The ever-evolving membership of the Little Gay Book Club in Austin, Texas, gathers several times a month to read together, to celebrate their love of literature, and of course to debate the latest selections. They're one of a small, but growing number of LGBTQ+ book clubs springing up across the United States—from Philadelphia to Richmond, Virginia, among others—that meet regularly to share books and dish about their lives.
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I first met Lex Loro, the genderqueer manager of the Little Gay Book Club, in the sumptuous roof garden on top of Austin Public Library's main headquarters during a book fair. We spoke under the shade of solar panels as Loro took a break from slinging books on behalf of their employer and the book club's sponsor, the Little Gay Shop. Lex was dressed in a casual-yet-fab Barbie-pink-themed outfit, complete with dangly earrings declaring her pronouns: 'They' down one ear, and 'She' down the other. In addition to managing the shop's book club and other literacy programs, they're also the director of community health at the San Antonio Pride Center.
"Book clubs create an opportunity for queer people in particular, or just any minoritized people, to access stories about our realities that are similar to us and access stories about people in our community that are different from us," Loro told me.
Related: Book bans nearly triple in 2023-2024 school year: PEN America report
Loro, who became the club manager last year, is responsible for greatly expanding its offerings. Over the course of each month, the Little Gay Book Club reads, and meets to discuss, a fiction book, a nonfiction book, a banned young adult book, and a fourth wildcard selection. In addition, one of the books gets a repeat discussion through a Zoom-based meeting of the club. Some discussions are intimate gatherings of five to ten folks, while the most popular books can draw dozens. Occasionally, the authors drop in.
She half-jokingly described the group as consisting of a lot of "awkward, socially anxious weirdos, and I say that about myself, with pride." While Austin is still blessed with a thriving bar scene, those kinds of settings don't work for everyone to socialize in, they said, and added that bars also aren't great for serious conversations. "There needs to be intentionality and creating programming where the goal is to talk to each other."
As a socially awkward, anxious weirdo, the group welcomed me enthusiastically to their gatherings. Beyond the book discussions, the group meets for a regular "not-so-silent reading" session — which started as a quiet opportunity to read, but transformed when the members admitted that queers have trouble keeping our mouths shut. They also get together just to socialize, like at the pizza party I attended in May, held after the group collectively read 100 books about trans people in honor of Trans Day of Visibility. Unlike the middle school pizza parties you may remember, no one is checking to make sure you did the reading: Everyone's welcome at the Little Gay Book Club's events, whether you've read every page of every selection, or none at all.
Left image — Left to right: Jaime Radeva, Jems Hernandez, Andrea Elizondo. Meeting at the shop before going to other local indie book stores for the Austin Texas book trail on April 27, 2024. All holding copies of a book club pick from that month. Center image — Book club admin team/organizers posing with author KB Brookins after their author talk at the Little Gay Shop on June 11, 2024. left to right: Jems Hernandez, Lex Loro, KB Brookins, Summer Putnam, Lillian Wang, Jaime Radeva. Right image — Author KB Brookins reading from their memoir “Pretty” before joining Lex Loro in conversation about the book.Courtesy Little Gay Book Club
"My hidden agenda in the book club is to get people excited about reading stories about members of the LGBTQ+ community who are different than them," Loro told me. "It's been really fun the things that people share with me that they have learned about other people in the queer community that they didn't know until they read the book we read together. I love that."
Loro continued, "I would really encourage people who don't think they are big readers, who don't seem interested in reading, to think critically about why that might be, and what systems may have kept them from accessing the stories that they deserve."
For others, the Little Gay Book Club has helped them rediscover their love of reading and explore their own identities through the pages. Teddy, a trans man and member of the club, told me he got burnt out on reading after college, only to rediscover how important it can be during his transition. "I would really like to read about people that look a lot more like me and have similar experiences and kind of figure out where I sit," he recalled thinking. "And so that ignited that within me again."
A few other LGBTQ+ book clubs have begun to pop up in the South and elsewhere in the United States. Loro cited Richmond's RVA Queer Book Club and the book club operated out of Giovanni's Room in Philadelphia as inspirations for their work.
Anna Raby, the lesbian founder of the RVA Queer Book Club, said she started the group in January 2022, not long after moving to the area. Originally from England, she said she found herself missing her LGBTQ+ community, especially her book-writing and reading friends from across the ocean. Although Richmond, like Austin, is a queer-friendly city nestled in the American South, she still struggled to make connections through the bar scene. Books became the perfect icebreaker for her and her new circle.
"I had never actually even been to a book club before I started this group," she said. "So it's not like a formal structure with talking points. It's very casual. We end up talking about all types of queer media or things that are going on in Richmond."
Raby told me she believes books help us access stories that wouldn't be told by Hollywood or other big media producers. "You kind of lose some of the intricacies of queer love stories or backgrounds or the diversity that you can get from books or short stories that you don't really see anywhere else."
National advocacy groups like GLAAD have noticed the potential of LGBTQ+ book clubs to have a positive impact on queer folks' lives.
"Every LGBTQ person needs to see themselves in stories about their lives, to let them know they belong just as they are, and that they're not alone," GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement to The Advocate."Book clubs provide a space for additional learning, solidarity and support."
They can also be a way of showing up to oppose the growing wave of censorship, especially in the South. "Despite dangerous rhetoric and legislation from lawmakers, LGBTQ folks and allies will continue to find these safe spaces and expand their understanding of themselves and each other," she added.
GLAAD has grown so concerned that it released a guide on community response to book bans.
Back in Austin, Loro told me their book club has been a source of queer joy, even as our political opponents would like to see us "cower in fear."
"The reality is we have a lot of work to do in South Central Texas to make this environment safe and comfortable for people, but we don't have to wait until we reach a certain point in that fight to do things for queer people that are fun," they said with a laugh.
