The term "LGBTQ+" covers a wide breadth and diversity of people. Expressions of sexuality and gender have taken myriad forms through history and around the globe. This guide is meant to give you a quick introduction to the extensive resources the Butte College Library has to offer on all aspects of LGBTQ+ people, history, and culture.
Find more by searching from the library home page with terms such as sexual minorities, bisexuality, or transgender, and combining them with other terms like history, art, health, activism, or whatever you need. Remember that library catalogs are developed over time, and you may need to use terms that are not the most current, but which reflected practices when they were developed. Keep in mind also that there are many perspectives on these topics and it is a library's job to make those perspectives available for study, not to judge their correctness.
We subscribe to over 50 databases that collect articles, reference materials, ebooks, and videos for you to access. Here are a few good databases to try out when searching for articles on LGBTQ+ history and culture.
This link opens in a new windowJournals, magazines, and newspapers throughout history to the present. Includes information from government sites such as the Library of Congress and historical societies.
This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new windowOnline streaming of academic related videos.
This link opens in a new windowCross-cultural and ethnographic database that contains descriptive information on all aspects of cultural and social life. The information is organized by cultures and ethnic groups.
This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new windowLibraries and museums all over the world now offer digitized collections, so you can see historical and artistic treasures from where you are. Explore some of these online exhibitions of gay history:
The Silence = Death Project was founded in 1987 and became a major part of ACT UP's campaign for AIDS awareness and education.
ENGL-26 Queer Film and Literature
This course examines representations of "queer" sexuality and identity in films and literary texts ranging from turn-of-the-century works that encode homosexuality in an assortment of ways to contemporary works that explore a variety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally and pansexual (LGBTQ+) identities. This course emphasizes the diversity of perspectives on homosexuality and gender that may be found in twentieth-century film and literature, and highlights how texts by self-identified LGBTQ+ authors have responded and contributed to U.S. culture and history.
SOC-14 Sociology of Gender
This course is a sociological analysis of the social construction of masculinity and femininity historically and cross-culturally. It examines the debates on sex and gender. It analyzes the impact of economic and political change on gender expectations and practices. It focuses on macro-analysis of how institutions and culture shape gender and micro-analysis of how individuals are socialized and how they "do" and practice gender.
(Poster for National Coming Out Day 1988. Pictured: James Baldwin, Willa Cather, Errol Flynn, Michelangelo, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Cole Porter, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bessie Smith, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf.)
From Oakland Museum of California's collection of political posters. Too Much Graphics 1978. Small inscription reads "The pink triangle was used to identify the thousands of gay people who died in concentration camps in Nazi Germany."
Top image (modified) by Sergio Carabajal from Pixabay
The library offers a wide variety of books and ebooks on LGBT+ topics, both factual and fictional. Here are just a few of them. If there is a call number listed, it's a physical book in the library, and the link will give you more information. If there is just a link in the title, click it to access the ebook directly.
We have included just a few novels/graphic novels here, only because there isn't enough room for everything. The library has many, many LGBTQ+ novels; come in and find them!
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (2 vol) by 
Dreadnought by 
To My Trans Sisters by 
Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World by 
Beyond Trans: does gender matter? by 
Born Both: An Intersex Life by 
The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate by 
The Essential June Jordan by 
A single section of the AIDS memorial quilt. Each one contains eight panels, each 6' x 3', the size of a grave. The quilt now has nearly 50,000 sections honoring over 110,000 people who have died of AIDS. This panel features several red ribbons, which are a symbol of AIDS awareness and solidarity.
The original Pride flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, and contains eight stripes: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art/magic, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit.
