Plaza Branch and Central Library will open late at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17 due to the Kansas City Marathon.
Happy Pride!
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is celebrated each year in June — sparked by the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village, a tipping point for the gay rights movement in the United States.
The Library commemorates Pride Month with LGBTQIA+ book recommendations, book clubs, highlights from past programs, film offerings, and other resources. This month's programming also includes special storytimes, book displays, and conversations.
- On June 16, author Chris Arnone discusses sex, gender, religion, and politics through the story of his struggles with anxiety, confusion, and eventual self-acceptance in his new book, My Name Was Baby. RSVP here.
- The Teen Crafting Corner on June 17 at the Bluford Branch celebrates love, queer history, and community with a movie, popcorn, and crafts. Ages 12-18 only.
- The Plaza Movie Club continues at the Plaza Branch on June 26 with Problemista about a toy designer who struggles to bring his ideas to life in New York City.
Reading & Watching with PRIDE
Explore suggested LGBTQ Pride Month readings from Library staff and community-created lists in our catalog, including everything from history and nonfiction to popular fiction titles.
Queer Nonfiction, Pride Flag Edition
Pink List
Red List
Orange List
Yellow List
Green List
Turquoise List
Pride Month books on hoopla
- LGBTQ Life
- LGBTQ+ Guide to Beating Bullying
- Queer and LGBT+ Studies
- Living Proud! Growing Up LGBTQ
- Remarkable LGBT Lives
Watch with PRIDE
Watch a selection of films celebrating LGBTQ Pride Month — documentaries, dramas, comedies, and more — available on DVD or streamed to your computer or mobile device using the Library's free digital services such as hoopla or Kanopy.
Resources with PRIDE
LGBT Studies in Video. This database offers a cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940. This archive illuminates the experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole but also of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations.
Past Events with PRIDE
Listen to audio or watch video from some of the Library's past signature events discussing LGBTQ history and experiences.
Liberating Lawrence: Gay Activism in the 1970s
In June 2025 at the Plaza Branch, Katherine Rose-Mockry discussed Liberating Lawrence: Gay Activism in the 1970s. The story of the early struggle for LGBTQ+ rights has typically been told from the perspective of coastal cities like New York, San Francisco, and Miami. But Lawrence, Kansas, was also a hotspot for activist organizations in the 1960s, and the work that was done there reverberated across the country.
Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man’s Search for Home
Also in June 2025, MSNBC anchor Jonathan Capehart shared stories from his new book Yet Here I Am about growing comfortable with his identity as a gay Black man and the internship that made him a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. .
No Place Like Home: The Struggle Against Hate in Kansas
In June 2024 at the Plaza Branch, C.J. Janovy, former editor of The Pitch and former director of content at KCUR 89.3, the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, discussed her 2018 book No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas in a conversation with filmmaker Kevin Willmott. Traveling through a state with a national reputation tied to Topeka’s gay-degrading Westboro Baptist Church, she found LGBT activists who fought in ways big and small for the respect of their neighbors, their communities, and their government.
Show Me Love: Female Impersonation and Drag in Kansas City
In this Missouri Valley Sundays program in December 2023, author and scholar Lucas Hilderbrand spotlighted two gay establishments on Kansas City’s Troost Avenue in the 1960s: the Jewel Box Lounge and the Colony Bar. Drawing from his book, The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After, he examined how these venues made the differences between drag shows and female impersonation apparent at a time when gay bars were emerging as visible and politicized spaces.
Queer Eye: Love Yourself, Love Your Life
Near the end of four months of filming in Kansas City, the stars of Netflix’s infectious reality series Queer Eye sat down at the Central Library in November 2018 to discuss their book Queer Eye: Love Yourself, Love Your Life. Makeover specialists Bobby Berk (interior design), Karamo Brown (culture), Tan France (fashion), Antoni Porowski (food and wine), and Jonathan Van Ness (grooming) also reflected on their Kansas City experiences.
The Ordinance Project: KC’s LGBT Landmark
At the height of the AIDS crisis, the Kansas City City Council added “sexual orientation” to the local Civil Rights Ordinance, barring discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and people with HIV/AIDS. In June 2018, on the 25th anniversary of the ordinance, the Library hosted a program that explored its legacy and compared and contrasted the struggle for LGBT rights then and now.
We're Here, We're Queer: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Kansas City
In this program from 2014, a panel of local experts discussed how, before the famous 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City sparked the modern gay rights movement, Kansas City also had an active gay rights community that was a meaningful participant in the larger national movement.
