October is LGBTQ+ history month and it’s so important to remember our community’s history and important figures! I’ve written about one important event in LGBTQ+ history – the Stonewall Inn Riots in 1969 and how it’s important to not erase members from our own community nor white/cis wash history.

There are so many ways and resources to learn about LGBTQ+ history. lgbt-history on Tumblr has collected numerous resources to learn about various things that have happened in our community’s history. There’s another Tumblr account called KNOWhomo that’s another blog with resources about our history and at one point highlighted some relevant podcast episodes from Stuff You Missed in History Class (including Paragraph 175 and the history of the pink triangles). HuffPo also has a list of articles about LGBT history month, including one that highlights 23 prominent Black LGBT icons.

There’s more to LGBTQ history than  just reading about it. Matthew Rodriguez compiled a list of films that will teach more LGBT history than the newest movie on Stonewall and included films like Paris is Burning and How To Survive a Plague. Plus, there’s the Quist App that aims to bring LGBT history to the world in an interesting and interactive way! It’s free and available to download on the App Store, Google Play, and the Windows Store for various smartphones.

I definitely encourage everyone to read at least a little bit about LGBT history and about people like Harvey Milk, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and the members of ACT UP. For me, I had no one else in my family to share stories, to share history with me about the LGBTQ community. I, like many I imagine, was and continue to be the lone queer sheep of my family and reading up on LGBTQ history allows for me to feel more secure in myself. Because I know that I’m not alone in my identity, that there are and have been people like me fighting for justice and acceptance.