Pride Reading, Viewing, and Audio Resources

Compiled by the Washington Square Association for the community during Pride and beyond.

This list is designed to be both welcoming and reliable. The resources are anchored in organizations, libraries, and educational materials that are broadly respected in LGBTQ+ communities and by educators and researchers. Each section is then supplemented with selected books, documentaries, and podcasts that many readers and listeners have found especially accessible, moving, or memorable.

Washington Square and LGBTQ history

  • Washington Square Park – NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
    An excellent overview of the park’s LGBTQ history, from 19th-century queer social life to post-Stonewall organizing, the Dyke March, the Trans Day of Action, and Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer Way. 

  • Stonewall Forever
    A short documentary created with the LGBT Community Center and the National Park Service that connects the Stonewall uprising to later generations of activism and makes an easy, high-impact starting point for Pride learning.

  • The Trevor Project Resource Center
    A practical and readable source for background on LGBTQ identities, allyship, language, and support, especially for members who want to learn without starting from a textbook. 

  • GLSEN
    A core source for school-based LGBTQ inclusion, with research, educator tools, and materials widely used in educational settings. 

  • PFLAG National
    A long-established family and ally organization offering guidance that is especially accessible for parents, grandparents, and supportive community members. 

Reading

Curated reading picks

  • A Queer History of the United States – Michael Bronski
    A readable, wide-ranging history that places LGBTQ people within the larger American story and helps explain how Pride developed as both protest and celebration. 

  • Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde
    A foundational collection of essays and speeches on race, gender, sexuality, and power, especially valuable for readers interested in New York intellectual and activist life. 

  • Fun Home – Alison Bechdel
    A graphic memoir that is highly readable while also offering a thoughtful meditation on family, sexuality, and self-understanding. 

  • Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
    A classic novel that remains one of the most influential works in queer literature and still opens rich conversations about desire, shame, and identity. 

  • Before Night Falls – Reinaldo Arenas
    A compelling memoir about repression, exile, art, and gay identity that adds a global and immigrant dimension to Pride reading. 

Watching

  • Stonewall Forever
    Short, moving, and easy to share, especially for members who may not read a full book but want a meaningful Pride watch. 

  • 10 Must-Watch LGBTQ+ Documentaries – PBS
    A curated guide to documentaries on LGBTQ activism, identity, community, and rights. 

  • It Gets Better Project
    Offers a large library of storytelling videos and youth-centered media that can be more approachable than formal documentaries. 

  • NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
    Also mentioned above. While not a streaming platform, it’s a deeply useful multimedia history site with place-based entries that work well for self-guided learning. 

  • NEA: LGBTQ+ Support & Protection
    An educator-focused resource page that includes videos, articles, and guidance about affirming LGBTQ students and teaching inclusive histories. 

Curated viewing picks

  • Paris Is Burning
    A landmark documentary about New York ballroom culture that remains central to conversations about drag, performance, class, gender, and queer chosen family. 

  • How to Survive a Plague
    A powerful documentary on AIDS activism and ACT UP that gives essential context for understanding the political stakes of Pride beyond celebration. 

  • Pose
    A dramatic series centered on New York’s ballroom culture, queer chosen family, and the lives of queer and trans people of color; not purely educational, but enormously helpful for understanding queer cultural history through storytelling. 

Listening

  • Making Gay History
    One of the most respected queer history podcasts, built around oral-history interviews with activists, organizers, and community figures from the LGBTQ rights movement. 

  • Gender Reveal
    A thoughtful and widely respected podcast focused on trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive lives, mixing politics, culture, and lived experience. 

  • Queery
    Hosted by Cameron Esposito, this show combines warmth, humor, and serious conversations about queer life and identity. 

  • Outward
    A long-running podcast on queer culture and politics that blends current issues, criticism, and personality. 

  • Nancy
    Though no longer producing new episodes, this much-loved archive remains an engaging introduction to queer storytelling, friendship, family, and pop culture. 

Curated listening picks

  • LGBTQ&A
    A strong interview podcast for listeners who want deeper conversations with LGBTQ artists, activists, and public figures. 

  • Queer News
    A practical option for listeners who want regular updates on LGBTQ current events and policy from an explicitly queer perspective. 

Suggested resources for younger people

This section favors library-vetted, educator-vetted, and research-grounded materials, then adds a small number of especially approachable titles and tools for families and teens. That keeps the list safer for broad community sharing while still making it easy to use. 

Curated picks for younger readers and families

  • This Day in June – Gayle E. Pitman
    A warm, age-appropriate children’s book introducing Pride that also appears on library Pride reading lists, making it a useful bridge between formal curation and family-friendly readability.