"Color Me Correctly" - August is Trans History Month!

August is Transgender History Month, and Kirkwood Library's resident curator, Library Associate Maya P, is featuring a new installment in the CCC (Curated Cultural Collection) series. This display for 2024 centers transgender individuals speaking from lived experiences, historical transgender influencers, and transgender characters in fiction driving representation. The theme is "Color Me Correctly," as a reminder that the collective combination of so many voices within the trans community lends to a very diverse group of people. There is no one way to define anyone, no one-mold-fits-all, although there can be a good baseline for how we start. Before any of us consider coloring someone in (even those we think we know best) we might first begin by asking ourselves: "Did I ask this person if I have the right colors?" A Brief History Lesson: Monica Helms designed the 5-striped pink, blue, and white flag for the trans community in August 1999. She is a trans navy veteran. The light blue of the flag represents the traditional color for boys, the baby pink for girls, and the white in the middle represents those who are transitioning, those who feel they have a neutral gender or undefined gender, and those who are intersexed. It is also designed so that no matter which way it is flown, it is always correct! This was intentional by Helms, who wanted a representation of the community finding correctness, however it manifested, in their collective lives. *This list features links to audiobooks and ebooks of each physical book (when available)! You can click through the pages to find these!*