As we transition from Black History Month to Women’s History Month, we continue to center BIPOC experiences and their intersections. Today, we give you a list of book recommendations by BIWOC (Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color) within the topics of sexuality and gender. With our guided activity at the end, you can compare messages between the books with a friend. Let us know what you come up with!
Sonya Renee Taylor
Black, queer author, poet, speaker, humanitarian, founder of The Body Is Not An Apology movement
The Body Is Not An Apology investigates systems of bodily-based oppressions inside and outside ourselves to discover new worlds of justice through radical self-love
Fatima Asghar
South-Asian American, queer, Muslim poet, filmmaker, educator, and performer
If They Come For Us is a collection of poems navigating coming of age, sexuality, race, and belonging. Exploration into how violence is passed down across generations
Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Colville Confederated Tribes member, author, lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos
As Long as Grass Grows approaches environmental justice by centering Indigenous activism, leadership, wisdom, and highlights historical tensions with modern environmental movements
Mireille Miller-Young
Historian, author, Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, studies race, gender, and sexuality in US history
A Taste for Brown Sugar interviews with women in the adult entertainment industry since the 1980s that expands discussion of Black women’s sexuality to include their eroticism and desires
Elizabeth Martínez (1925 - 2021)
American Chicana feminist, community organizer, activist, author, educator, explored race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and overlapping oppressions
De Colores Means All of Us represents a radical Latina perspective on the growing movements around race, identity, exploitation, and liberation
Angela Chen
Author, Senior editor at Wired Magazine, former staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Vox Media's The Verge, and MIT Technology Review
Ace invites readers to rethink sexual activity, pleasure, intimacy, societal pressures, consent, and demystifies misconceptions around asexuality
adrienne maree brown
Black feminist, post-nationalist writer, doula, creator, activist, social justice facilitator
Pleasure Activism challenges us to rethink the rules of activism by building new narratives about how politics can feel good from climate change, to race and gender, to sex and drugs
Expand Your Mind!
Choose one of the books and have a friend read another.
Come back together and discuss:
What challenged you?
How do the perspectives differ?
Who’s missing or included?
Sources
As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker. (n.d.). GoodReads.
Asghar, F. (n.d.). About. Fatimah Asghar.
Asghar, F. (2018). Fatimah Asghar talks about life as a single, queer Muslim woman. Vogue India.
Beacon Press: Dina Gilio-Whitaker. (n.d.).
Chen, A. (n.d.). Ace. ANGELA CHEN.
De Colores Means All of Us by Elizabeth Martínez | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books. (n.d.).
maree brown, adrienne. (n.d.). Pleasure Activism.
Miller-Young, M. (n.d.). Duke University Press—A Taste for Brown Sugar.
Mireille Miller-Young | Department of Feminist Studies—UC Santa Barbara. (n.d.).
Renee Taylor, S. (n.d.-a). Home – Radical Self-Love for Everybody and Every Body.
Renee Taylor, S. (n.d.-b). Radical self-love, body hierarchy and intersectionality | Sonya Renee Taylor Interview.
Seelye, K. Q. (2021, June 29). Elizabeth Martínez, Voice of the Chicana Movement, Dies at 95. The New York Times.