1980's Awards
- 1980 - Now the Volcano: An Anthology of Latin American Gay Literature by Winston Leyland, ed.
- 1981 - Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century
by John Boswell
- 1982 - Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present
by Lillian Faderman
- - Black Lesbians: An Annotated Bibliography
by J.R. Roberts
- - The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies
by Vito Russo
- 1983 - no award given
- 1984 - Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970
by John D'Emilio
- 1985 - Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds
by Judy Grahn
- 1986 - Sex and Germs: The Politics of AIDS
by Cindy Patton
- 1987 - The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture
by Walter Williams
- 1988 - A Restricted Country
by Joan Nestle
- - And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by Randy Shilts
- 1989 - The Swimming Pool Library
by Alan Hollinghurst [Gay Debut Fiction winner, 1st Lambda Awards]
- - After Delores
by Sarah Schulman [Lesbian Fiction finalist, 1st Lambda Awards]
1970's Awards
- 1971 - Patience and Sarah
by Isabel Miller
- 1972 - The Gay Mystique: The Myth and Reality of Male Homosexuality
by Peter Fisher
- Lesbian/Woman
by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
- 1973 - no award given
- 1974 - Sex Variant Women in Literature: A Historical and Quantitative Survey
by Jeannette Howard Foster
- 1975 - Homosexuality: Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History, and Literature by Jonathan D. Katz, ed.
- 1976 - no award given
- 1977 - Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives: The Story of Homosexual Men in America Today
by Howard Brown
- 1978 - Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book
by Ginny Vida, ed.
- 1979 - How That You Know: What Every Parent Should Know About Homosexuality
by Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward
