February is LGBTQ+ History Month in the UK. Read more to find books and resources to celebrate and learn about LGBTQ+ History.
LGBTQ+ History Month Themes
2023 “Behind The Lens”
The theme of LGBTQ+ History Month for 2023 is “Behind The Lens” and one of the many aspects of queer creativity – from the first known lesbian love poetry of Sappho to the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age – that we showcase in The LGBTQ+ History Book is filmmaking.
Since the early 20th century, LGBTQ+ filmmakers have used cinema to dispel prejudice and stereotypes and portray LGBTQ+ characters as complete, rounded human beings.
In The LGBTQ+ History Book, you’ll meet directors such as Austrian Richard Oswald, whose 1919 film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others) was the first to portray gay characters in a positive light; German Rosa von Praunheim, whose 1971 It is Not The Homosexual Who is Perverse, But the Society In Which He Lives spearheaded the formation of more than 50 gay rights groups in West Germany; and Liberian American Cheryl Dunye, whose 1996 The Watermelon Woman explores the experiences of a young Black lesbian.
The “Behind the Lens” theme of 2023's LGBTQ+ History Month also encourages us to consider how LGBTQ+ lives are represented in the media and appreciate the depth and breadth of people’s lived experiences.
View The LGBTQ+ History Book
The LGBTQ + History Book
View BookPublished in April 2023, The LGBTQ+ History Book explores more than 100 of the most significant moments and movements in LGBTQ+ history.
It’s all too easy to just think of LGBTQ+ history as something that only happened relatively recently and in the Western world. While The LGBTQ+ History Book includes important 20th-century protest movements such as the Stonewall Uprising and modern-day triumphs such as marriage equality and more inclusive blood donation laws, it also looks much further back into the past – from the earliest evidence of same-sex relationships and gender fluidity in ancient Egypt to depictions of same-sex partners in the Kama Sutra.
Celebrating the LGBTQ+ experience all over the world, The LGBTQ+ History Book tells the stories of LGBTQ+ activism in Latin America, Asia, and Africa; male love in Edo Japan; same-sex narratives in Urdu poetry; Two-Spirit people, and many more people, identities, and communities.