LGBT+ History Month – an open access collection
February marks LGBT+ History Month in the UK, commemorating the repeal of Section 28, a law that prohibited the teaching or promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. Twenty-two years later and the theme for 2025 is ‘Activism and Social Change’, emphasising the progress made by the LGBT+ community and its allies in shaping positive social change for future generations.
To commemorate LGBT+ History Month, we’ve curated a collection of 40 books that celebrate and educate about LGBT+ history and achievement. To get you started, we’ve hand-selected five titles from this collection that represent a broad subject matter within the theme of ‘Activism and Social Change’.
1. Octavia Hill, Social Activism and the Remaking of British Society, edited by Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Cowell
Explore the life of Octavia Hill, one of School’s Out’s 2025 celebrated LGBT+ historical figures. Hill was an authority on enforcing positive changes in social housing and protecting Britain’s green spaces. As founder of the Army Cadet Force, co-founder of the National Trust and the first woman invited to sit on a royal commission, she initiated crucial changes in the twentieth century that are still relevant today.
2. Queer Reflections on AI, edited by Michael Klipphahn-Karge et al.
With AI being a key instigator for social change in 2025, this book explores how AI reflects and reproduces social norms and attitudes towards sexuality and gender. Explaining why queer theory is imperative in understanding AI, this is a future-forward read that provides thought-provoking theories on the role of AI in queerness, sexuality and social change.
3. Transgender and the Literary Imagination by Rachel Carroll
Looking back on trans narratives in literature, this text explores their lasting effects on society and how they have shaped, reconstructed and demonstrated gender understanding over the last century. With a foundation of feminist scholarship and queer theory reinforced by transgender studies, this title provides a deep insight into the representation of trans characters and its impact on evolving societal attitudes.
4. My Gay Middle Ages by A.W. Strouse
Strouse provides a light-hearted and often funny account of sexuality and how he uses medieval literature to make sense of everyday life. With Chaucer and Boethius as narrators to Strouse’s ‘gay lifestyle’, they describe ‘homo-medievalism’ as a playful methodology to replace queer theory in a fun and informal prose.
5. Queer-Feminist Punk by Maria Katharina Wiedlack
This feisty and informative book is reminiscent of the music it explores. Wiedlack transports us through the timeline of feminist punk rock in the US and Canada from its origins in the 1980s. With provocatively named chapters steeped in the ideology of antisocial theories, this book will grab your attention and leave you with an in-depth knowledge of activist movements in the feminist-punk space and how they’ve evolved since their conception.
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