Idaho librarian June Meissner was closing up for the day at the downtown Boise public library when a man approached her asking for help.
As an information services librarian, answering patron questions is part of Meissner’s daily job, and serving the community is one of her favorite parts of the job.
But when the man got close enough, “he punched me and tried to hit me in the head,” said Meissner, a transgender woman. “I blocked him and he started shouting insults and suggesting that he was going to come back and kill me.”
World Pride Month events are underway to celebrate LGBTQ+ culture and rights. But it comes at a time when people who identify as LGBTQ+ say they face increasing difficulties at work, ranging from being repeatedly mistreated to physically assaulted.
Gender-nonconforming library workers in particular, like Meissner, are also grappling with growing calls for book bans across the United States, with books about gender identity, sexual orientation and race topping the list of most popular titles. criticized, making the attacks even more personal.
“When we see attacks on those books, we have to understand that they are also attacks on those types of people,” said Emily Drabinski, who is president of the American Library Association and is gay. “That my identity has been weaponized against libraries and library workers, the people and institutions I care about most, has made it a difficult and painful year.”
The ALA said it documented the highest number of titles subject to censorship in 2023 in more than 20 years of monitoring: 4,240. That total surpassed the previous record from 2022 by 65%, and Maia Kobabe’s coming-of-age story “Gender Queer” topped the list of most criticized library books for the third year in a row.
Lawmakers are increasingly considering lawsuits, fines and even prison time for distributing books that some consider inappropriate, including in Meissner’s home state of Idaho. Lawmakers approved legislation that empowers local prosecutors to file charges against public and school libraries if they fail to keep “harmful” materials out of the reach of children. The new law, signed by Idaho Gov. Brad Little in April, takes effect July 1.
“I think a lot of that political talk about it makes things more dangerous and worse for me,” Meissner said. “It’s so much politicking and it irritates the general public.”
Meissner’s own attacker was arrested and convicted, and she says that while the vast majority of her interactions at work are positive, she still has a hard time letting her guard down and constantly evaluates whether a situation could become unsafe.
“As someone who works face-to-face with the public and tries to help people as much as possible, that really gets in the way,” he told The KeynoteUSA, describing how he hopes to make eye contact with a customer “and then, based on “What I see when they look at me, that will tell me if I should be alert or not, be cautious.”
Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based conservative nonprofit, which describes itself as a parents’ rights organization and refers to its members as “merry warriors,” has been at the forefront of a campaign nationwide to remove books that deal with race and gender identity.
But co-founder Tiffany Justice says the organization, which she says has more than 300 chapters in 48 states and more than 130,000 active members, is not anti-LGBTQ+, although Justice herself told the KeynoteUSA she believes the Q in the acronym, which means queer or questioning, “has to go in the trash.” And according to the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, about 38% of book challenges that “originated directly” from Moms for Liberty activity have LGBTQ+ themes.
Justice said Moms for Liberty challenges books like Gender Queer, a graphic novel about a young man’s struggle with his gender identity that contains illustrations of sexual touching, masturbation and a sex toy, because they view the material as sexually explicit, not because it covers LGBTQ+ themes. .
“The least interesting thing about a child should be their sexual orientation,” Justice said. “Why are we flooding them with sexual content?”
Despite thousands of petitions to censor books about gender and sex, the legal standards for considering materials obscene or harmful to minors (and therefore not protected by the First Amendment) are very specific and strict, and courts have historically been on the side of libraries, according to Vera Eidelman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who focuses on the right to free expression in the digital age.
“The mere fact that something describes sex, describes nudity, even depicts those things, is not enough for it to qualify as obscenity,” he said.
Still, the book banning movement has in many cases successfully restricted access to materials in which LGBTQ+ youth can see themselves represented.
Starting June 1, Louisiana libraries must allow parents or guardians to decide which books their children can check out. M’issa Fleming, a New Orleans public librarian who uses they/them pronouns, says the new law could make it even more dangerous for queer and trans kids, who are already at higher risk for violence, substance use and suicide than their cisgender heterosexual peers. And losing access to LGBTQ+-themed books can lead kids to turn to less trustworthy sources like Reddit.
“Public libraries could offer as many ways as possible to make learning about yourself less dangerous, and the law just added another challenge,” Fleming said.
Chaz Carey, a children’s librarian in Worthington, Ohio, knows firsthand how powerful books can be. Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir, “Fun Home,” in which the author addresses her sexual orientation, changed Carey’s life as a teenager.
“I felt seen. It was like my whole body let out a sigh,” said Carey, who is queer and uses “they” pronouns. “It is very important that these books remain on the shelves. “They save lives.”
Carey says being a children’s librarian is her dream job, but the rise of book-related challenges and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric takes a mental toll. They are often misunderstood at work, even by some employers who go out of their way to do so while expressing their political beliefs.
“The political environment is just one kind of additional weight as we navigate our lives and our places in our community,” said Carey, who chairs the ALA Rainbow Roundtable, which aims to meet people’s information needs. LGBTQ+.
For Carey, what helps is “taking time to feel sad, but then choosing joy and queer pride.”
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