The number of LGBTQ+-focused bookstores in the U.S. has slowly but steadily increased over the past five years. While this new generation of booksellers all give a nod to their predecessors, they’ve also made a point of doing things differently.

Some say the pandemic prompted them to reconsider unsatisfying corporate jobs, while others say that because they could not find LGBTQ+ literature in their local bookstores, they decided to open their own. Others simply want to provide a safe space for their community that offers an alternative to bars.

“I just wanted to create more queer space in Columbia [S.C.] and resources that I wish I’d had, growing up.” says Baker Rogers, who opened Queer Haven Books in 2024, after a year of pop-ups. “I’m an academic, so I did it around learning and education.” Store programming includes a variety of book clubs; there's even one that combines discussion with collective action. “It’s one of our most popular book clubs,” Rogers says, “so many people in the area are interested in topics that we have a unique insight into.”

Patrick Kern left his corporate job and opened Little District Books in 2022 in Washington, D.C. to, he says, fill a need for a queer-focused indie since Lambda Rising in Dupont Circle closed in 2010. Now that the store has moved from a 750-square-foot space into a 2000-square-foot space, Kern says that he can expand in-store programming. “We’re going to do more community events,” he says, “we have a lot in the works.”

Alex Spencer said that during the pandemic, she found she “could not work a desk job” anymore. And, though she had more time to read, she could not find queer books at the big-box stores in Tallahassee, Fla. “All the LGBTQ books are shelved with other books in the same genre,” she says. “It’s great for equality, but not great for finding what you want.” Noting that Tallahassee used to have an LGBTQ+ bookstore that closed in the late ’90s, Spencer opened Common Ground Books in 2022 to once again provide the city with a “dedicated queer space” that extends beyond the traditional LGBTQ+ bookstore business model.

Common Ground, Spencer says, “leans into all different subsets of queer culture,” stocking and showcasing books by and about people who are trans, nonbinary, or asexual. It is expanding beyond a solely LGBTQ+ focus, evolving into what Spencer describes as a “broad radical bookstore,” with books on social justice and politics, as well as Black and Native American literature.

Other new queer bookstores vary in origin stories and business models—some launched or spent time as pop-ups, others have always been bricks-and-mortar. Originally a bricks-and-mortar store in Hutchinson, Kans., Crow & Co. recently moved into a permanent shared space in Superior, Wis., but still hosts pop-ups in brewpubs in Duluth, Minn. Once a pop-up, Always Here Bookstore in Portland, Ore., doesn’t just sell books: it provides lockers filled with free mutual aid products, including gender-affirming gear (like binders) for anyone who wants them.

“For us, being a queer bookstore is about more than the books we curate,” says John Hart, who opened Always Here in 2025. “Queerness is political, too. Performing mutual aid work ourselves is really just us walking our talk.”

Kaitlyn Mahoney launched Under the Umbrella in 2021 in Salt Lake City because they “wanted to read more queer books, and it was very difficult, even in 2021, to find queer books here,” they say. “I just thought it shouldn’t be this hard in such a queer city.” Under the Umbrella, which has a café, bills itself as a “safe, sober, and accessible space” for all ages to gather, with programming that includes pop-up artisan markets and “Queer Speed Date” nights. “This is more than a bookstore,” Mahoney says. “It’s been a community space from the beginning. Not everyone wants to go to a bar.”

Seattle was home to several LGBTQ+ bookstores between 1988 and 2005, and then there were none for almost 20 years, says Charlie Hunts, who opened Charlie’s Queer Books in 2023 to fill that need. “It also felt like the right time to open a queer bookstore because of the rise in both anti-LGBTQ legislation and record number of book bans,” he says.

While most communities in the U.S. lack an LGBTQ+ bookstore, three queer bookstores have opened in Brooklyn within the past two years, including Gladys Books & Wine in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood in September 2025. Gladys is also a lesbian bar, the kind of establishment which owner Tiffany Dockery calls “a dying breed.” The store’s inventory “radiates out from a core” collection of books by Black queer and trans women, she says. “Our selection is not exclusive; it is about what is centered. We’ll consider any writer that aligns with the politics of Black lesbian feminism.”

Hive Mind Books in Bushwick, a bookstore with a coffee shop, which opened in October 2024, focuses on small press titles and community, says owner Jules Wernersbach. Hive Mind “is doing what queer bookstores have always done for queer arts and culture,” they say, but it also “puts people over profits,” by offering a space and free events where “people can just hang out. They don’t have to buy anything.”

Crown Heights’ Nonbinarian Bookstore, which opened a week after Hive Mind, on Election Day 2024, began two years earlier as the Nonbinarian Book Bike pop-up. “We had the foresight to recognize where this country might be headed, with the rise in anti-trans legislation and book bans,” says cofounder K. Kerimian. “There was the need for a bricks-and-mortar space that centers trans folks. Why else would you go from a cargo bike to paying rent in New York City?”

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