This Book Is Gay
non-fiction work by Juno Dawson
This Book Is Gay is a nonfiction book written by Juno Dawson and illustrated by Spike Gerrell, first published in the United Kingdom in 2014 with subsequent publication in the US in June 2015. The book is a "manual to all areas of life as an LGBT person" and "is meant to serve as a guidebook for young people discovering their sexual identity and how to navigate those uncomfortable waters."
This Book Is Gay has frequently been banned and challenged in the United States, according to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom.
Background
Prior to writing This Book Is Gay, Dawson had worked as a "sexual education and wellness teacher" for seven years. In 2012, when her publisher requested she write This Book Is Gay, she was uncertain about undertaking "such a massive project." However, she wanted to write a book she would have found beneficial to herself as a queer adolescent, as well as a book that could help protect young people in the age of the internet, where misinformation is rampant.
Beyond discussing topics directly related to sexual intercourse, This Book Is Gay covers "the well-being and the relationship and the nurturing side" of sexual relationships, which Dawson states "was really important to [her], so that young queer people can picture a future for themselves as well-adjusted queer adults."
Book summary
Each of the book's thirteen chapters concerns a different aspect of queer life. The book incorporates discussion of sex education, queer stereotypes, queer history, and many other topics. The introduction is by David Levithan. The chapters are as follows:
Chapter 1: Welcome to the Members Club
This chapter opens with the statement of "There's a long-running joke that, on 'coming out' a young lesbian, gay guy, bisexual, or trans person should receive a membership card and instruction manual. This is that instruction manual." This serves as a general introduction to why this book may be needed. It encompasses the inclusion of different identities, as well as discusses statistics about how many queer people live in the United States, comparing that number to other well-known statistics.
“This Book Is Gay” enters the record as non-fiction work by Juno Dawson. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Book, non-fiction and work can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q118384857. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2015 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “This Book Is Gay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.