Positive LGBTQIA+ Representation Book List and Criteria
We worked with volunteers from many walks of life to create these criteria for books with positive LGBTQIA+ representation in order to compile our list.
Fiction Criteria
One or more main characters are specified to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community within the media piece.
Language is reasonably up-to-date and not offensive.
A majority of the LGBTQIA+ characters are good people.
A majority of the LGBTQIA+ characters have reasonably happy endings.
Characters in the LGBTQIA+ community are as complex as characters that are not.
Non-Fiction Criteria
One or more subjects are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, most likely part of the LGBTQIA+ community, or a historically important ally to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Language is reasonably up-to-date and not offensive. (For example, the narration of a book using a slur against someone in the LGBTQIA+ community prevents it from meeting the criteria, but a person in the book using a slur against someone in the LGBTQIA+ community doesn’t.)
Book List
This book list is continuously compiled from sources including media review volunteers, Soquel High School's LGBTQIA+ library section, Amazon, Harvard's Rainbow Book List, and the Santa Cruz Diversity Center's youth library section. If you are using a mobile phone and can't see the book list, please click the black box below this text.
