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This article aims to help educators provide a holistic view of the LGBTQ community by highlighting children’s books that include non-parental LGBTQ characters.

The author selected over 80 children’s books honored by the American Library Association’s Rainbow Book List. Twenty-two books were analyzed that contain examples of LGBTQ adults existing beyond the homonormative nuclear family, e.g. two same-sex parents raising children.

The author discusses various ways of living represented in these books, such as chosen families, extended families, romantic partnerships and singlehood.

With the increased number of high-quality LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books published in the past decade, this study provides the foundation for educators to select various texts that reveal diverse representations of LGBTQ individuals.

The lived experience of HIV+ Black MSM (men who have sex with men) in the South exposes persistent racialized inequality. With the highest rates of HIV diagnosis in the country, Black MSM are made to feel unequal within the US LGBTQ community, thereby perpetuating long-standing inequalities between the groups. We argue that Whites' and Blacks' differing conceptions of racial equality serve to limit the extent to which comprehensive LGBTQ equality is possible as whiteness frames the LGBTQ experience in the United States. Examining how the country's racist story of nonaccess, representation, and exclusion has stymied coalition building to eliminate inequalities, findings reveal the structural impediments toward racial parity. Utilizing the case study of HIV+ Black MSM in the South, we examine the persistence of inequality amid the thrice interwoven intramarginalization of feeling excluded from sociopolitical spaces, having limited political representation, and engaging with racist body politics.

The purpose of this study is to develop an integrative concept of perceived authenticity that captures a more nuanced perception of authenticity among LGBTQ stakeholders and to examine the effects of perceived organizational authenticity on Pride campaign evaluations.

With 400 LGBTQ/non-LGBTQ participants, we developed a perceived organizational authenticity (POA) scale - adapted from marketing literature - adding representativeness as the fifth dimension to the context of LGBTQ communication. We also examined the differences between LGBTQ participants and non-LGBTQ participants in perceiving authenticity and evaluating the Pride 2020 campaign in terms of brand attitude, skepticism and purchase intention.

Our scale development resulted in a 20-item POA scale measuring five dimensions: continuity, credibility, integrity, symbolism and representativeness. We also found that POA increases brand attitude and purchase intention while mitigating skepticism toward the Pride 2020 campaign.

This study provides not only empirical support for perceived authenticity literature across communication disciplines including marketing as well as public relations, but it also propels an interdisciplinary approach to POA scale development.

The POA scale can be used to measure the effectiveness of organizational communication as well as stakeholder perception of authenticity. This research provides guidelines regarding how POA of LGBTQ communication might be enhanced.

This study developed a POA scale in the context of LGBTQ communication. This study is innovative in developing a POA scale that can be used to measure the effectiveness of public relations and communication efforts, as well as perceived authenticity of LGBTQ communication.

The chapter introduces the reader to select language of human sexuality and the definitions and characteristics of some key terms related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning/queer (LGBTQ+), identifies different theoretical perspectives of human sexuality and sexual orientation, and discusses select LGBTQ+ theories and concepts in a historical context that library and information science (LIS) professionals should consider while performing their roles related to information creation–organization–management–dissemination–research processes. It helps better understand the scope of what is LGBTQ+ information and traces its interdisciplinary connections to reflect on its place within the LIS professions. The chapter discusses these implications with the expectation of the LIS professional to take concrete actions in changing the conditions that lack fairness, equality/equity, justice, and/or human rights for LGBTQ+ people via the use of information. Important considerations in this regard include the need for an integrative interdisciplinary LGBTQ+ information model, growth of a diversified LGBTQ+ knowledge base and experiences, holistic LGBTQ+ information representations, LGBTQ+ activism, and participatory engagement and inclusion of LGBTQ+ users.

Through investigating how Belgian LGBTQ people evaluate gay-themed print and television advertising in mainstream media, the purpose of this study is to explore how gay-themed advertising strategies are evaluated in relation to context.

Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 Flemish self-identified lesbian, gay male and bisexual people.

Findings of this research demonstrate the importance of the situated context in which LGBTQ people receive and evaluate gay-themed advertisements. By offering a common stock of social knowledge and experience, context creates a framework against which LGBTQ people evaluate gay-themed advertisements. In this specific research that was conducted in a Western-European LGBTQ-friendly society (Belgium), critical evaluations of gay-washing and the dirty laundry effect were found. The positive evaluations of explicit gay-themed and inclusive advertisements also highlighted the importance of advertising an inclusive society.

In considering how gay-themed advertising evaluations relate to context and lived experiences, this research contributes to current knowledge on gay-themed advertising and its reception within LGBTQ groups.

This research offers valuable insights to marketers on how to target sexual minorities in LGBTQ (un)friendly societies.

Findings highlight the social importance of minority-oriented advertising. Not only can such advertising promote civic inclusion and social recognition of minority groups, it also has the potential to play a key role in the construction and normalisation of identities.

In an effort to reinvigorate current marketing debates on gay-themed advertising, this study builds on theoretical insights gained via reception research and LGBTQ studies. In doing so, this research yields a more nuanced and contextualised understanding of LGBTQ people’s engagement with various gay-themed advertisements. Considering within a Western European society the relevance of context when researching gay-themed advertisement reception, the results add to primarily US-based research on this topic.

Books serve as important information resources and provide space for reflection and identity-building for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) people. Many in this community have experienced reduced feelings of isolation through engagement with the writings of others. Providing a safe space for such engagement is vital. Library and information science (LIS) professionals are in an optimal position to meet such needs, particularly when efforts are made to implement changes based on explicitly expressed concerns.

This chapter provides a case study of the LGBTQ Center of Durham, North Carolina, to illustrate how the organization is integrating the local LGBTQ+ community into its library by using the community’s own vocabulary and interests to inform the center’s practices and policies. The chapter also offers a guide to the locally responsive, LGBTQ+-specific classification system created for the LGBTQ Center of Durham’s library collection. This classification system was designed to represent library materials for its Durham and surrounding-area users in a useful, accessible, and respectful manner – a feat that the library committee did not feel could be accomplished using existing classification systems.

Building on the case study for applicability, the author makes recommendations for how LIS professionals who wish to better serve LGBTQ+ users can incorporate the community into their library and/or collection. The author provides additional suggestions for action, with varying levels of commitment, for library professionals and volunteers. Through resource development, training, collection development, and classification revision, libraries can more closely align their practices with the needs of users of all gender identities and sexual orientations.

The purpose of this paper is to present an exploratory practice‐based framework that identifies strategic goals, objectives, and activities for each of the five areas of modern‐day reference, namely – access to electronic resources, user instruction, library commons, outreach liaison, and virtual reference – with a focus on meeting the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (LGBTQ) individuals during the coming out process.

The paper highlights findings for progressive reference services in the twenty‐first century based on qualitative studies and action research conducted by two openly gay library and information science professionals in the University of Tennessee‐Knoxville during the period 2005‐2011.

Findings reveal elements of the proposed framework geared towards meeting the needs of LGBTQ patrons during the five phases of coming out – self‐recognition, sharing with other LGBTQ people, telling close friends/family, positive self‐identification, and integration of LGBTQ identity.

Minimal research has been done involving reference services for LGBTQ patrons. This paper's original value is in its extended vision of traditional reference that focused solely on information provision to a more encompassing conceptualization and implementation that designs, delivers, and assesses reference services in a community engagement context to develop fair and equitable services for LGBTQ patrons.

This chapter considers the current state of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ+) librarianship in the United Kingdom. It begins with a question: at the time of writing, there seems to be more of a focus on LGBTQ+ issues in museums and archives than there is in libraries. Why is this so? To answer this, the chapter focuses briefly on the wider social setting; looks at current library provision; discusses what “queer librarianship” might involve; considers whether LGBTQ+ library staff’s and LGBTQ+ library users’ voices are heard; and then looks at the question of mainstreaming provision, and considers whether this would be a positive step forward.

Social justice themes permeate the social studies, history, civics, and current events curricula. The purpose of this paper is to examine how non-fiction trade books represented lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and issues.

Trade books published after 2000 and intended for middle grades (5-8) and high school (9-12) students were analyzed.

Findings included main characters’ demography, sexuality, and various ancillary elements, such as connection to LGBTQ community, interactions with non-LGBTQ individuals, the challenges and contested terrain that LGBTQ individuals must traverse, and a range of responses to these challenges. Publication date, intended audience, and subgenre of non-fiction – specifically, memoir, expository, and historical text – added nuance to findings. Viewed broadly, the books generally engaged in exceptionalism, a historical misrepresentation, of one singular character who was a gay or lesbian white American. Diverse sexualities, races, ethnicities, and contexts were largely absent. Complex resistance structures were frequent and detailed.

This research contributes to previous scholarship exploring LGBTQ-themed fiction for secondary students and close readings of secondary level non-fiction trade books.