Peace & Justice History for 1/4

January 4, 1961
The longest recorded labor strike ended after 33 years: Danish barbers’ assistants had begun their strike in 1938 in Copenhagen.
January 4, 1965
The Free Speech Movement held its first legal rally in Sproul Plaza of the University of California at Berkeley.
January 4, 1974
President Richard Nixon refused to release tape recordings of Oval Office discussions and other documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee investigating illegal activities of the president’s re-election committee.

Nixon’s attempted suppression didn’t work.


Listen to the “smoking gun”

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january4

Gay couple brought to tears as Japanese court rules marriage equality ban unconstitutional

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/gay-couple-brought-to-tears-as-japanese-court-rules-marriage-equality-ban-unconstitutional/

As other countries with much smaller fundamentalist Christian influence over the government are working steadily towards equality and full legal rights of the LGBTQ+ communities the US is falling backwards in a regressive retreat of minority rights.  Again for some reason driven by fundamentalist Christian religious groups who create problems that never existed and use lies to promote disinformation creating hate towards the minorities they target.  You ask why the republicans have partnered with these fundamentalist Christians?  Because both groups seen the lost of group power over society they banded together to force society back to a time and culture when they did have majority power.   It comes down to power over others, and control of society.   I did not think that Christians believed in that.   At least I know Rev. Ed Trevors doesn’t.   But for far too many tradition, what was done by my grandparents, done by my parents, should be done by me also.  That is wrong because time, cultures, and the understandings change.   Hugs.

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2017 MAY 08. TOKYO JAPAN. LGBT rainbow flag covered on back of a man
2017 MAY 08. TOKYO JAPAN. LGBT rainbow flag covered on back of a man

The Fukuoka High Court of Japan has become the third of Japan’s eight high courts to rule that the government’s policy against same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. However, the court upheld a lower court ruling that dismissed three same-sex couples who had sought 1 million yen ($6,540) each for being denied their constitutional rights to gender and legal equality, individual dignity, and the pursuit of happiness.

The couples, who live in the southwestern cities of Fukuoka and Kumamoto, had their damage claims dismissed by the Fukuoka District Court in 2023 after the court ruled that the government wasn’t obliged to compensate them or legalize marriage equality legislation despite being in “state of unconstitutionality,” The Mainichi reported.

High Court Judge Takeshi Okada ruled that civil laws forbidding same-sex marriages violate the nation’s constitution, saying, “There is no longer any reason to not legally recognize marriage between same-sex couples.” However, he noted that any change in national marriage laws must be decided by Japan’s legislature, known as the National Diet.

As the judge read his ruling, a 35-year-old plaintiff identified in the media as Kosuke couldn’t stop crying. Despite this, his 37-year-old partner Masahiro said “[the judge] understood our suffering, and I felt very reassured.”

 

 

 

Opponents of marriage equality in Japan have noted that Article 24 of the Japanese constitution specifically states, “Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.”

However, marriage equality advocates have also pointed out that the constitution’s other articles state, “The people shall not be prevented from enjoying any of the fundamental human rights,” and, “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.”

 

Regardless, in October the Tokyo High Court ruled similarly, echoing another one made by the Sapporo High Court in March, which said that limiting marriage to couples of the opposite sex is “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory.” Despite the rulings, the country’s judiciary doesn’t have the power to overturn existing civil marriage codes.

Marriage equality has divided the country’s court system in opposing rulings over several years. Meanwhile, Japan’s conservative government lags behind increasingly supportive public opinion. Seventy percent of the Japanese public supports marriage equality, but it faces opposition from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The party lost its parliamentary majority in last Sunday’s election and will likely have to compromise on more liberal policies pushed by the opposition parties, like marriage equality, the aforementioned publication noted.

 

Right now, Japan doesn’t offer national LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections or same-sex marriage. As a result, LGBTQ+ people in Japan often face inequities in employment, housing, education, and health care.

More than 200 Japanese municipalities offer some form of recognition for same-sex couples. Such recognition can help same-sex couples rent apartments together, visit each other in city hospitals, and receive other services that married heterosexual couples enjoy.

Though several jurisdictions offer “partnership certificates,” they’re entirely symbolic and don’t offer federal benefits given to married heterosexual couples.

 

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have pushed for a national bill that would enshrine equal civil rights and non-discrimination protections into law. However, the conservative party of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida helped defeat the effort in the lead-up to the 2021 Olympic Summer Games.

Japan remains the only country in the G7, a political and economic forum of seven of the world’s most advanced economies, that has not legalized marriage equality. Currently, the only Asian countries that have legalized same-sex marriage are Taiwan, Nepal, and Thailand.

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Young LGBTQ+ people advise each other on how to survive challenging times

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/young-lgbtq-people-advise-each-other-on-how-to-survive-challenging-times/

Group of young cheerful friends strolling together on day of gay pride parade in city. People LGBT community pose hugging looking smiling at camera outdoor. Generation z and sexual liberation.

With a record number of social and political stressors facing young LGBTQ+ people, the Trevor Project has released a collection of advice given by young queers to their peers.

The responses were taken from the organization’s 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People which made the following open-ended request to respondents (who were between the ages of 13 and 24): “We would love for you to share a message of advice or encouragement to other young people in the LGBTQ community.”

One respondent wrote, “Finding a sense of community helps so much, whether it’s online or in person. Just find a place where you can ask questions and read about other people’s experiences.”

Another stressed the importance of envisioning a better future and doing what one can to cultivate community support now.

“Find your group and work towards where you wanna be in life and you’ll make it there,” one wrote, as other offered encouraging words like, “Keep pushing,” “Keep going for another day,” “Just keep going, please,” and “Please keep strong.”

Another urged resilience and perseverance. “Be yourself always,” they wrote. “You may lose connections along the way but trust, there’s someone out there who will love you.” Another respondent agreed, writing, “Just look for the people who love you no matter what.”

Others urged self-compassion and patience as young people figure out their identities. One such message said, “Don’t rush finding your identity. Take your time to explore, and don’t be afraid to take up labels if they feel right at the time.”

 

Some respondents suggested repeating self-affirmations like the following:

  • I love you.
  • I believe in you.
  • You got this.
  • You are so strong and you are deserving of love always.

“Wake up everyday, and tell yourself you love yourself — until, one day, you believe it,” one young person wrote.

Other respondents acknowledged the adversity faced by young LGBTQ+ people, whether in politics or unaccepting homes.

“[It’s] very easy to think that the entire world [despises] you for who you are when your home environment conveys that,” one wrote. “You might not feel safe and happy now,” another wrote, “but hopefully, there will come a day when you find your home.”

 

“Don’t let the people around you tell you that you can’t love who you want and feel what you want to feel,” one respondent wrote. 

Another added, “I know things look down right now and it’s hard to see past the hate that’s being spread but it always helps to remember that most people don’t hate us and that there are tons of us out there that are willing to help.”

“We’ve always been here. And we always will be,” another wrote. “They cannot erase us.”

Other respondents advised doing things to lessen negativity.

“Ignore the Idiots and cut people off if [you] have too [sic]. Life is too short to care what people think about you and they don’t even have to live your life and experience the things you do.”

 

In the same vein, another respondent replied, “Don’t let the people around you tell you that you can’t love who you want and feel what you want to feel.”

“Peer support is associated with lower levels of emotional and behavioral distress among LGBTQ+ young people,” the Trevor Project wrote. “However, not all LGBTQ+ young people have consistent access to peer support, especially LGBTQ+ young people who hold multiple marginalized identities.”

As such “hearing words of encouragement and advice from fellow LGBTQ+ young people has never been more needed,” the group added.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

 

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Peace & Justice History for 1/3

January 3, 1961
A nuclear reactor exploded at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho, killing three military technicians, and released radioactivity which, in the words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission, was “largely confined” to the reactor building. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands and heads had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste.
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January 3, 1967

Carl Wilson
Carl Wilson of the the Beach Boys was indicted for draft evasion.
Claiming conscientious objector status, he eventually won his battle against the charges.

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January 3, 1971

On her first day as a member of Congress, Bella Abzug (D-New York) introduced a resolution calling for the withdrawal of troops from Southeast Asia.

Bella Abzug
Born in the Bronx in 1920, one month after the passage of the U.S. Constitution’s 19th amendment granting women the right to vote, she was the first Jewish woman elected to Congress. After attending Columbia University Law School, she practiced civil rights and labor law for twenty-three years. Throughout her career, she was known as one of the most vocal proponents of civil rights for women, as well as for gays and lesbians.
Background on the indomitable Bella 
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January 3, 1993
The United States of America and the Russian Federation agreed to cut the number of their nuclear warheads to between 3,000 and 3,500 (nearly half).U.S. President George H.W. Bush, just before leaving office, and his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty – Start II – in Moscow. Start II marked the biggest reduction in nuclear arms ever agreed, eliminating land-based multiple warhead missiles, and putting limits on submarine-based missiles.

Read more 
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January 3, 2003

Brazil’s new leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, suspended purchase of 12 new fighter planes, saying money could be better used to relieve hunger. 
More about Luiz Inacio  

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january3

Representation: People who received Presidential Citizens Medals Today

They won’t get nearly the jabber that Liz Cheney’s and Bennie Thompson’s medals are getting, and all are good people. I emboldened a bit especially pertinent to this blog.

Biden Giving Liz Cheney A Fancy Medal Today, So That’ll Make Trump’s Butt Itch by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Every 2024 Presidential Citizens Medal winner is a better human than the bastard who’s about to be president again. Read on Substack

The first time Donald Trump was president, one of the ways he absolutely beclowned the office and rendered it meaningless was who he’d pick to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom and other similar honors.

Historically, such awards went to people who had done something important. Under Trump 1.0, it was more like “Here is the presidential medal of excellence in giving me money!” It went to Miriam Adelson, AKA one of Trump’s big bucks no whammies donors. (That’s the one where he got in trouble recently for saying Adelson’s award was better than Medal of Honor winners, AKA the military’s highest honor.)

Trump gave the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, before that guy waddled off to hell. He gave it to Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, for excellence in doing congressional coverups for Trump or something.

We are sure Trump 2.0 will make those recipients look like American patriots.

The Presidential Citizens Medal is the award just below the Medal of Freedom, and Trump didn’t seem to give much of a shit about it during his first term. He awarded it in 2019 to a 9/11 first responder, posthumously. But that appears to be it. The award is given to someone “who has performed exemplary deeds or services for his or her country or fellow citizens,” so you can see why it might not get Trump very excited.

President Joe Biden is big on giving it, though. In 2023, he gave it to people like Capitol Police officers Michael Fanone and Aquilino Gonell, who protected Congress during the terrorist attack Trump’s supporters committed on January 6, 2021. (He awarded it posthumously to former Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after he was assaulted by Trump supporters at the Capitol that day.) Also to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia election workers Rudy Giuliani owes all his money to, for repeatedly lying about and defaming them.

In all, he gave it to 12 people who in various ways defended American democracy from Trump’s attacks in 2020.

Now, today, Biden is giving another set of 20 of these medals for 2024, and damn, they are just more people Donald Trump could never ever fucking be, not in a million years, not if he went to the Emerald City and grabbed the Wizard by the pussy and begged him for a soul, or for integrity, or decency, or goodness. (In this mental image Elon is in drag as Dorothy, obviously.)

Liz Cheney is getting one for her work on the House January 6 Select Committee, and all the ways she’s stood up to defend democracy the last couple years, so that’ll piss Trump the fuck off.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who co-chaired the January 6 Committee with Cheney, will also receive the medal.

We are sure Trump will have some sort of hallucinatory conniption about how they deleted all the evidence that TOTALLY EXONERATES him, because once Trump gets an incorrect conspiracy theory mangled up inside that big ugly head of his, he never gets free of it.

On top of those types of folks, there’s Mary Bonauto, who argued Obergefell v. Hodges, AKA the marriage equality case, before the Supreme Court. Plus Evan Wolfson, perhaps the single most important activist over the decades of that fight.

You can check out the whole list here. On top of a number of former politicians like Bill Bradley and Chris Dodd, it’s full of people with bios that read like that of Diane Carlson Evans, who “founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation to ensure female service members received the recognition they deserve.” Plus civil rights leaders and more women’s rights leaders, and so on and so forth.

And this posthumous award, which seems to contain a pre-emptive rebuke for the incoming Hitler wannabe administration:

Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi

In a shameful chapter in our Nation’s history, Mitsuye Endo was incarcerated alongside more than 120,000 Japanese Americans. Undaunted, she challenged the injustice and reached the Supreme Court. Her resolve allowed thousands of Japanese Americans to return home and rebuild their lives, reminding us that we are a Nation that stands for freedom for all.

The entire list is a rebuke of Trump, really. American heroes, all.

But yeah, the Liz Cheney part is the part that’s gonna stick up Trump’s ass and give him sideways bowel movements. Bet those sting REAL bad. (snip-comments on the page)

“This is some of what we must do to reform our dysfunctional healthcare system”

Bernie Sanders

We are the wealthiest nation on Earth. There is no rational reason as to why we are not the healthiest nation on Earth

Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of serving as chair of the US Senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions (Help). As I leave that position, let me reflect upon where I think our country should be going in healthcare, and the obstacles we face.

We are the wealthiest nation on Earth. There is no rational reason as to why we are not the healthiest nation on Earth. We should be leading the world in terms of life expectancy, disease prevention, low infant and maternal mortality, quality of life and human happiness. Sadly, study after study shows just the opposite. Despite spending almost twice as much per capita on healthcare, we trail most wealthy nations in all these areas.

If we’re going to reform our broken and dysfunctional healthcare system and “Make America healthy again”, this is some of what we must do.

Medicare for All

Healthcare is a human right. The function of a rational healthcare system is to guarantee quality healthcare to all, not huge profits for the insurance industry. The United States cannot continue to be the only wealthy nation that does not provide universal healthcare. It is not acceptable that, while spending almost 18% of our GDP on healthcare, millions of Americans delay going to the doctor and 60,000 Americans die each year because they can’t afford the care they need.

Lower the cost of prescription drugs

As Americans, we should not be paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for life-saving medications. It is absurd that while the pharmaceutical industry enjoys huge profits and benefits from US taxpayer research, one out of four Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe. We must cut prescription drug prices in half by making sure that we pay no more for medicine than the Europeans or Canadians.

Workers should not have to go to work when they are sick. Mothers and fathers should have ample time to stay home with their newborn babies. A parent should not get fired when they stay home with a sick child. We must guarantee at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave to every worker in America.

Reform the food industry

Large food corporations should not make record-breaking profits making children addicted to processed foods, which make them overweight and prone to diabetes and other diseases. As a start, we must ban junk-food ads targeted to kids and put strong warning labels on products high in sugar, salt and saturated fat. Longer term, we can rebuild rural America with family farms that are producing healthy, nutritious food.

Raise the minimum wage to a living wage

Millions of workers should not have to worry about how they’ll pay the rent or buy food for their kids. Working-class Americans live far shorter lives than the rich because of the stress of trying to survive on a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. Stress kills. Stress makes us sick. We must raise the minimum wage to at least $17 an hour.

Lower the work week to 32 hours with no loss of pay

People will live longer and healthier lives if they can spend more time with family and friends and have the opportunity to enjoy their leisure time. Advancements in technology, automation and artificial intelligence must benefit workers, not just billionaires on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley.

Combat the epidemic of loneliness, isolation and mental illness

Too many Americans are struggling with intense anxiety and “diseases of despair” – alcoholism, drug addiction and even suicide. Not only do we need to greatly increase access to mental healthcare, we must rebuild our sense of community and create a culture in which we better enjoy and appreciate each other as human beings. We must also take a very hard look at the impact smartphones and social media are having on our mental and physical health.

Address the climate and environmental crisis

Every American is affected when the Earth’s temperature rises and the air we breathe is polluted. Climate crisis and extreme weather disturbances will cause more widespread suffering and disease, economic disruptions and population dislocation. Air pollution is a major risk factor for respiratory and heart disease, cancer and other health problems. The fossil-fuel industry cannot be allowed to continue making us sick, shortening our lives and destroying the planet.

Create a high-quality public education system

Life-long education is a human right and should be obtainable for all in a wealthy nation like ours. Health, life expectancy and economic wellbeing are often tied to educational attainment. Instead of spending $1tn a year on the military we should make certain that all Americans, from childcare to graduate school, are able to enjoy free, high-quality education and job training.

Let’s be clear. The way forward to creating a healthy society is not radical or complicated. Many of the components that I’ve outlined already exist, in one form or another, in numerous countries throughout the world.

Our real problem is not so much a healthcare crisis as it is a political and economic one. We need to end the unprecedented level of corporate greed we are experiencing. We need to create a government and economy that works for all and not just the wealthy and powerful few.

  • Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chair of the health education labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/31/bernie-sanders-healthcare-reform-opinion

Peace & Justice History for 1/2

January 2, 1905
The Conference of Industrial Unionists in Chicago formed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), frequently known as The Wobblies. The IWW mission was to form “One Big Union” among industrial workers.


IWW home  
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January 2, 1920

U.S. Attorney General Alexander Palmer, in what were called the Palmer or Red raids, ordered the arrest and detention without trial of 6,000 Americans, including suspected anarchists, communists, unionists and others considered radicals, including many members of the IWW.

Attorney General Alexander Palmer
This followed a mass arrest of thousands two months earlier based on Palmer’s belief that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government.
A suicide bomber had blown off the front door of the newly appointed Palmer the previous June, one in a series of coordinated attacks that day on judges, politicians, law enforcement officials, and others in eight cities nationwide. Palmer put a young lawyer, J. Edgar Hoover, in charge of investigating the bombings, collecting information on potentially violent anarchists, and coordinating the mass arrests.

More on the Palmer raids
FBI perspective 
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January 2, 1975

A U.S. Court ruled that John Lennon and his lawyers be given access to Department of Immigration and Naturalization files regarding his deportation case, to determine if the government case was based on his 1968 British drug conviction, or his anti-establishment comments during the years of the Nixon administration.
On October 5, 1975, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the order to deport Lennon, and he was granted permanent residency status.


Watch the trailer for the documentary, “The U.S. v. John Lennon” 
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January 2, 1996

Khaleda Zia
An estimated 100,000 Bangladeshi women traveled from the countryside to attend a rally in Dacca, the capital, to protest Islamist clerics’ attacks on women’s education and employment.
Khaleda Zia, the country’s first female prime minister, had introduced compulsory free primary education, free education for girls up to class ten, a stipend for the girl students, and food for the education program.

About Khaleda Zia 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january2

Good Morning, Scottie’s Playtime

Some Poetry on New Year’s Morning

It is about war. It is a beautiful piece of work about war. Click the title to get the background.

All I can see is nothing Sahar Muradi

If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness.
Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.
Thomas Merton, from “New Seeds of Contemplation,” 1961

I swear to God, mom, I am exhausted, but praise be to God in all circumstances.
—writing, translated from the Arabic, on the Al-Shifa Hospital walls, April 2024

All I can see is nothing
Fields of

Hollow
The O that escapes

A pasture of
Mouths

An apartment building
Of locked jaws

The silent weeping
Of rocks

I hear nothing
In the bags of soft limbs sighing

Milk teeth
Sharpening a father’s heart

The cone hat on the small head
Singing to plumes

Iftar in the tents
Flapping pages off the moon

But Your name over and over
On the hospital walls

But Your name stilling
The fire that does not cease

But Your name everywhere
Everything all at once

I see nothing
From this distance

This deepest night
This longest darkness

Fumble at fajr
To loosen my gasps

I repeat Your name
Over and over

Then bow to Your wisdom
To the terror of Your liberation

O that I may not see anything
More

Copyright © 2024 by Sahar Muradi. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 31, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

Maybe Some New Reads for the New Year

Here are the queer books mentioned on the most Best Books of 2024 lists, from graphic novels to literary fiction, romance, fantasy, and more.

Danika Ellis Dec 31, 2024

During the “Best Books of the Year” season, I’ve been going through and picking out which queer books get featured on the biggest lists. My plan was to mash all this information together into a Frankensteined spreadsheet and then share with you the queer books included on the most “best of” lists. Luckily, I was saved a step, because LitHub already made an Ultimate Best Books of 2024 List that includes best-of lists from 39 outlets. I just went through that and pulled out the queer books.

I am limited to the books I recognize, so please let me know if I missed any! As far as I could tell, though, here are the nine queer books mentioned on the most Best Books of 2024 lists, from horror graphic novels to literary fiction to historical sports romance to poetry, biography, fantasy, and more.

If you’ve been paying attention to the best of lists at all, I bet you can guess which titles are tied at #1. Regardless, this makes for a great reading list if you want to catch up on the best queer books that came out in 2024 that you may have missed!

#5 (Tied), Mentioned on Five Lists

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2  by Emil Ferris

We finally have the sequel to this celebrated graphic novel, and it was worth the wait. Intricately etched with full, exciting pages and a bold story, it picks up where the last left off: Karen, a young monster, is investigating her neighbor’s murder in the Uptown apartment where she’s grown up. But the secrets she’s discovered aren’t the ones she was looking for, and in this book, she’ll have to fight hard to avoid coming apart at the seams. This bold coming-of-age tale about queerness, difference, family, and the city of Chicago is impactful, emotional, and bold, and I was both overjoyed and very sad to see the story of Karen Reyes come to its conclusion. —Leah Rachel von Essen

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly

This award-winning book follows siblings Greta and Valdin as they contend with an eccentric, multiracial family, queerness, and just trying to figure it all out. Valdin is doing superficially well after having been dumped by his boyfriend a year ago—his colleagues are only occasionally weird about his Maaori heritage, and he has intermittent sad sex with a friend—when work sends him from New Zealand to Argentina, where his ex is. Meanwhile, Greta has her own bubbling sadness. She’s experiencing unrequited pining, and her family is in a state made even more perplexing by her brother’s sudden, secretive move to South America. —Erica Ezeifedi

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

In this M/M historical baseball romance, Mark is a reporter in the 1960s who’s stuck interviewing the obnoxious New York shortstop for his whole first season. Eddie is having a tough enough time on the team, so he’s also reluctant, but neither of them is exactly given a choice. Mark is still mourning the death of his partner, the one no one knew about. He’s vowed never to have a secret relationship again—but now Mark and Eddie are falling for each other…

#4, Mentioned on Six Lists

Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

If you’re looking for a dry, birth-to-death, “here’s an accounting of the events of this person’s life” biography, this book is not for you. If you’re looking for a biographical poem, a multilayered close read of Audre Lorde’s poetry, a book that centers her relationships, an exploration of the ongoing legacy of her liberation work, an ode to complexity and nuance—then you’re going to want to run to this astounding, prismatic work of nonfiction. —Laura Sackton

#3 (Tied), Mentioned on Seven Lists

Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith

Danez Smith is a must-read poet who has been recommended in countless Book Riot lists. This is their newest, and I’ll let the publisher’s description summarize it: “Bluff is a kind of manifesto about artistic resilience, even when time and will can seem fleeting, when the places we most love—those given and made—are burning. In this soaring collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage, and imagination to envision futures that seem possible.”

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Like a lot of fantasy lovers, I’ve read my fair share of King Arthur-related novels. So many of them take themselves very seriously, portraying these majestic and austere knights as the fierce protectors of the land. But Grossman’s version of Camelot is different. It’s funny, delightfully ridiculous in so many ways. Like his take on magical schools in the magicians, The Bright Sword pokes fun at stories of Arthurian legend as much as it also celebrates it. But we, the readers, are in on the joke, understanding that this story is in conversation with the many previous tales of King Arthur and his knights.

If you’re looking for a humorous yet simultaneously heartfelt, funny, and queer-inclusive story from the world of Camelot, The Bright Sword may be the pick for you. —Kendra Winchester

#2, Mentioned on 11 Lists

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hollinghurst is the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of BeautyThe Swimming-Pool Library, and many other acclaimed novels. Our Evenings is about Dave, a mixed-race queer child who receives a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school and experiences the opportunities and cruelties of this turn of fate. We follow him from the 1960s through his coming of age, including first love affairs, a career on stage, and a late-in-life marriage.

#1 (Tied), Mentioned on 21 Lists

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

It’s always nice when one of the biggest literary fiction titles of the year is queer. This is a bestseller that comes highly recommended by authors like Tommy Orange, Lauren Groff, John Green, Clint Smith, and more. It follows Cyrus, a twentysomething queer poet who has been numbing his pain with drugs and alcohol. His mother was killed when her plane was shot down over Tehran in a senseless act of violence by the U.S. military. His father recently died of a heart attack. As he becomes sober, Cyrus goes looking for meaning, and he finds it by researching martyrs. When he hears about an artist dying of cancer in an exhibition at a museum, he is determined to meet her.

All Fours by Miranda July

In The New York Times Notable list, they categorize this literary fiction title with a bisexual main character as “Sexy Perimenopause Fiction” and recommend it for fans of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. The top 10 list describes it as “the talk of every group text — at least every group text composed of women over 40” and “the first great perimenopause novel.”