Six New Things – Week of May 26, 2025
It’s nearly PRIDE Season! Let’s make it BIG this year! Let’s shower Love, Welcome, and Belonging on all 2SLGBTQIA+ loved ones, neighbors – and Selves!
ONE
Honor and learn from the lived experience of intersectional identities:
- So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color (Algonquin) is full of ‘riveting, joyful, heartbreaking’ anecdotes ‘woven together into one immersive narrative’ that shares ‘tales of what it meant – and still means – to create an authentic life, against the odds’.
- Trans History: A Graphic Novel: From Ancient Times to the Present Day (Candlewick), is ‘an essential introduction to trans history… in full-color graphic nonfiction format… featuring a broad range of voices’.
Find more in our Intersectionality and 2SLGBTQIA+/Gender Rights lib guides.
TWO
Let struggling youth know they are not alone and that they ‘deserve to be happy, safe, and loved’, with The Trans and Gender Diverse Teen Resilience Guide: Essential Skills for Building Community, Well-Being, and Mental Health (New Harbinger), which supports youth as they ‘navigate the world and discover all the wonders’ that make them, them.
One of the Boys (Levine Querido) is the story of a high school senior football kicker who comes out as trans, then struggles to ‘find her place in early transition, new social circles, and life without football’ – and must decide ‘how much of herself she’s willing to give up for the game she loves’.
Find more in our Tweens & Teens: Sexuality & Gender Identity and our NEW Identity/Coming-of-Age lib guides.
THREE
Worship – and especially The Meal – are meant to be a foretaste of Christ’s all-embracing feast.
Eating with Jesus: Reflections on Divine Encounters at the Open Eucharistic Table (Cascade), ‘invites the reader to envision how a truly open eucharistic table, where the traditional fences are removed, might serve as a crossroads where divine encounters with Jesus can occur’.
Find more in our Sacraments & Life Stages lib guide.
FOUR
As threats to trans and queer lives and persons escalate and 2sLGBTQIA+ public expressions are criminalized, Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing (Zando) takes on new urgency. The authors ‘illuminate the overwhelming challenges faced by victims of police misconduct and officers alike, spurning both “Defund the Police” and “Blue Lives Matter” as they build a new argument for six concrete solutions to fix American policing’.
Find more in our Policing, Public Safety, & Prisons lib guide.
FIVE
I struggle with this: ‘Why should we make art while injustices and suffering wreak havoc? How can we justify making beautiful things?’ Just Making: A Guide for Compassionate Creatives (Broadleaf) is ‘an essential companion for writers, artists, and other creatives who long for a more just world’ inviting creatives to ‘keep making art infused with truth, beauty, and goodness, not to ignore a world in distress but for the sake of loving it’.
Find more in our Contemplative Arts lib guide.
SIX
It may not be ‘art’, but the free, printable Pentecost Candle is ‘simple to make’ (all you need is scissors, a glue stick, and coloring utensils) and provides an interactive exploration of global languages.
Find more in our Intergenerational: Arts/Messy Church and Pentecost lib guides.
