the contemporary era, Any Other Way draws on a range of voices to explore how the residents of queer Toronto have shaped and reshaped one of the world’s most diverse cities.
Watching
1. Disclosure (Netflix)
Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen is a 2020 American documentary film, directed and produced by Sam Feder. The film follows an in-depth look at Hollywood's depiction of transgender people and the impact of their stories on transgender lives and American culture.
2. Legendary (HBO)
Pulling from the underground ballroom community, voguing teams, called "Houses," compete in dance challenges and showcase fashions for chance to win a cash prize. Divas will battle on voguing teams called "houses," with the chance to win a cash prize in ballsy fashion and dance challenges to ultimately achieve "Legendary" status.
3. Pose (FX)
Set in the 1980s, Pose is a dance musical that explores the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society in New York: the ball culture world, the rise of the luxury Trump-era universe and the downtown social and literary scene.
4. Special (Netflix)
Actor-writer Ryan O'Connell stars in this semi-autobiographical series based on his memoir. He plays Ryan, a gay man with cerebral palsy who decides to do away with his identity as an accident victim and go after the life that he wants. After years of dead-end internships, blogging in his pajamas and mainly communicating through text, Ryan figures out how to take his life from bleak to chic as he gets ready to start limping toward adulthood. O'Connell serves as an executive producer on the comedy series, along with "The Big Bang Theory" star Jim Parsons.
5. One Day at a Time (Netflix, Pop)
This comedy-drama is inspired by Norman Lear's 1975 series of the same name. This time around, the series follows the life of Penelope, a newly single Army veteran, and her Cuban-American family, as they navigate the ups and downs of life. Now a nurse, Penelope is raising two strong-willed children. When faced with challenges, Penelope turns to her "old-school" mother, and her building manager, who has become an invaluable confidant. The series offers a contemporary take on what life looks like in both good and bad times, and how loved ones can help make it all worthwhile.
6. Schitt’s Creek (CBC; Netflix)
When rich video-store magnate Johnny Rose and his family suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to leave their pampered lives to regroup in Schitt's Creek.
7. Hanna Gadsby - Nanette (Netflix)
Nanette is a live comedy performance written and performed by Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby, which debuted in 2017. The work includes social commentary, evocative speech punctuated by comedy and emotive narration of Gadsby's life, learnings and what her story offers to the world.
Listening
Still Processing is about how different cultural artifacts, past and present, affect how we relate to the world around us. Covering topics as varied as Beyonce at Coachella to BBQ in a quickly gentrifying Brooklyn, their chemistry and the intimacy of their discourse will hook you in.
2. LGBTQ&A: Roxane Gay: How to Write About Love
Roxane Gay talks about why it's so difficult to write about love and says that when it comes to writing about her own relationships, she doesn't do it. She prefers to keep "the best parts" of her life private. She also talks about being a "soft butch", her place in the queer canon, and her top-secret Channing Tatum project. LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine.
3. Season 1: Episode 1: Sylvia Rivera - Making Gay History | LGBTQ2S+ Oral Histories from the Archive
A never before heard conversation with trans icon, self-described “drag queen,” and Stonewall uprising veteran Sylvia Rivera. Sylvia relives that June 1969 night in vivid detail and describes her struggle for recognition in the movement.
4. OFTV 5: The Trans Howard Hughes One From the Vaults
On this episode of OFTV, we'll discuss the long life of eccentric FTM multimillionaire Reed Erickson - the architect of modern trans healthcare.
5. OFTV 18 - Stormé Weather: One From the Vaults
In this episode of OFTV, we take a look at the Black drag king at the centre of the Stonewall Rebellion. Long thought to have thrown the first punch, this butch spent her life defending the lesbian of the VIllage.
6. 1.01: Pilot (1 of 2): To L And Back: An L Word Podcast
On our very first episode of “To L and Back,” Kristin and Riese dig into our own relationships to this wonderful lesbian program and then plummet into The L Word’s first hour of groundbreaking television (with our leather bracelets on), in which Jenny moves to L.A. and Bette and Tina scour the town for viable sperm.
7. S4E1: Earning That Private Island (w/ Suze Orman): Bad With Money With Gaby Dunn
Gaby faces off with fellow queer money lady Suze Orman, to learn about how Suze got her start and eventually became one of the most successful financial gurus of our time. They talk about the basics of saving, about financial abuse, and about the sportfishing Suze enjoys... on her own private island.