Barker, Meg-John and Julia Scheele. Queer: A Graphic History. London: Icon Books, Ltd., 2016.
A very accessible overview of queer theory.
Ahmed, Sara. Living a Feminist Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.
Contemporary, intersectional feminist theory, grounded in daily experiences.
Kendell, Mikki. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot. New York: Viking, 2020.
A down-to-earth look at the many critical issues facing BIPOC women that white feminism leaves out.
Halberstram, Judith. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
A re-examination, reclaiming, and re-purposing of the notion of failure.
Reiff Hill, Mel and Jay Mays. The Gender Book. Houston: Marshall House Press, 2013.
A super short graphic-novel-style (nonfiction) book that explains basic concepts about gender. The layout is visually a bit challenging for me to follow (as compared to the graphic simplicity of Queer: a graphic history) and the text doesn’t do quite as good a job of holding the multiplictious, ever-changing nature of gender theory, but it’s still a useful way in for those beginning to unpack gender.
Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia. New York: New York University, 2009.
An important voice in queer theory, Muñoz argues for stepping out of the “straight present” and into a lived vision of a queer futurity.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. London: Routledge, 1990.
This is one of the most often cited classic gender theory texts. Among other things, it lays out the notion of gender as performative.
Young, Iris Marion. “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Bodily Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality.” Human Studies 3 (1980): 137-156.
Written 40 years ago, this article is out of date in many ways, but it remains the best explanation I have found for the ways that gender is embodied. The article is written from the perspective of a white, middle class, American, cisgendered woman and the gender norms it presents are reflective of those demographics. This means that the gendered embodiment described in the article will not necessarily apply to those from other cultures, racial groups, classes, etc. However, if taken as an example of how gender is embodied, I think it is still a very useful piece.
Mattilda (a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore). Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2006.
A collection of essays that presents an intersectional look at the idea of passing as a particular gender, race, class, culture, ability, etc. Worth reading from cover to cover for the range of critiques that substantially complicate and trouble the notion of “passing”.
Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
A deep look at how our orientations towards (or away from) ideas/people/things shape the social world, and at how queerness disrupts established pathways of moving through the world, opening new possibilities.