Archive | August, 2026

Transgender History Month: Books for Adults

11 Aug
Cover of Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History 1850-1950 by Eli Erlick. Cover features torn images of black and white photographs of various historical trans people surrounded by multicolored strips.
Cover of Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton. Features a photograph of a black couple one in a dress holding a top hat and the other in a tuxedo holding a fan.
Cover of Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam. Features an abstract image of colors forming the shape of people against a black background.

August is Transgender History Month! Take a look at these non-fiction selections from our BCCLS catalog that tell the long, rich history of transgender pioneers. 

Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950
by Eli Erlick (physical)
Eli Erlick shares the stories of 30 trans trailblazers, organized into four deliberate parts: activists, workers, kids, and athletes. 

The Other Olympians: Facism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports
by Michael Waters (physical)
In the mid-1930s, two of European track and field’s most celebrated athletes announced that they were both men despite being assigned female at birth. Waters recounts how because of their transitions, Zdeněk Koubek and Mark Weston influenced the fixation with gender in sports we see nearly a century later.

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender
by Kit Heyam PhD (physical) 
Before We Were Trans highlights the histories of trans and gender nonconforming people across West Africa, Asia, and the Americas, showcasing how the category of gender has been redefined and altered throughout history. 

Female Husbands
by Jen Manion (physical)
This text explores historical material from the American colonial period through 1910, highlighting British and American people assigned female at birth who moved through society as men. The title refers to shifting understandings of gender politics and women’s rights shortly before World War I, labeling such people as “female husbands.” 

Histories of the Transgender Child
by Julian Gill-Peterson (physical)
Before today’s terminology to describe them, transgender children existed. This text explores accounts from the early-twentieth century onward how children and their parents navigated the medical system and other institutions, playing close attention to how race impacted their experiences. 

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
by C. Riley Snorton (physical, eBook) 
Snorton explores the interconnection between Black and trans identities from slavery, through emancipation up until internet culture of the 1990s using fugitive slave narratives, sensationalist journalism and Hollywood films. 

Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City
by Gregory Samantha Rosenthal (Hoopla eBook) 
Combining historical analysis, theory, and memoir, Gregory Samantha Rosenthal, PhD documents her story of coming out as a trans woman alongside the history of the LGBTQ community in Roanoke, Virginia. 

Trans Historical: Gender Plurality Before the Modern
edited by Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov, and Anna Kłosowka (Hoopla eBook)
This text’s contributors consider how social experiences of gender functioned as distinct from sex assigned at birth in the medieval and early modern periods. 

The Risk It Take to Bloom: On Life and Liberation
by Raquel Willis (physical, eBook, e-audiobook)
Situated between the Obama and first Trump administrations, journalist and activist Raquel Willis shares her experiences of coming out, influenced by the epidemic of violence against trans women of color, and how that led her to become one of the most formidable Black trans activists in history.

Written by:
Allison Woodley
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Radio/Movie Combo: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

6 Aug

Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel about a sinister carnival rolling into a small Illinois town one week before Halloween is one of his most iconic and thought-inducing tales. I’m a sucker for a classic Devil vs. Good tale.

Cover for Something Wicked This Way Comes, produced by The Colonial Radio Theatre. A dark silhouette of a figure in a top hat stands centered against a moody blue twilight sky, with a large Ferris wheel framing the figure from behind. The title "Something Wicked This Way Comes" appears in white hand-written script. "Ray Bradbury" is printed in large white letters at the top, with "The Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air Presents" above the figure and "With Jerry Robbins and the Colonial Radio Players" along the bottom.

For those unfamiliar, Something Wicked This Way Comes is Bradbury’s 1962 dark fantasy horror novel about two teenage boys, Will and Jim, who confront a supernaturally sinister carnival led by Mr. Dark. The carnival preys on secret desires, offering wishes at a terrible price. The boys and Will’s father fight the carnival and Mr. Dark to save themselves and the town. I’d also consider it a coming-of-age story that pokes at the fear of growing old.

​The Radio Production.
I admit, I haven’t read the book, and while searching for it I found a gem – the live radio production, dramatized by Bradbury himself, from the Colonial Radio Theatre complete with a full cast, sound effects and original music.

This is Bradbury’s work, and not just a regurgitated word-for-word reading, which makes it a lot of fun to, frankly, close your eyes and watch the imagery flow.

The key sense, obviously, to tap into here is hearing – you hear the carnival arrive, Mr. Dark get defeated, the boys run for their lives, and even in the hesitation of the dialogue.

The Film (1983)

Movie poster for Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). Two boys' faces emerge from swirling red and blue smoke at the top. Below, a man in a top hat and suit stands in front of a carnival featuring a Ferris wheel and tents. The title reads, "Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes" in white lettering, with the Disney logo at the top.

Directed by Jack Clayton with the screenplay by Bradbury, this film stars Jason Robards as Charles Halloway, a middle-aged, worn-down librarian, and Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark, the carnival owner who collects human souls.

This is early Disney storytelling, so the dialogue is a little cringy and the structure a bit wobbly, but overall it is an endearingly satisfying heroic-arc tale that honors Bradbury’s manuscript well.

Bradbury reportedly had issues with some production changes, but, in the end, the film was a general success, and Bradbury accepted the retelling.

My assessment. It’s imperfect, but it’s innocent in how the boys see the world. I also loved James Horner’s score.

If you haven’t read the book, start with the movie first, so you can better imagine the radio production.

Find the radio production in Hoopla here.

Reserve the movie in the BCCLS system here.

Comment below your thoughts once you’ve had a watch and listen.

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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