This is probably not an exhaustive list. After all, not all authors, even now, are “out” about their sexuality or gender identity. Many older authors were even more private, and in some cases, their orientation is speculative. For ancient authors, our modern categories would have made no sense to them, so classification is even more difficult. That said, I have tried my best to include the generally accepted orientations and identities in this list. I have broken them down by broad category, but they are not exclusive, and an author may fall into more than one. I recognize that “gay, lesbian, bisexual/pansexyal, asexual, and transgender/non-binary” are not the only categories, but they are the easiest to use given the fact that other categories have been used only recently, which makes historical figures harder to classify. Likewise, just going with “queer” seems overbroad. Like any system of classification, it is imperfect. My categories are in the order they are found in the acronym.
Why am I doing this? First of all, to give LGBTQ+ people better visibility. In the subculture I was raised in, most people just ignored sexuality, and in some cases hid it from the kiddos. (My parents weren’t that way, which is one reason I had more awareness than most kids in my subculture growing up.) Second, by highlighting the significant cultural contributions of LGBTQ+ people, we can better understand just how integral they have been and continue to be to the most transcendent parts of our culture. As a musician, of course, I am highly aware of this. But also, in all of the arts, and in literature, they have been more important than we realize. Third, as the parent of an LGBTQ+ child, this is personal. I want my child to know that not all older people, and not all Christians, are hateful and bigoted, but embrace people for how God made them. And support them in living in harmony with the way they were created.
I’m sure I missed people, as I do not necessarily look up personal biographical information about every author I read. If you see one I missed, feel free to mention it in the comments, and I will add it if there is evidence to support it.
***
Gay
Ackroyd, Peter
Appiah, Kwame Anthony
Ashman, Howard
Little Shop of Horrors* (with Alan Menken)
Auden, W. H.
Baldwin, James
Coward, Noel
Cullen, Countee
Forster, E. M.
Hughes, Langston
Lear, Edward
Mann, Thomas
Masteroff, Joe
McCauley, Stephen
Munoz, Manuel
Peck, Richard
The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail*
Ross, Alex
Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
Sacks, Oliver
Sedaris, David
Sondheim, Stephen
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum*
Sunday in the Park With George
Stoker, Bram
Stuart, Douglas
Vuong, Ocean
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Wilde, Oscar
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest* (CSUB 2018)
Wilder, Thornton
Williams, “Tennessee”
The Eccentricities of a Nightingale
Lesbian
Bishop, Elizabeth
Butler, Octavia
Carson, Rachel
Cather, Willa
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Great Classic Women’s Fiction*
Hansberry, Lorraine
A Raisin in the Sun (Audio production)*
A Raisin in the Sun (Utah 2023)*
Jewett, Sarah Orne
The Country of the Pointed Firs
Selected Short Stories and Sketches
Lorde, Audre
Lowell, Amy
Pictures of the Floating World
Oliver, Mary
Sappho
If Not, Winter - Fragments of Sappho (Anne Carson translation)
Stein, Gertrude
Winterson, Jeanette
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Woodson, Jacqueline
Bisexual/Pansexual
Armstrong, Billie Joe
American Idiot (Musical)*
Beauvoir, Simone de
Bowles, Paul
Castillo, Elaine
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Ford, Ashley
McCullers, Carson
Millay, Edna St. Vincent
Shafak, Elif
Shelley, Mary
Valente, Catherynne
The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland*
The Girl who Fell Beneath Fairyland*
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland*
Walker, Alice
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
Waugh, Evelyn
Transgender/Non-binary
Anders, Charlie Jane
Black, Riley
Emezi, Akwaike
Lavery, Danny (writing as Mallory Ortburg)
McCullers, Carson
Asexual
Dickinson, Emily
James, Henry
Eight Novellas and Short Stories (includes The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller)
The Turn of the Screw (Jeffrey Hatcher Play)
Murata, Sayaka
Thoreau, Henry David
No comments:
Post a Comment