FranticVampireReads

Some sources for those who may not know:

Steve Dain, whose public transition led to him being fired from his job as a teacher. Trans men in the Bay Area would go on a pilgrimage to meet when when they started their transition.

Jamison Green, who took over FTM International and it's newsletter after Lou's death

Reed Erickson, who used his inherited wealth to bankroll early LGBT movements (and also did other wild rich people shit). His foundation "helped to support, both through direct financial contributions and through contributions of human and material resources, almost every aspect of work being done in the 1960s and 1970s in the field of transsexualism in the US and, to a lesser degree, in other countries."

Alexander John Goodrum, who founded TGNet Arizona and helped pass Tuscon's nondiscrimination ordinance. In 2001 he wrote "Gender, Identity Politics, and Eating Our Own," an essay on infighting in the trans community.

Rupert Raj, who started some of Canada's earliest trans advocacy organizations

Kylar Broadus, the first openly trans person to testify before the Senate

Pauli Murray also deserves more recognition; he was a Black feminist legal scholar who did invaluable work for the Civil Rights Movement. He never transitioned, having lived much of his life before trans (and especially FTM) treatment was standardized and accessible. He was labeled schizophrenic by doctors for seeking testosterone and testing to see if he was intersex, to explain his gender identity.

He was a sweet man and raised in the Midwest so interrupting people hurt his very soul, that's how dangerous he felt the idea of losing the line of fiction was.

🌈 Hey Reading Rainbows! It’s time for our pride month book lists! Every June, we put together book lists as an extra pride treat. Let us know what kind of themed list you’d like to see next!

We’ve curated twenty-five underrated queer books for you to read this pride month! Every book on this list has under 1000 ratings on goodreads, with a majority of them under 500 ratings. If you want to help out your favorite authors, share their books and write reviews on platforms like goodreads, storygraph, or amazon.

We’ve included one of our special edition covers per category and all five of them are available in the shop for purchase as single editions or part of a full box!

Q: What other queer books are on your Pride Month TBR?

Lesbian:

Of Love & Libraries by Brenna Bailey

The Witch Who Chases the Sun by Dawn Chen

Down South Bayou by Aricka Alexander

Try Your Worst by Chatham Greenfield

On Wings of Fallen Stars by Khalida Başar

Gay:

On Silver Shores by V. T. Hoàng

The Voice of Wild Places by Noah Hawthorne

The Great Disillusionment of Nick & Jay by Ryan Douglass

Our Rogue Fates by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Finding Joy by Adriana Herrera

Bisexual:

The Musician & the Monster by Jenya Keefe

Reality Check by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

The Perfect Match by Adiba Jaigirdar

The Last Contender by Live Savell & Sterling D’Este

Tethered by TJ Williams

Trans:

Veil us in Gold by Shepard DiStasio

Where the Petals Remain by Micah Flowers

The Tale that Twines by Cedar McCloud

Blood Orange by Yaffa

Sordidez by E.G. Condé

Queer/Questioning:

Where the River Meets the Soul by S. Nicole

Di-Curious by Erin Branch

These Vengeful Gods by Gabe Cole Novoa

Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault

Shapes of Love by L.V. Peñalba

📷: Thank you to @LittleMissStar55 for the cover photo featuring our editions!

ID: A post of six slides with queer book recommendations. Slide 1: A photo of twenty Rainbow Crate books in four rows of five books each. Overlaid is a green-yellow gradient circle. Text on it says “25 underrated queer books to read for pride month”. “Pride Month” is in rainbow striped font while all other text is in white font with a black outline. 

Slide 2: A graphic with the lesbian flag as the background. It has five stripes: dark orange, orange, white, light pink and pink. A white opaque rectangle is overlaid with a thin white outline. At the bottom of the slide is text that reads “@rainbowcratebookbox” in white font. The slide has five book covers displayed in two rows. The top row has two covers, while the bottom row has three covers.

Slide 3: A graphic with the gay flag as the background. It has seven stripes: green, turquoise, light green, white, light blue, blue iris, and indigo. A white opaque rectangle is overlaid with a thin white outline. At the bottom of the slide is text that reads “@rainbowcratebookbox” in white font. The slide has five book covers displayed in two rows. The top row has two covers, while the bottom row has three covers.

Slide 4: A graphic with the bisexual flag as the background. It has three stripes: pink, purple and blue. A white opaque rectangle is overlaid with a thin white outline. At the bottom of the slide is text that reads “@rainbowcratebookbox” in white font. The slide has five book covers displayed in two rows. The top row has two covers, while the bottom row has three covers.

Slide 5: A graphic with the transgender flag as the background. It has five stripes: light blue, light pink, white, light pink and light blue. A white opaque rectangle is overlaid with a thin white outline. At the bottom of the slide is text that reads “@rainbowcratebookbox” in white font. The slide has five book covers displayed in two rows. The top row has two covers, while the bottom row has three covers.

Pride Reads 2026, Day 5: The Metalhead Next Door

This manga is sooooo good!!! I adore the style and characters, they're so pretty! The story is super sweet and left me feeling happy and light. It's about two young men: Kento, a grad student studying early education, and Soshi, a pastry chef who loves metal. They meet when Kento nearly dies of exposure at their apartment building and Soshi saves him. From there the two bond over meals and become friends. Soshi struggles to speak, and Kento is keeping his sexuality a secret from his new friend. Quietly, in the background, their bond deepens into more than friendship...

I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.

The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.

Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.

A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:

Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.

Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.

Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns

Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.

I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.

It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut: