The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf

Reviews

“Kaila Adia Story has been honoring the legacy of Audre Lorde with her audacious and loving scholarship and by teaching for over a decade. Now, in this book, she honors all of us with her incisive accountability, her rigorous questions, and her genuine mission to free us all.”
—Alexis Pauline Gumbs, PhD, author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

“In The Rainbow Ain’t Never Been Enuf, Kaila Adia Story delivers a searing critique of the false narrative of LGBTQ+ unity. Combining rigorous scholarship, cultural analysis, and personal insight, Story dismantles the racism, transphobia, and anti-Blackness that persist in mainstream queer spaces. She amplifies the voices and legacies of Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ trailblazers, calling for a radical reimagining of solidarity rooted in justice and equity. With unflinching honesty and visionary clarity, this work is both a critique and a call to action, essential for anyone seeking to transform the future of queer liberation.”
—E. Patrick Johnson, author of Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women

“Kaila Adia Story’s offering is in line with the Black queer literary intervention that is ‘troublemaking,’ as the Black lesbian poet Cheryl Clarke is wont to say. Story does not shy away from ‘reading’ the world via an intersectional lens in this text. She is relentless in demanding that her readers understand that any so-called progressive homonormative vision of the future that is anti-Black and misogynistic will never be liberating for all of us for whom the rainbow is supposed to cover.”
—Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America and the host of the podcast Being Seen

“Beautiful, compelling, and brilliant. Kaila Adia Story seamlessly interweaves the personal, archival, theoretical, and the ancestral in this richly compelling journey of Black and Latinx queer and trans worldmaking. This book challenges us to debunk myths about LGBTQ+ solidarity and to rightfully demand that we anchor liberatory resistance in Black and Latinx queer/trans pasts, presents, and futures. All rainbows ain’t the same.”
—Treva B. Lindsey, professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University and author of America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice

“The Rainbow Ain’t Never Been Enuf holds a needed critique of the LGBTQ+ community and confronts a truth that has long been suppressed: being queer does not absolve a person from being racist or holding white supremacist, misogynistic, or transphobic views. Through personal experience, Dr. Story shares what it means to live within multiple identities and dispels the myth that ‘the rainbow’ is a symbol of solidarity and safety for all. This brilliant nod to Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is a dynamic contribution to Black studies, women’s and gender studies, and queer studies alike.”
—Yaba Blay, author of One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race Expand reviews