Join author Kimm Topping and featured artist Joshua Allen for a conversation on the power of storytelling and art in Generation Queer. They’ll reflect on the creative process, the importance of queer/trans narratives, and how young people are shaping change. A book signing will follow the discussion.

To reserve a copy of Generation Queer: Stories of Youth Organizers, Artists, and Educators, Kimm Topping (Author) and Anshika Khullar (Illustrator), (Tu Books, May 27, 2025, hardcover, $22.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Generation Queer for October 5 event” in the subject line.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

You can also purchase Generation Queer on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Kimm Topping, Ed.M., is an artist-educator, writer, and historian dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ history. Their first book, Generation Queer, is a nonfiction YA highlighting the stories of LGBTQIA+ youth activists. Their historic tours of Cambridge and New York City spotlight queer and feminist activism from the 1970s to the 1990s, and their series, Mapping Feminist Cambridge, is available through the Cambridge Women’s Commission.

As founder of Lavender Education, a national program promoting LGBTQIA+ history and youth leadership, Kimm leads impactful workshops, professional development, and historic walking tours. Kimm lectures at Harvard Graduate School of Education, specializing in gender, sexuality, and equity. Their work has been recognized by the 2025 Curve Power List and the 2023 Inaugural In-Service Award from the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

Joshua Obawole Allen (b. 1995, Brooklyn, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist and activist whose practice envisions a more just, equitable, and joyous world.

Working at the intersections of art, community organizing, and cultural strategy, Allen uses visual storytelling to honor Black queer and trans life while shifting the cultural conditions so that Black queer and trans people are not merely surviving, but thriving.

Their work has been included in group exhibitions at AM:PM Gallery (2025), the Center for Black Visual Culture at NYU (2024), Leslie-Lohman Museum (2024), Armory Week (2024), the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Arts (2024), and the national For Freedoms / Wide Awakes billboard campaign (2020). They are featured in the 2024 For Freedoms monograph published by Phaidon Press and the anthology Generation Queer from Lee & Low Books. In Spring 2025, Allen appeared as a cover star for Dazed Magazine.

Allen is also a regular contributor to Queerty x Native Son, where they write on art, culture, entertainment, and politics, helping to shape public discourse around intersectional justice and representation.

In addition to their artistic and editorial work, Allen brings over a decade of experience in grassroots organizing. They served as the first-ever Activist-in-Residence at New York City’s LGBT Center, where they piloted a mentorship program for Black queer and trans youth. In 2020, they were recognized as one of The New Yorker’s Hometown Heroes for their community service during the COVID-19 pandemic. That same year, they led a record-breaking grassroots fundraising campaign that raised over $300,000 in just 18 days for Black trans youth, and later co-organized the Brooklyn Liberation March, which drew over 15,000 people in support of Black trans lives.

Allen’s work continues to build bridges between art and activism, rooted in the belief that cultural change is inseparable from systemic change.