List of LGBT writers

This list of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender writers covers writers who wrote works with LGBT themes and elements or who wrote on LGBT issues. Works of these authors are part of LGBT literature.


 * This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness.

Late 19th century

 * Charles Baudelaire, French poet
 * Edward Carpenter
 * Emily Dickinson, American poet
 * Michael Field
 * Théophile Gautier
 * A. E. Housman, English poet
 * Herman Melville
 * Walter Pater
 * Arthur Rimbaud, French poet
 * Charles Warren Stoddard
 * Algernon Swinburne, English poet
 * Walt Whitman, American poet
 * Oscar Wilde

20th century
The 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City were a watershed for the worldwide gay rights movement, as gay and transgender people had never before acted together in such large numbers to forcibly resist police. As a result, modern LGBT history is often categorized as either "Pre-" or "Post-Stonewall."

Pre-Stonewall

 * J. R. Ackerley: We Think the World of You (1960)
 * Reinaldo Arenas
 * W. H. Auden
 * James Baldwin: Giovanni's Room (1956)
 * Djuna Barnes: Ladies Almanack (1928); Nightwood (1936)
 * William S. Burroughs
 * Truman Capote
 * Constantine P. Cavafy
 * Jean Cocteau
 * Colette: Claudine s'en va (1903)
 * Noel Coward
 * Hart Crane
 * Ronald Firbank
 * E. M. Forster: Maurice (1972)
 * Jean Genet: Our Lady of the Flowers (1944)
 * André Gide: The Immoralist (1902)
 * Allen Ginsberg
 * Radclyffe Hall: The Well of Loneliness (1928)
 * Patricia Highsmith
 * Magnus Hirschfeld
 * Avery Hopwood - American playwright.
 * Langston Hughes
 * Christopher Isherwood: Down There on a Visit (1962); A Single Man (1964)
 * D. H. Lawrence: The Rainbow (1915)
 * Federico García Lorca
 * Carson McCullers: Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941)
 * W. Somerset Maugham
 * Compton Mackenzie: Extraordinary Women (1928)
 * Frank O'Hara
 * Joe Orton
 * Yukio Mishima (disputed)
 * Marcel Proust
 * Mary Renault: The Charioteer (1953); The Last of the Wine (1956)
 * Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
 * Edward Prime Stevenson: Imre (1906)
 * Evelyn Waugh
 * Mae West
 * William Carlos Williams, American poet
 * Thorton Wilder
 * Tennessee Williams
 * Angus Wilson: Hemlock and After (1952)
 * Virginia Woolf: Orlando: A Biography (1928)
 * Marguerite Yourcenar: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

Post-Stonewall

 * Edward Albee
 * Henry Alley
 * James Robert Baker
 * Bruce Benderson
 * Rita Mae Brown: Rubyfruit Jungle (1973)
 * Timothy Conigrave: Holding the Man (1995)
 * Douglas Coupland
 * Samuel R. Delany: Dark Reflections (2007) The Motion of Light in Water (1988),etc.
 * Leslie Feinberg
 * Harvey Fierstein
 * Timothy Findley
 * Bertha Harris
 * Essex Hemphill
 * Michael Cunningham
 * Larry Kramer
 * Tony Kushner
 * David Leavitt
 * Audre Lorde
 * Gregory Maguire
 * Douglas A. Martin
 * Armistead Maupin: Tales of the City (1978)
 * Terrence McNally
 * Ethan Mordden


 * Sydney Pokorny
 * Christopher Rice
 * Keith Ridgway
 * Robert Rodi
 * Shyam Selvadurai
 * Randy Shilts
 * Hervé Guibert
 * Tom Spanbauer: The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon (1992)
 * Andrew Tobias: The Best Little Boy in the World (1973)
 * Colm Tóibín: The Story of the Night (1996); The Master (2004)
 * Michel Tremblay
 * Andrew Vachss: Choice of Evil (1999); Step on a Crack
 * Ruth Vanita
 * Gore Vidal: The City and the Pillar (1948)
 * Paula Vogel
 * Alice Walker
 * Patricia Nell Warren: The Front Runner (1974)
 * John Preston
 * Edmund White: A Boy's Own Story (1983)
 * Jeanette Winterson: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)
 * Alan Hollinghurst: The Swimming Pool Library (1988), The Folding Star (1994), The Spell (1998)^
 * José Lezama Lima: Paradiso
 * Virgilio Piñera
 * Lucy Jane Bledsoe: Working Parts (1998 Stonewall Book Award for Literature)

21st century

 * Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty, winner of the 2004 Booker Prize
 * Sarah Waters: Tipping the Velvet (1998); Affinity (1999); The Night Watch (2006)
 * Mirjam Müntefering, German author
 * Stacey D'Erasmo: Tea (2000); A Seahorse Year (2004)
 * Alison Bechdel: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006)