Heather Has Two Mommies is a children's book written by Lesléa Newman with illustrations by Diana Souza. First published in 1989, this story was one of the first pieces of LGBTQ+ children's literature to garner broad attention. While the book is often noted as the first lesbian picture book, Jane Severance's book, When Megan Went Away, also has lesbian characters and debuted ten years before Newman's.
Noreen Stevens is a Canadian cartoonist, who illustrated and wrote the lesbian comic strip The Chosen Family. Her work in the field of comics began in 1984. The Chosen Family is featured in the ensemble comic book Dyke Strippers: Lesbian Cartoonists from A to Z alongside the likes of Diane DiMassa and Alison Bechdel.
Dorothy Allison is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Lesléa Newman is an American author, editor, and feminist. Four of her young adult novels have been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, making her one of the most celebrated authors in the category.
Gay literature is a collective term for literature produced by or for the gay community which involves characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying male homosexual behavior.
CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and communities. Housed at the Graduate Center, CUNY, CLAGS sponsors public programs and conferences, offers fellowships to individual scholars, and functions as a conduit of information. It also serves as a national center for the promotion of scholarship that fosters social change.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Crown Literary Society</span> American [[nonprofit]] organization](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/GCLS_logo_RGB.jpg/320px-GCLS_logo_RGB.jpg)
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In the post-Stonewall era, the role of libraries in providing information and services to LGBTQ individuals has been a topic of discussion among library professionals. Libraries can often play an important role for LGBTQ individuals looking to find information about coming out, health, and family topics, as well as leisure reading. In the past 50 years, advocate organizations for LGBTQ content in libraries have emerged, and numerous theorists have discussed various aspects of LGBTQ library service including privacy concerns, programming, collection development considerations and librarian/staff education needs, as well as special services for juvenile and teen patrons.
Becky Birtha is an American poet and children's author who lives in the greater Philadelphia area. She is best known for her poetry and short stories depicting African-American and lesbian relationships, often focusing on topics such as interracial relationships, emotional recovery from a breakup, single parenthood and adoption. Her poetry was featured in the acclaimed 1983 anthology of African-American feminist writing Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Barbara Smith and published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She has won a Lambda Literary award for her poetry. She has been awarded grants from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to further her literary works. In recent years she has written three children's historical fiction picture books about the African-American experience.
The portrayals of bisexuality in the media reflect societal attitudes towards bisexuality in the existing media portrayals. Throughout history, numerous bisexual characters have appeared in television series, including cartoons, anime, video games and web series, along with literature, comics, radio, and other mediums.
Asha's Mums is a children's book written in 1990 by Michele Paulse and Rosamund Elwin and illustrated by Dawn Lee focusing on the topic of same-sex parents. Due to the subject matter, the book has been extremely controversial with a mixed critical reception, leading to a legal case in British Columbia over an attempt to ban the book.
Bisexual literature is a subgenre of LGBT literature that includes literary works and authors that address the topic of bisexuality or biromanticism. This includes characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying bisexual behavior in both men and women.
When Megan Went Away is a 1979 children's picture book written by Jane Severance and illustrated by Tea Schook. It is the first picture book to include any LGBT characters, and specifically the first to feature lesbian characters, a distinction sometimes erroneously bestowed upon Lesléa Newman's Heather Has Two Mommies (1989). The book, published by the independent press Lollipop Power, depicts a child named Shannon dealing with the separation of her mother and her mother's partner, Megan.
X: A Fabulous Child's Story, written by Lois Gould, was first published as a short story in the magazine Ms. in 1972 and republished by Daughters Publishing as a picture book in 1978 with illustrations by Jacqueline Chwast. The book tells the story of X, a child raised as part of an experiment to keep its gender unknown to everyone but its parents and the scientists conducting the experiment.
The Dragon and the Doctor is a 1971 picture book written and illustrated by Barbara Danish. The story concerns a dragon with a sore tail who goes to see a doctor. The Dragon and the Doctor was the first book published by the Feminist Press. The publisher's founder, Florence Howe, had not initially planned to produce children's literature but a notification by a third party in a feminist newsletter that the press would be publishing children's books drew significant interest. Thus convinced, Howe enlisted Danish to adapt the Chinese picture book I Want to Be a Doctor into a new story with a female doctor protagonist.
It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School is a 1996 American documentary film directed by Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen. It provides educators with information on how to teach elementary schoolchildren to be tolerant of gay and lesbian people. The film was noted as the "first of its kind" and was generally well received, although there was some backlash from conservatives. It was released in several film festivals, and had screenings in the 2000s.
The Disney Channel, which launched in 1983, Disney XD, which began in 2009, Disney Junior, which launched in 2011, and shows on Disney+, along with the short-lived Toon Disney, have all occasionally featured lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) characters in their programming.
Ruth Fuller Field, also known by her pen name Mary Casal, was an American writer known for writing The Stone Wall, the first known autobiography of a lesbian woman in the United States.
Jane Severance is an American author of children's literature and an educator. She has published three books for young readers, including her first work, When Megan Went Away (1979), the first children's picture book to include LGBT characters.
Lollipop Power, Inc. was a nonprofit American independent publisher of children's books. Based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the group emerged from a culture of feminist organizing as an outgrowth of a discussion group in 1969 or 1970. Operating as a publishing collective of a rotating cohort of around 10 members, the press published non-sexist, non-racist picture books for children to counter depictions of gender-stereotyped roles in mainstream children's books.
