Book List

Non-fiction

Title	Author	Restrictions*	Status
Queer Intentions	Amelia Abraham	None	Available
Queer City	Peter Ackroyd	16+	Available
The Life & Times of Butch Dykes	Eloisa Aquino	None	Available
Three Queer Lives	Paul Bailey	None	Available
Non-Binary Lives	Edited by Meg-John Barker, Kat Gupta, Jos Twist, Ben Vincent	None	Available
Hell Yeah, Self Care!	Meg-John Barker, Alex Iantaffi	None	On Loan
How to Transform Your School into an LGBT+ Friendly Place	Ellie Barnes, Anna Carlile	None	On Loan
Transgender People and Education	Clare Bartholomaeus, Damien Riggs	None	Available
Reasons to Live	Rikki Beadle-Blair	None	Available
What I Learned Today	Rikki Beadle-Blair	None	Available
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies Vol. 1	Edited by Genny Beemyn and Abbie E. Goldberg	None	Available
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies Vol. 2	Edited by Genny Beemyn and Abbie E. Goldberg	None	Available
Transgender Cinema	Rebecca Bell-Metereau	None	Available
Trans Mission	Alex Bertie	None	Available
Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years	N. O. Body	None	Available
decolonizing trans/gender 101	b. binaohan	None	Available
Queer Kinship and Family Changes in Taiwan	Amy Brainer	16+	Available
Karamo	Karamo Brown	16+	Available
Trans Britain	Edited by Christine Burns	None	On Loan
Welcome to Fairyland	Julio Capó Jr.	None	Available
After Eunuchs	Howard Chiang	16+	Available
Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific	Howard Chiang	16+	Available
Gears for Queers	Lilith Cooper, Abigail Melton	None	On Loan
Man-Made Woman	Ciara Cremin	16+	Available
Gender Euphoria	Edited by Laura Kate Dale	None	On Loan
Heterosexual Histories	Edited by Rebecca L. Davis, Michele Mitchell	16+	Available
What’s the T?	Juno Dawson	None	Available
The Red in the Rainbow	Hannah Dee	16+	Available
The Shape of Sex	Leah DeVun	16+	Available
Sapphic Slashers	Lisa Duggan	16+	Available
TERF Wars	Edited by Sonja Erikainen, Ruth Pearce, Ben Vincent	None	Available
The History of Sexuality: 1: The Will to Knowledge	Michel Foucault (Translated by Robert Hurley)	16+	Available
Forget Burial	Marty Fink	16+	Available
Blind to Sameness	Asia Friedman	None	Available
Histories of the Transgender Child	Jules Gill-Peterson	None	Available
Transgender Marxism	Edited by Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke	None	Available
Representing Queer and Transgender Identity	Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins	16+	Available
The Ambivalence of Gay Liberation	Craig Griffiths	None	On Loan
Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography	Edited by Blake Gutt and Alicia Spencer-Hall	None	On Loan
Queer Lovers and Hateful Others	Jin Haritaworn	16+	Available
Sporting Gender	Joanna Harper	None	Available
The New Woman	Emma Heaney	16+	Available
Berlin’s Third Sex	Magnus Hirschfeld (Translated by James J. Conway)	None	Available
Gender Trauma	Alex Iantaffi	None	Available
Testosterone	Rebecca Jordan-Young, Katrina Karkazis	16+	Available
Trans	Juliet Jacques	None	Available
Letters For My Brothers	Edited by Zander Keig and Megan M. Rohrer	None	Available
Growing Older as a Trans and/or Non-Binary Person	Jennie Kermode	None	Available
Ishtyle	Kareem Khubchandani	None	Available
Original Plumbing	Edited by Rocco Kayiatos, Amos Mac	18+	Available
Trans Like Me	CN Lester	None	Available
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister	Anne Lister (Edited by Helena Whitbread)	16+	Available
The Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell	Joseph Lobdell (Edited by Lisa Macchia Ohliger)	None	Available
Female Husbands	Jen Manion	None	Available
America Through Transgender Eyes	Lain A.B. Mathers, J.E. Sumerau	None	Available
Fanny & Stella	Neil McKenna	None	Available
Before Trans	Rachel Mesch	16+	Available
Towards a Gay Communism	Mario Mieli (Translated by David Fernbach and Evan Calder Williams)	16+	Available
Transgender Resistance	Laura Miles	None	Available
Camp TV	Quinn Miller	None	Available
Redefining Realness	Janet Mock	None	Available
Gender Politics	Surya Monro	16+	Available
nîtisânak	Jas M. Morgan	16+	Available
Conundrum	Jan Morris	None	Available
Marginalia	Juno Morrow	None	Available
50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology	Edited by Ann V. Murphy, Gayle Salamon and Gail Weiss	None	Available
After Queer Theory	James Penney	16+	Available
Queering Families	Carla Pfeffer	16+	Available
Symposium	Plato (Translated by Robin Waterfield)	None	Available
Can the Monster Speak?	Paul B. Preciado (Translated by Frank Wynne)	None	Available
Working with Transgender Young People and their Families	Damien Riggs	None	Available
Queer Sex	Juno Roche	18+	Available
Conditionally Accepted	Baker Rogers	None	Available
Trans Men in the South	Baker Rogers	16+	Available
Jane Crow	Rosalind Rosenberg	None	Available
Evolution’s Rainbow	Joan Roughgarden	None	Available
The Life and Death of Latisha King	Gayle Salamon	16+	Available
Assuming a Body	Gayle Salamon	None	Available
Whipping Girl	Julia Serano	None	Available
A Practical Guide to Searching LGBTQIA Historical Records	Norena Shopland	None	Available
You’ve Changed	Edited by Laurie Shrage	None	Available
Trans Medicine	stef m. shuster	None	Available
True Sex	Emily Skidmore	None	Available
Captive Genders	Edited by Nat Smith and Eric A. Stanley	16+	Available
Black on Both Sides	C. Riley Snorton	None	Available
Spectrums	Edited by Maxfield Sparrow	None	Available
Transgender History	Susan Stryker	None	Available
The Transgender Studies Reader	Edited by Susan Stryker, Stephen Whittle	16+	Available
We Both Laughed in Pleasure	Lou Sullivan (Edited by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma)	16+	Available
Ezili’s Mirrors	Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley	None	Available
The Trans Generation	Travers	None	Available
Beyond the Gender Binary	Alok Vaid-Menon	None	On Loan
Transgender Health	Ben Vincent	None	Available
Chemically-Enhanced Butch	Ty Bo Yule	16+	Available

Fiction

Title	Author	Restrictions	Status
Metabolize, If Able	Clay AD	16+	Available
A Natural History of Transition	Callum Angus	16+	Available
If We Shadows	D.E. Atwood	None	Available
Seraphita	Honoré de Balzac (translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley)	None	Available
Nightwood	Djuna Barnes	16+	Available
Maiden, Mother, Crone	Edited by Gwen Benaway	None	Available
Changers Book 1: Drew	T Cooper, Allison Glock-Cooper	None	Available
Wonderland	Juno Dawson	None	Available
Freshwater	Akwaeke Emezi	16+	Available
Pet	Akwaeke Emezi	None	Available
Darryl	Jackie Ess	18+	Available
Maurice	E.M. Forster	None	Available
F4	Larissa Glasser	18+	Available
Colour Scheme	John R Gordon	16+	Available
The Well of Loneliness	Radclyffe Hall	None	Available
On Hell	Johanna Hedva	16+	Available
Psycho Nymph Exile	Porpentine	18+	Available
Variations	Juliet Jacques	None	On Loan
The Thirty Names of Night	Zeyn Joukhadar	16+	Available
Tiny Pieces of Skull	Roz Kaveney	16+	Available
My Crunchy Life	Mia Kerick	None	Available
I’ve Got a Time Bomb	Sybil Lamb	18+	Available
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl	Andrea Lawlor	16+	Available
The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. Le Guin	16+	Available
Roving Pack	Sassafras Lowry	16+	Available
Rebecca	Daphne du Maurier	None	Available
An Accident of Stars	Foz Meadows	None	Available
A Tyranny of Queens	Foz Meadows	None	Available
Under the Pendulum Sun	Jeannette Ng	16+	Available
Fairytales for Lost Children	Diriye Osman	None	Available
Documenting Light	EE Ottoman	None	Available
Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz	Ely Percy	None	Available
Detransition, Baby	Torrey Peters	16+	Available
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones	Torrey Peters	16+	Available
Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)	Hazel Jane Plante	16+	Available
Little Fish	Casey Plett	18+	Available
The Seep	Chana Porter	16+	Available
Monsieur Vénus	Rachilde (translated by Melanie Hawthorne)	16+	On loan
City of Night	John Rechy	18+	Available
LOTE	Shola von Reinhold	None	Available
Lullaby of Birdland	Emma Renault	18+	Available
Confessions of the Fox	Jordy Rosenberg	18+	Available
If I Was Your Girl	Meredith Russo	None	Available
7 Minutes	Paul Van Der Spiegel	18+	Available
Trans Deus	Paul Van Der Spiegel	18+	Available
Virus	Linda Stupart	18+	Available
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars	Kai Cheng Thom	16+	Available
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous	Ocean Vuong	16+	Available
Gaudy Bauble	Isabel Waidner	None	Available
We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff	Isabel Waidner	None	Available
The Picture of Dorian Gray	Oscar Wilde	None	Available
Small Beauty	Jia Qing Wilson-Yang	None	Available
Orlando	Virginia Woolf	None	Available

Poetry

For chapbooks, see here.

Title	Author	Restrictions	Status
We Want It All	Edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel	None	Available
The Black Flamingo	Dean Atta	None	Available
For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin	John Barton	None	Available
luxury, blue lace	S. Brook Corfman	None	Available
My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites	S. Brook Corfman	None	Available
Belated Bris of the Brainsick	Lucas Crawford	None	Available
Clouds Cannot Cover Us	Jay Hulme	None	Available
Charred	Andreena Leeanne	16+	Available
ZOM-FAM	Kama La Mackerel	16+	Available
Lyric Sexology Vol. 1	Trish Salah	16+	Available
it was never going to be okay	jaye simpson	None	Available

Comics

Title	Author	Restrictions	Status
Come Together	Edited by Alex Assan, Tab Kimpton	18+	Available
Love is Love	Edited by Sarah Gaydos, Jamie S. Rich	16+	Available
Orange Plates	Eve Greenwood	None	Available
Ambrosia	Edited by Tab Kimpton, Jade Sarson	18+	Available
Minority Monsters	Tab Kimpton	None	Available
Shades of A	Tab Kimpton	18+	Available
Sir, Butler & Boy	Tab Kimpton	18+	Available
The Nightingale and the Rose	Jem Milton	None	Available
Nimona	Noelle Stevenson	None	Available
Wolvendaughter	Ver	None	Available
The Beechwood Helm	Letty Wilson	None	Available

Anthology

Anthologies featuring works in multiple genres.

Title	Author	Restrictions	Status
Sista!	Edited by Rikki Beadle-Blair, John R Gordon and Phyll Opoku-Gyimah	None	Available
The Literature of Lesbianism	Edited by Terry Castle	None	Available
Creating in Crisis	Edited by Peter Collins	None	Available
F, M or Other	Edited by Nathaniel Kunitsky, Rhiannon Tate	16+	Available
Queer	Edited by Frank Wynne	None	Available

Chapbooks, Plays, Zines, Etc.

You may request up to two of these items in addition to a book.

Title	Author	Type	Restrictions	Status
Love, Pan-fried	Gray Crosbie	Flash Fiction Collection	16+	Available
Burgerz	Travis Alabanza	Play	16+	On Loan
Overflow	Travis Alabanza	Play	16+	On Loan
Poppies	Noel Greig	Play	16+	Available
Sew Keighley Pride	Edited by ICLS, Keighley Pride, Bradford District Council	Magazine	None	Available
Queering the Map of Glasgow	Edited by Nathaniel Kunitski	Magazine	None	Available
National Geographic: Gender Revolution	National Geographic	Magazine	None	Available
Queer Zine Library Year 1	Queer Zine Library	Magazine	None	Available
Fourteen Poems: Issue 1	Ben Townley-Canning	Chapbook	None	Available
Fourteen Poems: Issue 2	Ben Townley-Canning	Chapbook	None	Available
Fourteen Poems: Issue 3	Ben Townley-Canning	Chapbook	None	Available
Fourteen Poems: Issue 4	Ben Townley-Canning	Chapbook	None	Available
Fourteen Poems: Issue 5	Ben Townley-Canning	Chapbook	None	Available
Femme in Public	Alok Vaid-Menon	Chapbook	16+	Available

About GCLL’s Restricted Books

We restrict access to some of our books, typically by user age due to the presence of sexual content. We do this very carefully. The decisions are made case by case by GCLL administration.

We expect many of our users to be teenagers. This is because teenagers can find it harder to gain access to queer content, whether because they cannot travel to libraries alone, or because they live with parents who are not accepting of their gender or sexual orientation. We don’t believe it is reasonable to expect many – or any – younger children to find and use this website. Our decisions are made with this in mind.

While most teenagers with internet access have been exposed to far more explicit content than GCLL provides access to, there are laws around ‘obscene’ publications and whom they can be provided to. Similar projects to GCLL are often harassed by anti-transgender hate groups. Many of these groups have the funding and inclination to take us to court. We have to balance trying to provide the very best service that we can, with trying to remain online. For that reason, although we don’t believe that restricting access to books containing sexual content is helpful to teenagers, we do so. Our guidelines are as follows:

Sexual education books that are appropriate for teenagers will NEVER be restricted. It’s important to us that young people can find open, honest answers to questions about sex. This includes texts providing details around transgender medical treatments and surgeries. Even where minors are not currently provided with these treatments in the UK, it’s important that all people are allowed to consider transition, for as long as they need, with access to accurate information.

Likewise, we will never restrict access to novels written with a teenage audience in mind. These books can be found in the teen fiction section of libraries and bookshops across the country.

Novels with some sexual content and non-fiction that examines sexual experiences from an academic perspective, will typically be restricted to users aged 16+. For example, the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a widely acclaimed, semi-autobiographical story about a young Vietnamese-American gay man. It contains a sex scene, descriptions of violence, and discussion of drug use. But, we don’t regard it as inappropriate for 16-18 year olds, and neither do the schools that teach it in their English classes. The sex scene is brief and non-explicit, and neither violence or drug use are glorified. We are happy to lend this book to any users aged 16 or over.

Similarly, the non-fiction book Queering Families is classed in our collection as 16+. This is because it discusses the sex lives of transgender men and their feelings around their genitals – in very little detail. The book is informative, not explicit.

Should we stock texts that are explicit guides to partnered sex, these will be restricted to 18+ users. Likewise, novels written for adults with explicit sex scenes will be classed as 18+. An example currently in our collection is Confessions of the Fox.

Again, we don’t want to give the impression that we believe that this content to be disgusting, inflammatory or offensive. Sex is an ordinary, important part of the lives of most queer people, and queer sexuality in particular has been stigmatised and villified for centuries. We are proud to stock texts about queer sexuality. However, it is just as important to us that GCLL can remain online, and this involves preventing minors gaining access to some works.

We hope you understand our reasoning. If you have any queries around why a specific text is classified the way that it is, contact us.