'Love is love'. Here are 8 books on sexuality and identity to (re)read

‘Jtogether forever: united in diversity’ is this year’s theme for the commemorations of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, marked annually on 17 May. According to the Jacques Delors European Information Center, the chosen motto serves as a reminder that “all human beings, regardless of who they are, who they love and how they see and define themselves, are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. However, in many parts of the world, this is not the case.

Although the date commemorates the decision taken in 1990 to remove homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), the fact is that, according to data from the European Union (EU), “more than two billion people live in countries where homosexuality is illegal”.

The same organization highlighted, in its communication last year, that “eleven jurisdictions maintain the death penalty as a legal sanction against consensual sexual relations between persons of the same sex”, further highlighting that “discrimination and exclusion due to sexual orientation and gender identity persist”, at a time when the world is witnessing “a worrying setback in the rights of LGBTI people”.

Bearing this conjecture in mind, the News by the Minute proposed to gather some works around the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, which give a glimpse not only of the path already traced, but also of the one that still remains to be taken.

Check out the list curated by Notícias ao Minuto below:

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo© DR

‘Girl, Woman, Other’ follows the lives of 12 characters, almost all of them women, black and a result of the legacy of the British colonial empire. Their stories provide us with a multifaceted mosaic of today, in which a multicultural society is confronted with the heritage of its past and fights against the contradictions of the present, rethinking questions of identity, gender and class against the backdrop of colonialism. , emigration and the diaspora.

Call Me by Your Name, André Aciman© DR

In ‘Call Me By Your Name’, André Aciman opens the door to the world of the idyllic Italian Riviera, where a romance is born between a 17-year-old boy and his parents’ guest, a university student who will spend a few weeks with them in summer. Still, none of the young people are prepared for the consequences of this attraction that they cannot suppress, despite all the prohibitions and dangers. Between advances and retreats driven by curiosity, desire and obsession, they end up letting themselves be carried away by passion, finding a rare intimacy.

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
© DR

Calliope Stephanides, a student at an all-girls college in Gross Pointe, Michigan, finds herself attracted to a classmate in the spring of 1974. Both the passion that develops secretly between the two, as well as the non-development of Callie leads her to suspect that she is not a girl like the others. The explanation lies in a rare genetic mutation, and an unspoken secret, which haunted Callie’s grandparents. However, thanks to the gene, Callie is part girl and part boy.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker
© DR

At age 14, Celie writes letters to God, trying to understand her circumstances. The girl, who is motherless, is the target of abuse by the man she calls ‘father’, in addition to being separated from her sister, Netie, deprived of her two children and offered in marriage to a man who mistreats her. She also considers herself “a black, poor and ugly”. But everything changes when she meets Sugar, her husband’s mistress. With the help of “the most beautiful woman” she has ever seen, Celie “discovers not only the whereabouts of her missing sister but also her own body, pleasure, love and, above all, her voice”.

Conversations Among Friends, Sally Rooney
© DR

Dublin student and aspiring writer, 21-year-old Frances performs evening poetry recitals with her best friend, Bobbi, with whom she previously had an affair. An interview with Melissa, a well-known journalist, marks the beginning of a complex ‘ménage-à-quatre’ between the pair of friends and Melissa and Nick, her husband. However, Frances and Nick acquire an unexpected intimacy, which leads the young woman, until then carefree and emotionally detached, to confront her own vulnerabilities.

Gender Issues, Judith Butler© DR

‘Problemas de Género’ reached Portugal 27 years after its original publication, and can be defined as “one of the most important texts in feminist theory, gender studies and queer theory”. Judith Butler’s work has rethought the concept of gender as performativity, that is, as something that is constructed and which is, ultimately, a performance, deconstructing feminist concepts and laying the foundations for queer theory.

“Evelyn Hugo, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, now approaching 80, decides to finally tell all about her life filled with glamor and a healthy dose of scandal”. It is in this way that we are introduced to the protagonist of ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’, who chooses the unknown journalist Monique Grant to write her story. Monique uses this opportunity to boost her career, tracing the Hollywood star’s resume from her arrival in show business in 1950 to her decision to leave 30 years later. In between, Evelyn’s life is “filled with unbridled ambition, unlikely friendships and a great forbidden love”, making it clear that her journey is connected to Monique’s.

In this work, Virginia Woolf tells us the life story of Orlando, “a young English aristocrat born in Elizabethan England in the 16th century and who, due to a mysterious transformation, lives more than 300 years without aging”. During that time, he takes on several identity changes, including a gender change. ‘Orlando’ thus provokes “a radiant and daring reflection on femininity and human nature”.

Read Also: On this Women’s Day, read (and reread) these 10 books on feminism