Celebrate LGBTQIA+ History Month: What to Read & Watch

In addition to Halloween, October serves as LGBTQIA+ History Month. It’s been observed since 1994, when Missouri high school teacher Rodney Wilson believed his students deserved the opportunity to learn about queer role models. LGBTQIA+ history is actively being erased by those in political power, making learning about queer history into rebellion. Teaching, learning, and knowing queer history builds community and serves as a reminder to stand with civil rights.

No matter your age, October presents a perfect opportunity to learn about LGBTQIA+ history. Refresh yourself on the facts, arm yourself with knowledge. Queer history is under attack.

As of 2025, LGBTQIA+ History Month is observed in thirty-three countries:

  • UK (February)
  • Spain (February)
  • Hungary (March)
  • Netherlands (March)
  • Israel (March)
  • Italy (April)
  • Germany (May)
  • France (June)
  • New Zealand (July)
  • USA (October)
  • Canada (October)
  • Romania (October)
  • Australia (October)
  • Cuba (October)
  • Sweden (October)
  • Norway (October)
  • Denmark (October)
  • Iceland (October)
  • Greenland (October)
  • Estonia (October)
  • Latvia (October)
  • Lithuania (October)
  • Armenia (October)
  • Cambodia  (October)
  • Vietnam (October)
  • Myanmar (October)
  • Singapore (October)
  • Thailand (October)
  • Malaysia (October)
  • Indonesia (October)
  • Philippines (October)
  • Uganda (October)
  • Finland (November)

Being included in the above list DOES NOT mean that the country officially endorses LGBTQIA+ History Month. In 2026, it’s expected that Brazil and Venezuela will participate in their own celebrations.


Why is LGBTQIA+ History Month in October?

In the United States, LGBTQIA+ History Month is celebrated in October to coincide with National Coming Out Day on October 11th. Since the US was the first country to begin observing LGBTQIA+ History Month, many other countries use October for their own celebrations. 

So, why is October 11th National Coming Out Day? NCOD was first celebrated in 1988 due to it being the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Approximately 750,000 people joined in Washington DC in 1987 alongside ACT UP at the Supreme Court building to vocalize dissent against the Reagan administration’s reaction to the AIDS epidemic.


Five Films for LGBTQIA+ History Month

Paris Is Burning (1990)

Queer culture was heavily impacted by the ballroom scene in New York City, an underground subculture amongst gay and transgender Black and Latino Americans seeking a community to express themselves during the 1980s. Paris Is Burning was THE documentary that chronicled an aspect of queer history that would have otherwise been completely forgotten.

There aren’t many lists that don’t recommend Paris Is Burning. Most folks see RuPaul’s Drag Race and assume that’s the extent of drag culture – but drag has a complex history that NYC’s ballroom scene mixed into. Competing houses, chosen family, the freedom to transgress gender roles, and perform. At the same time, Paris Is Burning showcases critical aspects of the time, such as the AIDS crisis and the woes of being a sex worker in impoverished New York City.

Paris Is Burning centers on the generation following Stonewall. Over a decade before, queer people were rioting in rebellion to police corruption, mafia takeovers, and political malice. Some things changed, some things didn’t.

Gay USA (1977)

Best accompanied with Before Stonewall (1984), Gay USA was filmed entirely on June 26, 1977, to document pride celebrations throughout the United States. Camaramen recorded demonstrations in San Diego, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New York City in response to the murder of Robert Hillsborough.

Gay USA memorializes the time between Stonewall and the AIDS crisis, when the LGBTQIA+ community was beginning to receive organized backlash from figures like Anita Bryant. Anita and other anti-gay activists were compelled by Stonewall to advocate for the repeal of anti-discrimination laws that were fought for during the 1960s. History takes two steps forward, one step back – which resonates today.

Different from the Others (1919)

Anders als die Andern, or Different from the Others, is the oldest gay film – although we nearly lost it to history. It was produced during the Weimar Republic as a silent melodramatic film (common for the time period), presenting an interesting story between two men being blackmailed through Paragraph 175. It even stars Magnus Hirschfeld (who also helped write the film)! If you want to know about queer culture during the Weimar Republic, check out Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (2023).

Part of Different from the Others *is* lost to history. When the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, they purposely sought out and destroyed documentation, research, and media that referenced queer identities. The film was burned and believed forgotten until a partially destroyed copy was discovered in the early 2000s. The film was reconstructed and shortened to preserve as much of the plot as possible, which is how it exists today in its abridged version.

Individuals rising to power and then removing mention of LGBTQIA+ identities. Sound familiar? History rhymes, so we should take note.

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

Using 700 hours of archived footage, How to Survive a Plague explores the early years of the AIDS crisis. It was a frightening time when LGBTQIA+ people were dying, believed they were going to die, and the government was telling them that they deserved to die.

How to Survive a Plague follows the actions of ACT UP and TAG, the most prominent AIDS activist organizations during the time period that fought for recognition, humanity, and research. The United States government didn’t feel it was worth finding a cure or treatment for HIV, forcing individuals to either pay $10,000 per year out-of-pocket for medication that merely slowed its progression or seek underground drugs from overseas.

If you’re looking for something more fun, RENT (2005) is a film adaptation of the Broadway production that centers on a group of friends struggling to survive during the New York City AIDS crisis despite exorbitant rent and medication costs.

Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

Brandon Teena was a real transgender man who was raped and murdered in rural Nebraska. Boys Don’t Cry is a fictional adaptation of his story – Brandon found himself in Nebraska after running into trouble with the law, believing he had a chance to start fresh as authentically himself with new friends and a chosen family.

As a film, Boys Don’t Cry emphasizes the brutality that LGBTQIA+ people experienced. The murders of Brandon Teena, Matthew Shepard, and Robert Hillsborough were some of the hallmark cases that led to anti-discrimination laws that outlaw anti-queer hate crimes.

This is likely the most jarring film on the list. Read its triggers before viewing.

Boys Don’t Cry is a fictional account of a real story. For greater detail regarding Brandon and his story, watch The Brandon Teena Story (1998).


Five Books for LGBTQIA+ History Month

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

Bronski’s 2011 book is perhaps the best piece of media to become acquainted with LGBTQIA+ American history. It covers the entirety of queer history in the United States, spanning from before 1492 to the book’s publication. Gay people have always existed, but few films focus on history before Stonewall.

A Queer History of the United States details gay pilgrims, sodomy laws,  crossdressing Civil War soldiers, and the purity culture that shaped America. Most of its information is relatively broad (Jonathan Ned Katz’s Gay American History is considerably more detailed, but also extremely dense), which makes it a great starting point to introduce readers to LGBTQIA+ history.

Transgender History by Susan Stryker

Just as with gay men and lesbians, transgender people have existed as long as humans have had concepts related to gender. Transgender History by Susan Stryker is essentially a trans-focused version of Michael Bronski’s book.

In just 200 pages, Stryker overviews major events and individuals that led us to today. In other words, Stryker’s work (which was published in 2008) is the most in-depth book that covers transgender history in the United States. There isn’t a 1000-page “Transgender American History.” There might be someday, but not yet.

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

In the 1980s, journalist Randy Shilts took it upon himself to document the discovery and spread of HIV/AIDS – even though other journalists weren’t doing so at the time. This book is best read alongside How to Survive a Plague to give a comprehensive account of the political landscape LGBTQIA+ people were fighting in the 1980s. And the Band Played On was produced into a film adaptation in 1993; How to Survive a Plague was originally a movie that was later made into a book in 2016.

And the Band Played On centers on the premise that the United States government was intentionally indifferent to the suffering of LGBTQIA+ people victimized by AIDS. Due to the federal government failing to fund research and treatment options, the US allowed the spread of HIV to exponentially increase into a crisis.

How to Survive a Plague follows the actions of groups like ACT UP and TAG, but both books are valuable when considering this time period. And the Band Played On is considerably older (it was published in the midst of the AIDS crisis and helped cement international attention). It drew criticism from academic and scientific communities that refused to believe they were complicit in the AIDS crisis by failing to act. 

Others argue that Shilts shouldn’t have called Gaëtan Dugas “Patient Zero” since it normalized the idea that gay men were overtly infectious, since Dugas intentionally continued to have unprotected sex after being told he had contracted HIV. Dugas was one of the first major cases in North America leading up to the AIDS crisis, but he wasn’t Patient Zero. On the other hand, Shilts was writing during the crisis – so the book is a product of its time. In his point of view, as likely the view of many other queer people at the time, Dugas should have used protection when having sex with others once he had learned he had HIV. Dugas was still a victim. Both statements can be true.

Whipping Girl by Julia Serano

There are a LOT of great books regarding gender theory and feminism. Stone Butch Blues, The Second Sex, Bad Feminist, The Feminine Mystique, Women, Race & Class, Gender Trouble, and Feminism Is for Everybody are just a few – and all of those books inspired the creation of Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl.

Before Serano’s book, feminist academia wasn’t particularly friendly to transgender scholars. This history still matters – feminism has not always had a history of being inclusive or intersectional, which is why TERFs still exist today and dominate some feminist spaces. Whipping Girl criticized mainstream feminist circles for failing to stand with transgender people, cementing the reality that transgender struggles are part of the general feminist movement leading up to the third wave.

The Lavender Scare by David E. Johnson

Many Americans are aware of the insane war that Senator Joseph McCarthy waged by charging government officials, agencies, and everyday Americans as communists during a time period when there was hardly anything worse you could be. The Red Scare is taught as a core part of US history to public school students, emphasizing how the national government engaged in a wrongful witch hunt in the 1950s.

Fewer people know of the Lavender Scare, which occurred at the same time. McCarthy made unsubstantiated claims that the federal government was also compromised by homosexuals who posed just as much of a national security threat as communists did. David E. Johnson’s The Lavender Scare chronicles this legacy and how Joseph McCarthy managed to bar LGBTQIA+ people from jobs in the public sector by associating them with the USSR.

Queer History YOU Should Know #1
During the Middle Ages, individuals assigned female at birth would occasionally live socially as men in monasteries (monachoparthenoi). While these transgender men weren’t open about their identities, it was the most socially acceptable way they could express themselves in Medieval Europe.

Some of these monks, such as Saint Marinos and Anastasia the Patrician, were even later canonized as Catholic saints – although the Vatican isn’t too willing to refer to these individuals as men.


Five Podcasts for LGBTQIA+ History Month

Making Gay History

Making Gay History has produced *14 seasons* worth of content, which might make it the longest-running LGBTQIA+ podcast. Their last episode aired in April, but it’s a fairly safe bet to assume season 15 will air in a few months once their writers have had a break.

The podcast covers a variety of topics, but most of its episodes center on individuals who played significant roles throughout LGBTQIA+ history. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Vito Russo, Larry Kramer, Magnus Hirschfeld, Bayard Rustin – the list goes on.

Closeted History

Originally started to help teachers include LGBTQIA+ topics into their lesson plans, the creators behind Closeted History were led to hosting weekly trivia that eventually became their current podcast. The series is produced by educator Destiny Clarke, aiming to showcase queer and transgender history largely forgotten or ignored by history books.

Bad Gays

These days, LGBTQIA+ history is being more frequently included in larger narratives – even if it’s not commonly taught yet. Academics are finally interested in unearthing queer stories! That’s generally a good thing.

Bad Gays explores the lives of not-so-great queer people throughout history. While historians are getting around to admitting figures like Alexander the Great, Audre Lorde, and Shakespeare were gay, they avoid remembering the stories of queer people who lived less than remarkable lives. 

Thus, Bad Gays explores LGBTQIA+ people who are forgotten by other academics due to being criminals, deviants, or generally unethical. It’s a great addition to folks already knowledgeable on LGBTQIA+ history since it reaffirms the fact that, since queer people are people, we range along the morality spectrum. Bad Gays *isn’t* recommended for people new to LGBTQIA+ history.

History is Gay

Leigh Pfeffer and Gretch Jones produced a wealth of content until the podcast History is Gay was eventually retired in 2023. It’s one of the most listened to pieces of media on queer history, alongside Making Gay History and Queer as Fact, and covers a TON of topics in hour-long monthly segments. History is Gay won’t be receiving any new episodes, but it covers topics unlikely to be found elsewhere.

Queer as Fact

Although Queer as Fact is based in Australia, it has reliably produced two seasons of episodes per year. Topics span the entire world, so you’ll get a good education in not just American and European history (like most sources focus on), but also LGBTQIA+ stories from China, Haiti, Nigeria, Mexico, and Iran. Like Making Gay History, you’ll continue to get new content if you find yourself hooked on Queer as Fact

Queer History YOU Should Know #2
Stonewall was a critical turning point for LGBTQIA+ history that led to increased visibility, acceptance, and rights. However, the story on what exactly happened that night in 1969 is just as much folktale as fact.

There are multiple conflicting accounts regarding Stonewall. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were influential figures behind the events leading up to Stonewall as well as organizing the masses later into action – but Marsha herself stated she never threw the first brick. Stonewall also didn’t happen because queer people were made over the death of Judy Garland: Stonewall was the consequence of repetitive police raids on gay bars despite LGBTQIA+ people already blackmailed by the NYC mafia for protection.


Five Video Series for LGBTQIA+ History Month

Jessica Keligren-Fozard

Most known for her videos on disability awareness, vintage fashion, and LGBTQIA+ history, Jessica has created content on YouTube since 2011. Her channel has a series of both queer history shorts and long video-essay style videos to appeal to folks with short and not-so-short attention spans. 

Jessica’s content is also great for teaching disability allyship and intersectionality since disability inclusion is still overwhelmingly ignored in social justice spaces.

Kaz Rowe

Kaz is both a cartoonist and YouTuber, maintaining their ongoing webcomic while producing relatively eclectic videos. In short, they love history – their videos are detailed and explore topics like the Middle Ages, Victorian period, and everything in between. Pirates, monks and knights, cowboys, and the industrial revolution – what more could you ask for?

Powered by Rainbows

Even though Powered By Rainbows is geared towards schools, its content is detailed and versatile. The channel has a large team that allows it to post several times each week. The website behind Powered By Rainbows is also a fantastic resource, extensively covering LGBTQIA+ in easy and accessible courses.

It is also worth noting that Powered By Rainbows is more than just a history channel. Generally, the channel focuses on LGBTQIA+-related news but it also produces content related to queer history and theory.

The Book of Queer

This video series was produced in five parts by Discovery+ in 2022, but it’s extremely well-made and engaging. The Book of Queer is partially available to watch for free on YouTube, bringing LGBTQIA+ history on screen with reenactments and interviews that make otherwise dry content too boring to be interesting.

As a comedy documentary, The Book of Queer is fun to watch. Its humor is becoming increasingly dated, however, due to the high use of queer slang popular in 2022.

Rowan Ellis

Similar to Powered By Rainbows and Kaz Rowe, Rowan Ellis’s content tends to be eclectic – she’s been uploading content to YouTube since 2014 regarding LGBTQIA+ issues, feminism, Autism, and polyamory – and plenty more. Rowan’s videos are well-researched, and while more of her content centers on queer media, art is an important aspect of history.


No matter what format you prefer your content, there’s something out there to get you more acquainted with LGBTQIA+ history. Make the active goal this October to spend time with one of these pieces and find yourself a bit more educated by next month.

Next week, I’ll be covering other ways to learn about LGBTQIA+ history in-person and virtually.