The 20 Best LGBTQ Books for Parents, Allies, and Queers Alike

Pam Skop, LMHC-D, CEDS-C, RYT, the founder of EveryBody Psychotherapy NYC, says, "Queer-inclusive sex education is an approach to teaching about bodies, relationships, puberty, sexuality, and sexual health that goes beyond a narrow, heteronormative and cisnormative model. You recognize that not all relationships are straight, not all gender identities are male and female, you see that families and relationships can look all different types of ways, and you use appropriate pronouns without assuming the identity of the person."

Ilana Grimes, a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist & Certified Sex Therapist and founder of Daily Therapy Dose in Los Angeles, emphasizes that, "For teenagers, [queer-friendly sex ed] is a health issue. The research connects the gap in queer-inclusive sex ed directly to worse health outcomes."

Jo Langford, the author of The Pride Guide: A Guide to Sexual and Social Health for LGBTQ Youth, understands this. Not only does the chapter regarding STIs outline the various infections and their symptoms and treatments, it also provides guidelines on how frequently kids should get tested depending on how many partners they have. The book covers other aspects of sexual safety such as online dating, porn, and sexual violence. Plus, it provides specific information regarding queerness with an entire section on coming out, with each chapter. 

We may not always think of the "birds and the bees" talk as sex-ed, but it is, and What Makes a Baby, by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth, describes conception in ways that include all types of families.

What Makes a Baby keeps things simple for the youngest of readers. It outlines that babies happen when a sperm meets an egg. It clarifies that some bodies have some reproductive body parts and others don't, without even mentioning gender or sex. By keeping the information bare bones, it leaves space for you to discuss with your kid how they were conceived regardless of your and your partner's identities and method of conception. Plus, the illustrations are captivatingly colorful, so it'll keep kids’ attention for a conversation that might otherwise get a bit boring.

Matt Grammer, LPCC-S, founder of Therapy Trainings, notes that sex education for little kids needs to be broad like What Makes a Baby. "For young children, it is important to be taught to use the proper names of bodies, to teach consent in terms of touch, to explain that families look different and that babies are created in a variety of ways, such as through adoption, surrogacy, reproduction, and donation."

If you are a trans person (or an ally of the community) looking for a book that answers pretty much any question you could possibly have about the trans experience, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource by and for Transgender Communities has you covered. This book, edited by Laura Erickson-Schroth, understands that sex education for trans people is a lifelong journey that impacts your life well outside the bedroom.

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves uses Our Bodies, Ourselves' structure, but its content is geared towards the trans community. The book is a behemoth. Its 704 oversized pages cover every trans-related topic you can imagine: sex, hormone therapy, history, workplace discrimination, intersectionality, aging, religion — you name it. It also includes short personal narratives written by trans people that reframe the information as more than a series of facts. Statistics are important, but stories are what stick with you when you close the book. 

If you're looking for a magical window into the experience of being a transgender teenage girl that doesn't shy away from tough topics, Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki, is for you. It’s the perfect gritty fantasy book for anyone wanting to read an unexpected story of queer resilience.

Light from Uncommon Stars focuses on two queer characters: Katrina Nguyen, a trans teen and violin prodigy who runs away from her unaccepting family, and Shizuka Satomi, a violin teacher who made a deal with a devil (literally) and falls in love with a donut-shop owning alien (yes, for real).

Once Katrina is taken in by Shizuka, we see her get to wear girl's clothing and live as her true self in an accepting home while also healing from her trauma — all while knowing that Shizuka intends to sell her soul to the devil.

Light from Uncommon Stars does something incredible: It shows that a queer person's trauma isn't necessarily the focal point of their lives. The fantasy in this story doesn't make Katrina's trauma palatable. It reveals how trauma impacts how we handle what life throws at us, no matter how absurd. 

The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern, puts a queer romance at the heart of an epic tale layered with metaphor and meaning. And queer representation is vital to queer mental health, according to Matt Grammer, LPCC-S: "Representation is a mental health issue, not just a cultural issue. When stories with representation are well-crafted and convey the dignity, nuance, and joy of LGBTQ people, to name a few, the mental health of LGBTQ people is positively influenced."

What makes the representation in The Starless Sea so impactful is that queerness is neither the center point of the story nor a mere sidenote. The book follows Zachary Ezra Rawlins as he discovers a magical library after finding a book in his graduate school library that includes a story that actually happened to him as a child. In the process, he falls in love with another man. Interspersed between the main plot are excerpts from the book Zachary finds in the library, which add metaphorical resonance.

Zachary's gay love story serves as the heart of a book that's about romantic love. By centralizing a gay love story, Morgenstern shows readers that queer love is no less magical than all of the other romances sprinkled throughout the text.

The Guncle, by Steven Rowley, is a great representation of how queer people can grow, change, and adapt to their families' needs while remaining true to themselves.

The Guncle tells the story of Patrick, a gay man who suddenly finds himself the temporary, primary guardian of his niece and nephew after their mother dies. Despite tackling the heavy subject of grief, the book bursts with humor that emerges as Patrick integrates the kids into his not-so-kid-friendly lifestyle.

Yet, what stands out about the book is that it's not about building unconventional queer families – even though those stories are valuable. Instead, we appreciated how Rowley dives into the ways that LGBTQ people fit into their preexisting, straight families. Patrick is in many ways the stereotype of a wealthy, gay, white man — he luxurates his days while living off the wealth he made while starring in a sitcom. But when he's forced to step up to the plate and support his nieces and nephews, he does so, without becoming any less gay.

This book is heartwarming, funny, and filled with snappy dialogue, making it a great option if you're looking for a book about what it means to be a gay family man.

Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family, by Garrard Conley discusses one of the most difficult topics for LGBTQ people – conversion therapy – with elegance and grace.

Despite the challenging subject, Conley maintains refinement throughout the text, keeping his writing calm. He even takes the steps to humanize the people who traumatized him, so that readers see them as full humans, not villainous caricatures – lending an important dose of reality to a horrific practice that still occurs to this day.

For those of us who will never experience the horrors of conversion therapy, understanding the experience and the beliefs that motivate it is vital to addressing the problem, especially since religious trauma isn’t limited to those who experience conversion therapy. According to Washington D.C. psychologist Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble, “Faith is a grounding presence for many queer youth, but faith communities do not always feel safe and welcoming so it is important to distinguish between the two.” If we want to grasp the harm that faith communities can cause, we must begin by humanizing their members.

Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family is a hard book to read, but it offers a holistic perspective on a difficult subject.

A key part to understanding LGBTQ people and our struggles is to know queer history. Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America, by Martin Duberman, outlines one of the most important moments in LGBTQ American history, the Stonewall Riots, while humanizing the activists who created it.

Duberman tells this story as well as the history that led up to the riots and the downstream effects. He maintains readers’ interest by offering multiple perspectives from those who participated, so you get an inside look at what it was like to live through that era while learning how real change is made. 

Healing the Oppressed Body: A Therapeutic Guide for Radical Self-Liberation, by Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik, addresses trauma, and how to heal from it, through a queer-specific lens.

The book's title is one of the key reasons we put it on this list. Ellen Ottman, LMFT, a licensed therapist in San Francisco, explains the connection between trauma and the body: "Over time, [trauma] can become embodied. It shows up in a person's thoughts as well as in their nervous system—in patterns of tension, hypervigilance, disconnection, or a difficulty accessing a sense of safety. Because of that, healing isn’t only about insight or understanding what happened. It also involves rebuilding a felt sense of safety in the body. That might look like slowly learning what safety actually feels like, practicing ways to come back into the body, and developing the capacity to stay present with yourself without becoming overwhelmed."

Gutiérrez-Glik understands this. Healing the Oppressed Body delves into how trauma can manifest in our bodies and how we can work with our minds and bodies to heal. Plus, the book does so through focusing on the types of trauma that specifically impact queer folks, mainly systemic discrimination. Many queer adults will see themselves in these pages and, through them, learn more about ways to heal.

David Sedaris is one of the top queer humor writers today, and The Best of Me is a collection of his best work, sampling from all of his books, including essays and short stories. It is the perfect introduction to Sedaris’ work.

I grew up listening to Sedaris, first on NPR, and then later on audiobooks my mom played during family road trips once she thought I was old enough for his more risque humor. No author makes me laugh harder. As I was discovering my queerness, Sedaris provided a roadmap to queer adulthood. Sedaris is gay, and his relationship with his husband Hugh often takes center stage. As a closeted teenager, hearing about a gay couple in a long term, loving relationship showed me that I could experience the same love my straight parents did.

Sedaris' humor blends self-deprecation with worldly criticism. The world is flawed. He is flawed. No one and nothing is above critique. Furthermore, he can work laughter into any story, whether it's about speech therapy, Fitbit obsession, or even his sister's suicide. When he writes about difficult subjects, Sedaris' goal remains to make you laugh. Humor isn't the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down – it’s the spoon that holds the sugar, medicine, and that stray cat hair you'll inevitably swallow. 

And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, has a simple, heartwarming lesson. It is the true story of two male penguins who fall in love and want to raise a chick together, a wish granted to them by a zookeeper who finds an egg needing to be adopted.

Although little kids are too young to understand romantic attraction and sexual desire, all they need to know about sexuality is that there is nothing wrong with boys loving boys and girls loving girls, and that parents are parents, regardless of their genders. And Tango Makes Three normalizes queer sexuality by placing it in the natural world. Penguins are going to love who they love. We don't need to rationalize it. We can't rationalize it even if we wanted to. All we can do is accept and celebrate it. And, at the end of the day, that's true for humans too, which is exactly what this story models. 

When a young child comes out as transgender, the whole family is impacted, including their siblings. So what makes My Sister, Daisy, by Adria Karlsson, a great picture book about gender is that it's written from the perspective of an older sibling.

Rachel Levine, LMFT, LSWA, CEAP, a supervisor at Guidelight Health, practicing in Boston, recommends direct explanations when discussing a siblings' gender identity: "Use clear, age-appropriate language and model respect. For example: ‘Your sibling has shared that they are [identity], and that means this is who they are.’ Normalize the conversation rather than framing it as something secretive or problematic. Encourage questions, but set boundaries around respect (e.g., using correct pronouns). Children tend to follow the emotional tone set by their caregivers."

My Sister, Daisy models this for parents and children alike. It is the story of Daisy's older brother learning who Daisy is in the context of a loving, accepting home. The book details the questions he asks Daisy, such as "'Is it just playing with girls that makes you want to be called a girl?" To which Daisy responds, “I don't want to be called a girl. I am a girl.” It also depicts other challenges that siblings of transgender children might face, such as Daisy's brother feeling like Daisy is getting all of the attention. It's an honest book about what it means for a young child to be transgender and what that means for the other children in their life. 

In his beautifully illustrated book Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales, Soman Chainani challenges gender roles by reimagining traditional fairy tales in a variety of ways, allowing older children to envision happily ever after.

One of the amazing things about fantasy is that it gives the author unlimited freedom to craft a new world, which Chainani takes full advantage of. He doesn't simply replace straight characters with queer ones, but twists the plots so that they feel more akin to the queer experience. My favorite story in the book is "Sleeping Beauty," which is about a gay prince who wakes up each morning covered in bite marks. The ending isn't a vision of queer freedom where the prince and his lover take the traditional roles of king and king. Yet, it's one more LGBTQ kids might be able to see themselves in, especially if they live somewhere where being openly queer isn't safe. (I won't spoil it though.)

Beasts and Beauty is probably the least queer book on this list because not all of the stories are about queer people. In my experience, this wasn't a drawback. Not only does it allow Chainani to explore topics such as race in new ways (Snow White isn't white), it also enables him to question the very message of some of these fairy tales altogether.

For example, in this version of "Beauty and the Beast," the beast dies because the princess doesn't recognize him when he becomes beautiful. The story ends, "To look at but not see. She is as guilty as the rest." The message isn't merely to look past the way people look, but that we also have to see the beauty in the way that people are, and not ignore the aspects that aren't conventionally attractive. For queer kids, especially trans kids whose bodies may not fit the conventional beauty standards, this understanding is key to self-acceptance. 

Too Bright to See, by Kyle Lukoff, tells an honest story of what it's like to realize that you are trans as a middle schooler.

Too Bright to See is about Bug, whose gay uncle dies the summer before they start middle school. Soon after he dies, mysterious things start happening in the old house where Bug and their mother live. Spoiler alert: it's his uncle’s ghost trying to help Bug realize that they are trans.

I've read this book twice. Each time, I cried in public. As a trans person myself, I have never read a more accurate portrayal of being a trans child. Throughout middle school and early high school, I experienced gender dysphoria without knowing what it was. I didn't know that I wasn't a girl. I didn't hate wearing dresses or squirm when I was misgendered, but something felt wildly off all of the time.

This is how Bug feels. They struggle to make friends. They feel as if all of the other girls were given some guide on how to be girls that they never received. They don't know that they're a boy until they wake up one morning with all of their hair cut off and see themself in the mirror. They don't know who they are until they can see it.

And that's what makes Too Bright to See such an incredible book. All of the books on this list feature fantastic queer representation, but Too Bright to See shows a young queer person at every step of their journey, providing a mirror that may help another LGBTQ kid realize who they are. Plus, it shows their relationship with another queer adult, their non-queer mother, and their best friend as they go through the coming out process (which goes quite smoothly). This can also help allies understand their role during a loved one’s coming out process.

Ultimately, Too Bright to See is a story of hope during grief and love during change.

Cemetery Boys, by Aiden Thomas, combines fantasy, transness, and romance, exploring queerness from multiple angles. The main character, Yadriel, isn't accepted by his family as a trans boy. To prove himself, he tries to free the ghost of his cousin through a sacred ritual. Instead, he accidentally summons "the school's resident bad boy," Julian. The two of them must figure out what happened to Julian to put his spirit to rest.

The book has rave reviews and has won multiple awards. Reviewers say that the book discusses some of the more difficult parts of being trans through Yadriel’s navigation of his unaccepting family, but this doesn't detract from the magical story and romance between Julian and Yadriel. The mystery keeps the book engaging, and the romance is heart-warming.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz, blends romance with a coming-of-age story that's sure to stick with readers well past the last page.

The novel follows Dante and Aristotle as they fall in love, struggle with their very different families, and navigate life as queer boys in the 1980s. One of the things that makes this book unique is that the boys' parents are key characters and the boys generally have a positive relationship with them. In most YA books, the adults are secondary unless they are negative. Queer kids deserve to read stories where LGBTQ kids have positive experiences with their parents, even if those parents aren't perfect (because parents never are). This book tackles tough questions, but remains gentle throughout, giving queer teens a safe space to engage in what it means to grow up. It’s a YA LGBTQ romance with a bit of bite.

If you're a parent whose middle schooler has just come out or your youngest jumped off the bus asking why one of their friends has two mommies, Rainbow Parenting: Your Guide to Raising Queer Kids and Their Allies, by Lindz Amer, is for you. This is a great introduction to queer parenting because it is an accessible guide to the basics of the LGBTQ world.

There's a small chance that you might recognize Lindz Amer's name. They're the creator and host of the YouTube channel Queer Kid Stuff, which is dedicated to educating young children about LGBTQ issues as well as intersectionality. (It features the most adorable queer teddy bear in existence.) Amer's book, on the other hand, is targeted to the parents of those children.

Rainbow Parenting gives parents the vocabulary they need to talk about queer issues with their kids, even if they themselves are new to exploring LGBTQ topics. It assumes you know nothing but can learn anything. So if you're overwhelmed by the sheer number of gender identities and sexualities out there but are dedicated to growing your understanding for the sake of your kids, Amer's Rainbow Parenting: Raising Queer Kids and Their Allies is the guidebook you need.

Since it’s a novel, This is How it Always Is, by Laurie Frankel, won't provide you with concrete steps as to how to raise a queer child. Instead, it is a representation of a family dealing with their young child coming out as trans, which makes it a very useful book for parents of younger kids who might be LGBTQ or have questions about gender and sexuality.

This is How it Always Is is about Penn and Rosie, who think they are the parents of five boys until their five-year-old says they want to be a girl when they grow up. They try to keep it a secret, fearing that the world won't be as accepting as they are. But eventually that secret comes out.

This novel is worthy of book-club-level discussion while also being funny and heart-warming. It engages in both the ordinary aspects of parenting and the extraordinary aspects of parenting a queer kid. And it's a book about love above all things.

If you have a young, queer kid and don't feel seen by the world, This is How it Always Is will remind you that you are not alone. 

Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, by Andrew Solomon, asks some of the biggest questions a parent can face: What do I do when my child is so different from me? How do I accept them for who they are while also encouraging them to grow?

Solomon manages to cover a wide breadth of topics without sacrificing depth. The book is over 900 pages long, bursting with empathy, research, and poignant insight. The New York Times even named it one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Our editor Hannah Owens, who read this book, agrees: “Far From the Tree is a deep dive into identity and relationships that is simultaneously careful and honest, understanding and probing, and nuanced and clear.”