Late final 12 months, I coated a enormous story out of Huntsville, Texas. The public library was being taken over by a personal firm, in a transfer most believed to be immediately associated to the library’s inclusion of queer supplies and guide shows. You can learn the complete story right here.
A former Huntsville Public Library worker, Elissa Myers, reached out to me to ask if she might share her story about working at this establishment. Her work is much less in regards to the guide banning–that’s there, too–however about what it means to be a queer librarian in a time of unmitigated bigotry, a lot of which is being directed at public staff in training and libraries.
In addition to a look behind the desk, this piece provides beneficiant options for methods to assist your native libraries proceed to be locations of inclusivity, entry, inquiry, and security for each the entire of the communities they serve but additionally the individuals who work inside their partitions.
Elissa Myers is a queer author, library employee, and educator. She additionally runs a tiny queer bookstore known as Rainbow Books in Huntsville, TX. She has a Ph.D. in youngsters’s literature and Victorian literature, and likes to nerd out about embroidery, crochet, and different crafts in her spare time.
I started working on the Huntsville Public Library as a result of youngsters’s literature and offering younger folks with various books have been two issues I cared deeply about. I grew up in East Texas, and it meant a lot to me to have the ability to guarantee younger folks’s entry to various literature in the realm the place I grew up. I’ve a Ph.D. in youngsters’s literature, and although I had by no means deliberate on taking a job exterior academia, the chance appeared made for me. It was native, so I wouldn’t have to maneuver, and I’d get to assist make sure that youngsters in an space near my hometown had the varieties of books I all the time wished I had had as a child.
However, I didn’t and couldn’t have anticipated the energy and depth of the native backlash to queer literature–significantly books for kids with LGBTQ content material–and the methods in which the buildings in place might each create a personally tough state of affairs for me as a person and prohibit our library and its workers from offering the service we have been there to supply. I’m in the place of not being in my job on the Huntsville Public Library, and so I need to converse to what queer library staff have been going through and to a few ways in which I feel most of the people (and particularly queer people) might assist us reply to this intense backlash. While the numerous kits and assets to assist people resist guide banning are a nice begin, these kits don’t all the time take into consideration the specifics of guide banning conditions–in explicit, the truth that librarians themselves and the native queer group (and particularly library professionals in the queer group) are sometimes those who’re actually being focused. This can, sadly, make many of the options given in these useful resource kits unattainable or completely impractical. Here, I’m going to talk to what it’s wish to be focused in such a manner, how that limits your choices, and the varieties of issues that may actually assist cease or mitigate such discrimination. I gained’t promise I can resolve all the issues that I lay out, however I do know we undoubtedly gained’t resolve them until we identify them.
A few months earlier than I started working at my library, the backlash towards queer books had already begun, as a native censorship group known as Mama Bears Rising spoke at church buildings up and down Interstate 45, the hall that connects Houston with its outlying conservative suburbs. This group inspired these church buildings’ members to talk out towards books they didn’t agree with at public and college libraries–primarily books that featured LGBTQ+ content material or YA books that featured intercourse scenes. Those members then started talking to their metropolis council members about these books as an alternative of going by way of the library-approved course of for difficult supplies, circumventing the experience of librarians, who purchase supplies for all members of their communities and take into account such issues as age-appropriateness from the start once they make their purchases.
A few quick months after I started working, I started going through the backlash in a private manner. It all started when group members first realized I used to be queer. I had a number of rainbow articles on my desk, however in the future after I wore a pair of socks with the phrase “queer” on them on a day after I needed to lead storytime, issues got here to a head. A mum or dad known as me a few days later to complain.
She informed me, to paraphrase her phrases, that her buddy had taken a image of the socks and that her child might learn, and she or he didn’t need him studying that phrase. She additionally claimed I had an LGBTQ agenda in storytime, although she couldn’t identify one guide that had given her that impression. She additionally made references to “globalism” and “transgenderism” in my storytimes, although once more, she didn’t supply help for her statements. The solely guide she named that she didn’t like was one which supported racial range, entitled “What’s the Difference?” This guide teaches youngsters to speak about racial variations with out judgment and options such statements as “So what if your friend has curly hair and you have straight hair? You both like to wear cool hats!” It’s a very candy and age-appropriate guide. She informed me there was extra I could possibly be speaking about than merely “feelings and being nice to each other” and requested if I needed her to suggest some “classic” youngsters’s books.
I declined her supply of assist. I used to be put in my job for a purpose, and imagine I used to be totally succesful of doing it. I informed her that I had a Ph.D. and that she clearly had a drawback with my identification greater than my selections as a library skilled.
And then the takedown of our Pride show occurred. Our show was taken down lower than 24 hours after we put it up. This show was not my choice, however many assumed I had one thing to do with it (as the one out queer particular person at my job). What ensued was months of complaints at metropolis council conferences, in which thinly veiled judgments about me and my boss and our choices on the library have been regularly made. At one assembly, patrons dissected a publication article I had written, which consisted of new titles I assumed teenagers would possibly need to try. They found out which proportion “were gay books” (about half) and proceeded to indicate there was one thing deeply improper with this, which, of course, didn’t should be said as a result of it was apparent to all of the god-fearing folks in the room.
Shortly after that, the police have been known as into the library to research a record of books that featured generally banned books for “obscenity.” The record of books they investigated was not similar to the record coming from the publication I wrote. However, a FOIA request completed by a patron later confirmed that a patron had requested that they examine my record as properly.
Additionally, the FOIA request additionally returned emails and texts inquiring into who had bought Gender Queer and why–one of the books that was investigated by the police.
Around this time, photos of my desk have been posted on NextDoor and Facebook on the misunderstanding that the rainbow knick-knacks and small flag I had there have been the Pride show. Because I used to be the youngsters’s librarian, my desk was in the youngsters’s part, and this led to the mistaken perception that the Pride show was in the youngsters’s part. At some level, threats have been made. People mentioned we must always “all lose our jobs,” bemoaning our “shameful behavior,” and even saying we “should all be shot.” I started monitoring these websites to verify extra such threats weren’t made for my very own security.
Around the identical time, our HR director knowledgeable me that I might not put on socks that mentioned the phrase “queer.” More basically, the town refused to place ahead any assertion of help for its staff or for queer residents of the city.
As the one out queer particular person on the library, I felt profoundly remoted. Everyone else might select to easily “lay low” whereas this blew over. But as soon as folks knew I used to be queer, they didn’t let up on me, and explaining the toll this was taking up me to coworkers and household was tough.
Additionally, our location made it tough to take benefit of many widespread assets for guide banning conditions. As we have been metropolis staff, we understood our worker handbook to restrict what lets say in regards to the state of affairs. And as a result of we have been in a “right to work” state with out unions, this made it nearly unattainable to mobilize patrons. Though many patrons and townspeople discovered what was occurring and protested it vehemently, I’m positive that there are additionally many progressive group members who don’t even know what occurred on the library.
We additionally had no different members of our professions to prepare with. Most useful resource kits additionally recommend going to orgs like ALA, however after I did so, I used to be all the time informed that as a result of I wasn’t the library director, there was little I might do and little they might do to assist me. The issues I might do have been all the time small and, in my explicit place, unhelpful–report the problem to ALA, make sure that they use the official problem process, and many others. No one appeared to grasp that at our library books hadn’t even been formally challenged, a lot much less banned. Rather, queer folks themselves have been being challenged, and with the official endorsement of the town council and the police.
Thus, we have been intimidated into what felt to me like smooth censorship–doubting and enjoying protected each program, and particularly youngsters’s applications. A go to by a trans creator was vetoed with no purpose given. Earlier that 12 months, I used to be written up for suggesting we do a guide about a bear consuming a bunny. My boss was suspended for 2 weeks for the show difficulty. No one needed to be fired. And it appeared like till that occurred, nobody might actually assist us.
Finally, in January, our library was privatized in what I imagine to be a thinly-veiled try to regulate library staff. In late December, all staff obtained a letter from the City letting us know that they might not make use of us. Instead, we must re-interview with Library Systems and Services, to whom day-to-day operations of the library would quickly be supposedly handed over. After one indignant metropolis council assembly in which all however a few residents expressed their intense displeasure over the choice and the velocity with which it was made, we misplaced. The library was turned over to LSS.
The subsequent month, when LSS took over the library, all of us have been scheduled for brief conversations with their vice chairman of operations–supposedly a formality for us to start work with LSS. Instead of a formality, nevertheless, my assembly became what appeared to me to be a grilling session about why I had the small rainbow flag on my desk. At our subsequent assembly, the VP expressed “surprise” that I accepted the job. It appeared apparent to me that LSS would act as a puppet, imposing the City’s opinions and needs fairly than contemplating what is perhaps greatest for the group or library staff.
After these conferences, along with every little thing I skilled all through my employment with the town, I started to search for different jobs, satisfied I’d not have the ability to do good with my boss now required to implement the selections of an outdoor firm, which it appeared was more likely to proceed the town’s coverage of antagonism towards the LBGTQ group. As a approach to proceed to assist out my group, nevertheless, I began a small queer bookstore known as Rainbow Books inside a native cafe. I’ve immense respect for many who proceed to do library work beneath such unattainable situations, however I’ve been capable of do issues for the queer group I by no means might have completed in the function of a small bookstore proprietor. I’ve held native occasions for the queer group, corresponding to a queer promenade, when Pride was canceled by our metropolis as a consequence of a technicality. I’ve additionally been capable of maintain area in our city the place queer people are continually celebrated, each throughout Pride and all 12 months lengthy, and the place nobody can take our show of that satisfaction away. So, in my very own manner, I’m nonetheless preventing.
I’m additionally nonetheless preventing for the library however from a totally different perspective as a patron. I nonetheless verify in with my former coworkers about what’s going on and let my activist networks know if one thing appears odd or troubling. Additionally, I nonetheless am, actually, a patron of the library. I try books, regrettably rack up late charges, and plan to schedule occasions with my queer guide membership in their assembly rooms. This isn’t to say that the local weather on the library is best now than it was or that I now really feel at dwelling there. On the opposite, I really feel deeply uncomfortable there, however am decided to not let the town push me out of this public area.
If you’re taking something from this piece, please take away the truth that being a patron of a library offers you *so* way more energy than your public librarians. They are nearly all the time serving on the will of the town, and in states with no union protections, this implies they will lose their jobs for any purpose or no purpose (this isn’t an exaggeration, however official wording). Additionally, cities usually make specific insurance policies that forbid metropolis staff (like librarians) from talking out about them. Under these situations, librarians are sometimes compelled to adjust to any insurance policies that metropolis officers make–even when these insurance policies go immediately towards our skilled and private codes of ethics. So once more, whereas your librarians could possibly do little towards guide bans, you can also make your displeasure identified to your officers and, above all, use the library in order that you realize what’s going on.
My mother and father don’t perceive why I’m nonetheless preventing, however I hold preventing as a result of I’m queer in Huntsville, TX, and I would like the library to be a public area the place I really feel protected and affirmed. And I do know that it’s not nearly that area; it’s about signaling that we matter in a nation the place legal guidelines are being made daily to remove the healthcare of our trans family and friends, and the place drag is being criminalized. In lately the place our public areas as queer individuals are being endangered, the place our bars shut, and Pride is being canceled because it was right here in my city. Where Pride celebrations and large field shops obtain threats for celebrating us–in such a local weather, each Pride flag and each queer guide somebody sees might make the distinction between them feeling alone and afraid to them feeling seen, worthy, and assured to maintain preventing in their very own lives. This capability to maintain preventing is what I would like for us all, so with that in thoughts, listed below are a few ideas to assist help your native library and librarians in this time of guide challenges. I’m directing the following pointers significantly towards my queer household, as I do know this guide banning feels private to us and is, maybe, emotionally tougher for us than it’s for others:
A few ideas to assist queer people help your (seemingly comparatively disempowered) public librarians:
- Go to the library in particular person. Get to know the workers, and ask them what’s been occurring.
- Make it YOUR library. Make mates with a workers member. Have a membership or create a membership that you simply take pleasure in going to. Bring your youngsters to issues, in case you have them.
- If you’re partnered, deliver your associate(s) for those who really feel protected to take action. Queer visibility in the library is so essential, and you possibly can be serving to any person who feels much less protected really feel extra so.
- Suggest new programming concepts to workers! Most of them can be very grateful for brand new concepts! The level is that, no matter your perspective and/or lived expertise, the library SHOULD have programming that appeals to you. If they don’t, then that is half of the issue. Don’t disinvest from the library for those who really feel it doesn’t serve you; as an alternative, struggle on your imaginative and prescient! When we’re as loud as the opposite facet, and we’re proactive about what we wish fairly than reactive, it makes us more durable to disregard.
- Go to metropolis council conferences and signal as much as remark if there’s one thing occurring you may have an opinion about. Numbers matter, though we nonetheless gained’t all the time win. Get used to shedding and hold going anyway.
- Go to library board conferences and signal as much as remark.
- Write an op-ed on your native newspaper.
- Consider geography and native cultural local weather: If you’re someplace the place church buildings matter culturally (just like the South, the place I dwell), and also you your self are non secular, converse up on your values in that venue and to your church members. If you aren’t non secular, attempt to community with people who’re, if that feels protected for you. In locations the place faith is a crucial half of the tradition, it has energy as an establishment that people don’t.
- Public library fights are sometimes centered round “the children.” You don’t should have youngsters to struggle for the library, although. When you see them gutting youngsters’s programming and collections (one of the costliest and central areas in a public library), it’s okay to talk up even for those who don’t have youngsters. I say this as a result of this “for the children” factor is simply one other one of their techniques, and it’s used to silence the left. Speaking as an aunt, grandparent, group volunteer, and many others., must be simply as legitimate! We have a stake in the subsequent era’s sense of belonging in this world, too.
- Recognize defunding and underfunding as methods of dismantling the library as a public area. Censorship isn’t the one hazard our group is going through. If they only don’t give us sufficient cash, that is additionally a manner that a public area dies.
- And lastly, keep your hope. Have a queer group that you simply flip to for venting and in addition for celebrating your wins as a group. May all of us have the energy to maintain preventing and a group that we really feel blessed to have the ability to struggle alongside.
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