Black (Queer & Trans) Feminist Reading List

This is part of March’s “Our Public Memory” PIES Intellectual Practice on Politicizing Our Experience. If you missed this newsletter, read it here.

In honor of Women’s History Month and Trans Day of Visibility on March 31, this list includes Black feminist texts from Black women (trans and cis), nonbinary and trans masculine authors on confronting anti-blackness, cis-heteropatrichy, and healing our relationships to ourselves, our bodies, and to each other. 

We recognize the diverse and unique experiences across the spectrum of people who do not identify as cis-men. This list is meant to express that and not compound all identities into a homogeneous entity. 

  • The Invention of Women by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí

  • Belly of the Beast by Da’Shaun Harrison

  • Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Maree Brown

  • We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba

  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

  • Scenes of Subjection by Saidiya Hartman

  • All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks

  • Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

  • Black on Both Sides by C. Riley Snorton

  • Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hills Collins

  • The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

  • Mama Day by Gloria Naylor

  • The Same River Twice by Alice Walker

  • Does Your Mama Know: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories by Lisa Moore

  • Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

  • Black Bull, Ancestors and Me by Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde (S. Africa)

  • Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi (Nigeria)

  • Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Nigerian)

    We invite you to purchase these books in Black-owned bookstores. Here’s a list of them to get you started. 


Angum-Peri Check