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It’s important to note that work published in different decades are going to contain different vocab (terms which may be less acceptable today) and experiences!!
Also!!!! I’m American! Grew up on American fiction! At the moment I’m on a huge contemporary kick but I’ll try to give you an era of options!
First up.... E. M. Forster’s MAURICE (written 1917, published 1971 after Forster’s death) takes the undertones in HOWARDS END and A ROOM WITH A VIEW and deals with an explicitly gay relationship. So many feels.
THE WELL OF LONELINESS (1928) by lesbian Radclyffe Hall is groundbreaking.
ORLANDO (1928) by Virginia Woolf features a genderfluid main character who lives through centuries as both men and women.
GIOVANNI’S ROOM (1956) by James Baldwin deals with the complicated gray areas of sexuality and where (or if) a line should be drawn in the gay/bi dichotomy.
Brendan Behan’s BORSTAL BOY (1958) is an autobiographical novel about a young man losing his naïvité over the course of three years in a borstal.
THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin imagines a world with no fixed gender and therefore a lack of discrimination.
THE COOK AND THE CARPENTER (1973) by June Arnold avoids gendered language altogether and is so, so refreshing.
TORCH SONG TRILOGY (1978) by Harvey Fierstein are three plays that follow a NYC drag queen through different stages of life.
James Purdy’s NARROW ROOMS (1978) is basically…. uhhh…. let’s say, a more contemporary WUTHERING HEIGHTS but gay and there is sex.
RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE (1980) by Rita Mae Brown is a very apologetic coming-out story. Brown also wrote a whole bunch of mystery books about a cat detective which you should check out.
Audre Lorde’s essays in speeches collected in SISTER OUTSIDER (1984) are amazing!
Michael Cunningham’s A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD (1990) - a gay man and his best friend have a baby together with the help of a college friend!
BODIES THAT MATTER: ON THE DISCURSIVE LIMITS OF “SEX” by Judith Butler (1993) talks about why the gender binary is not real.
STONE BUTCH BLUES (1993) by Jewish, communist, transgender lesbian Leslie Feinberg is exactly what it sounds like.
Sarah Waters wrote a whole series of historical novels that involve lesbian protagonists and their love affairs. Her debut novel TIPPING THE VELVET (1998) was made into a mini-series in 2002!
MIDDLESEX (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides describes the life of intersex Cal. It's written like a Greek play and has a very sensitive voice.
Julie Anne Peters’ YA is great literature that normalizes the LGBTQIA+ experience for teens (or teens at heart). LUNA (2004) is about a kid finding herself and slowly letting in those closest to her.
FUN HOME (2006) is a memoir by Alison Bechdel (of Bechdel Test fame). It was adapted into a musical.
Kathleen Winter’s ANNABEL (2010) is about a genderfluid, intersex child.
China Miéville’s EMBASSYTOWN (2011)’s narrator is agender and lives in a world that has transcended the patriarchy, a lá THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS.
THE UNDERGROUND GIRLS OF KABUL: IN SEARCH OF A HIDDEN RESISTANCE IN AFGHANISTAN (2015) by Jenny Nordberg is a fascinating glimpse into daughters who are raised as boys in a society where having a son can make all the difference.
April Daniels’ DREADNOUGHT (2017) follows a trans girl after she accidentally inherits superpowers and has to navigate suddenly having everything she ever wanted.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE: SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY FROM TRANSGENDER WRITERS (2017) is a wonderful anthology!!
BLACK ON BOTH SIDES: A RACIAL HISTORY OF TRANS IDENTITY (2017) by C. Riley Snorton is an excellent nonfiction read.
BORN BOTH: AN INTERSEX LIFE (2017) by Hilda Viloria gives intersex characters a space to open up about “corrective” surgery experienced when they were children. This is a very very raw book and not to be taken lightly.
CONFESSIONS OF THE FOX (2018) by Jordy Rosenberg is a new take on the 18th century life of legendary thief and trans man Jack Sheppard. It’s brilliant and hilarious and sexy. Rosenberg teaches 18th-century Literature and queer/transgender theory.
Andrea Lawlor’s PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL (2018) focuses on LGBTQ+ culture in the 90s and has a shapeshifting protagonist!
I HOPE WE CHOOSE LOVE: A TRANS GIRL’S NOTES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (2019) by Kai Cheng Thom contains heart wrenching, poignant essays. Also, A PLACE CALLED NO HOMELAND (2017) is a very good collection of poetry.
THE RAVEN TOWER (2019) by Ann Leckie is a very bold Hamlet retelling that follows a trans man named Eolo as he tries to figure out what has gone wrong in his rotten land as his best friend, Mawat descends to madness.
RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE (2019) by Casey McQuiston is..... actually the book I’m reading right now…….. it’s a gay romance with enemies-to-lovers feels. Between the son of the American president and an English prince. It's cute, don't judge me.
CLOUDS CANNOT COVER US (2019) by Jay Hulme is a fantastic collection of poetry by a trans man. Deep and gripping. Also the cover is so pretty I could die.
REAL LIFE (2020) by Brandon Taylor is heart-wrenching, but worth it. It follows a black, gay man from Alabama as he tries to make space between past and present shadows and tensions.
WHEN WE WERE MAGIC by Sarah Gailey (2020) features girl friendships and queer witches!! It’s also hilarious from the very first page.
FINNA (2020) by Nino Cipri is !!!! hilar!!!! I finished it last week. It follows Ava and Jules, two workers at a Scandinavian furniture store (but not That One) through a series of wormholes. Oh, and they had a horrible break up a week ago. Jules is non-binary. So is the author.
THAT IS LITERALLY SO MANY I'M SORRY BUT I KNOW YOU ALL HAVE TIME TO READ BOOKS. I tried to make it as broad as I could. If I missed anything, write me your own recommendations!!!
