LGBTQ+ Book Recommendations: Memoirs & Lived Experience
Behind every identity is an individual story. These memoirs and personal accounts explore LGBTQ+ lives across different cultures, generations and experiences, sharing stories of identity, family, relationships, faith, adversity, creativity and finding a place to belong.
Pageboy — Elliot Page
A deeply personal memoir exploring Page’s experiences of gender, sexuality, relationships and life in the public eye. It follows the journey towards understanding and expressing a more authentic sense of self.
How We Fight for Our Lives — Saeed Jones
A powerful coming-of-age memoir about growing up Black and gay in the American South. Jones explores sexuality, family, race, grief and the experiences that shaped his understanding of himself.
Hijab Butch Blues — Lamya H
A memoir exploring the intersections of queerness, gender, Islam and immigration. Using stories from the Quran alongside experiences from their own life, Lamya H reflects on faith, identity and finding ways to belong without abandoning important parts of yourself.
Fun Home — Alison Bechdel
A graphic memoir examining Bechdel’s childhood, relationship with her father and discovery of her lesbian identity. Through humour and reflection, it explores family secrets, sexuality, grief and the complicated ways we come to understand our families and ourselves.
Sissy — Jacob Tobia
A funny and thoughtful memoir about growing up gender nonconforming and eventually embracing a genderqueer identity. It challenges rigid ideas about masculinity, femininity and what people are expected to become.
A Dutiful Boy — Mohsin Zaidi
Zaidi recounts growing up gay in a conservative Muslim family in Britain and trying to reconcile sexuality, faith, family and cultural expectations. Ultimately, it is also a story about acceptance and creating space for seemingly conflicting parts of identity.
In the Dream House — Carmen Maria Machado
An innovative memoir about Machado’s experience of abuse within a queer relationship. It examines love, control, memory and why LGBTQ+ experiences of domestic abuse have sometimes been overlooked. This book contains potentially distressing themes.
Boy Erased — Garrard Conley
A memoir about growing up gay within a deeply religious family and being sent to a conversion therapy programme. Conley reflects on faith, family, sexuality and the harm caused by attempts to change someone’s identity.
Redefining Realness — Janet Mock
Mock writes about growing up as a young Black trans woman, exploring family, gender, relationships and the experiences that shaped her. It combines an individual coming-of-age story with wider reflections on identity and representation.
Tomorrow Will Be Different — Sarah McBride
A memoir combining McBride’s experiences as a transgender woman with stories of love, loss and advocacy. It offers a personal perspective on both everyday trans life and the wider movement for LGBTQ+ equality.
High School — Tegan and Sara Quin
Twin musicians Tegan and Sara revisit their teenage years, including early relationships, discovering their sexualities and beginning to make music. A coming-of-age memoir about sisterhood, identity, creativity and finding where you fit.
We Can Do Better Than This — Edited by Amelia Abraham
A collection bringing together LGBTQ+ writers and contributors to consider what a better future for LGBTQ+ people could look like. Personal experiences sit alongside reflections on family, healthcare, community, gender, equality and belonging.
Hola Papi — John Paul Brammer
Inspired by Brammer’s advice column, this collection of personal essays uses warmth and humour to explore being gay and Mexican American, alongside relationships, family, loneliness, identity and learning to accept yourself.
Ten Steps to Nanette — Hannah Gadsby
Part memoir and part reflection on the experiences that shaped Gadsby’s comedy, including sexuality, gender, autism, trauma and growing up in Tasmania. It moves between humour and difficult experiences while examining how we make sense of our own stories.
A little note for readers
Lived experience is deeply individual, so no memoir represents an entire LGBTQ+ identity or community. Several of these books also discuss potentially difficult subjects, including discrimination, abuse, conversion practices, trauma and loss, so readers may wish to check content information before choosing a book.
Together, these recommendations offer something particularly valuable: the opportunity to hear LGBTQ+ people tell their experiences in their own words.
Find a story that speaks to you.
By Gemma Learoyd MNCPS
Therapist & Coach | Space to Breathe Therapy
