After centuries of politically sanctioned bigotry, LGBT rights are finally achieving human rights status — an achievement not of a particular political regime but of the generations of people who endured violence and social stigma yet spoke up for their rights anyway. But to inhabit one’s self wholeheartedly and stand firmly behind one’s identity with bravery and conviction in the face of insult and injustice is hardly simple and never easy. In The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves (public library), 63 celebrated authors, including David Levithan, Amy Bloom, Brian Selznick, Gregory Maguire, and Lucy Thurber, offer exactly what it says on the tin — honest, heartening, profoundly moving personal missives to their younger selves that are part Dear Me and part It Gets Better, imparting wisdom about what they wish they’d known about their future lives as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.

The very things in your life that seem to be depressing and oppressing you right now are going to be the means by which you set yourself free.” ~ James Lecesne

↬ Tom Rielly