the shrinking librarian

Aug 28

Books for transgender teens

progressive-librarian:

Today at the reference desk I helped a patron & her home-schooled daughter who were looking for resources for transgendered [sic] teens and their families. My library system is fairly large and cosmopolitan, but even so, we didn’t have a very large selection of materials on the subject. As I looked for titles to add to our collection, I came across a few great booklists for LGTBQ young adult fiction and nonfiction.

ALA’s Stonewall Book Award List

Goodreads: Booklist for Trans Youth

Multnomah County Library: Books for GLBTQ Teens

There are many more great subject lists out there, but these sites gave me a good starting place to add to our library’s collection.

I want to make sure teens looking for support & information about being transgendered will be able to find books about kids like them at our public library. And I want them to know that they’re not alone.

Great resource! Thanks for sharing. And for those of you in the Chicagoland area, the Oak Park library has the wonderful Transgender Resource Collection. Dig.

Jun 9

timetravelanddonuts:
From Life magazine: Photo from the 1971 ALA annual conference in Dallas. Barbara Gittings organized a booth offering free same-sex hugs and kisses.
The American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table was the nation’s first GLBT professional organization. I’m proud to be part of such a forward-thinking field as librarianship.
(For those that are interested, the booth received a (predictably) mostly negative reaction, with little to no people stopping by for a free hug. So the staffers of the booth hugged and kissed each other. Gittings kissed Patience and Sarah author Alma Routsong (aka Isabel Miller) while cameras were rolling and made the nightly news. That same year she appeared with a panel of lesbians on the David Susskind Show to debunk gay stereotypes of the time. She was approached in a supermarket a week after the appearance by a middle-aged couple who claimed “You made me realize that you gay people love each other just the way Arnold and I do.”)

timetravelanddonuts:

From Life magazine: Photo from the 1971 ALA annual conference in Dallas. Barbara Gittings organized a booth offering free same-sex hugs and kisses.

The American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table was the nation’s first GLBT professional organization. I’m proud to be part of such a forward-thinking field as librarianship.

(For those that are interested, the booth received a (predictably) mostly negative reaction, with little to no people stopping by for a free hug. So the staffers of the booth hugged and kissed each other. Gittings kissed Patience and Sarah author Alma Routsong (aka Isabel Miller) while cameras were rolling and made the nightly news. That same year she appeared with a panel of lesbians on the David Susskind Show to debunk gay stereotypes of the time. She was approached in a supermarket a week after the appearance by a middle-aged couple who claimed “You made me realize that you gay people love each other just the way Arnold and I do.”)

(via libraryjournal)

May 21

“Out” on the Shelves: 26 Graphic Novels for Pride Month 2012

May 1

A history of the Gerber Hart Library - chicagotribune.com

“The Gerber/Hart Library was founded in 1981 by a group led by historian Greg Sprague, who several years earlier had launched the Chicago Gay History Project. It eventually grew into the Midwest’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender library, featuring more than 14,000 volumes, 800 periodical titles and 100 archival collections.”

Mar 27

Missouri School District Questioned Over Anti-Gay Web Filter - NYTimes.com

“Over the last year, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked officials from hundreds of school districts around the country to make changes in their Internet screening systems to eliminate bias, said Anthony Rothert, a civil liberties lawyer based in St. Louis.

All have agreed to, he said, except Camdenton, which the A.C.L.U. sued last summer.

The lawsuit — believed to be the first of its kind — does not claim that this rural district of 4,200 students purchased the software with the intent of discriminating. Rather, it says, once there were complaints about the filter last year, school officials refused to replace it. An investigator for the A.C.L.U. has been able to figure out how the filter works, but not who developed it.

… Judge Laughrey noted that the URLBlacklist filter was even bad at doing its primary, legal job: blocking pornography. Tested on its ability to recognize 500 sexually explicit sites, it missed 30 percent of them. CIPAFilter, one of the leaders in the field, missed 3 percent.”

(via Library Stuff)

Feb 22

Judge Slaps School for Blocking Gay Websites

A federal judge ordered a central Missouri school district to stop using Internet filtering software that blocks access to gay, lesbian and transgender issue-related websites.

… Judge Laughrey found that the school’s Internet filter, URL Blacklist, systematically discriminates against gay-friendly websites.

“Sexuality filters are normally used to filter out pornographic material, but the URL Blacklist filter has the affect of filtering out positive material about LGBT issues as well as pornographic material,” Laughrey wrote. “PFLAG has identified forty-one websites blocked by URL Blacklist’s ‘sexuality’ filter that express a positive viewpoint toward LGBT individuals. PFLAG tested these forty-one websites on five different Internet filter systems designed to help schools comply with CIPA [Children’s Internet Protection Act]. None of these five filter systems blocked any of these forty-one websites as prohibited by CIPA. On the other hand, URL Blacklist generally categorizes websites expressing a negative view toward LGBT individuals in its ‘religion’ category, and does not block them with its ‘sexuality’ filter. Thus, URL Blacklist systematically allows access to websites expressing a negative viewpoint toward LGBT individuals by categorizing them as ‘religion’, but filters out positive viewpoints toward LGBT issues by categorizing them as ‘sexuality’.”

(via Library Stuff, emphasis mine)

Feb 9

(via Awful Library Books)

From the original post:

Holly: Well, folks? What do you think? This is a seemingly nice book that explains homosexuality in a way a child can understand. There is an unpleasant section where a woman on the street says something about wishing gays would stay home so no one else had to see them, and Jenny’s reaction to hearing such a thing. It is honest and realistic, and shows Jenny in a loving family that even has contact with Jenny’s mom.

Is it out of date or classic? This one is tough for me to judge. It’s old enough that the pictures are a little dated, but still relevant enough to be useful.

Click thru for the discussion.

Jan 20

Good Lesbian Books: Lesbian Young Adult Fiction

pickpocket:

iridescentglow:

goodlesbianbooks:

Lesbian (and bisexual) girls have tragically little young adult fiction to themselves. According to recent research by YA author Malinda Lo, about 0.25% of published YA books in the US are about lesbians. And yet, for such a short list of works, it was surprisingly hard to track them all down - there are plenty of GLBT YA lists, but these tend not to actually separate out the lesbian books, and to be dominated by gay male stories.

I am still surprised that there was no list already of YA lesbian books. Not even an ultimate list of queer YA books - that had the lesbian books labelled.

Anyway, because I’m a glutton for punishment, as long as it involves books and/or the internet, we’re working on breaking that list down into something a bit more manageable and useful. So far, there’s the Transgender list, and the lesbian YA with a non-lesbian main character list (surprisingly many titles).

Yeah, I read a lot of YA and yet I don’t think I’ve read a single YA novel with a lesbian protagonist***. Bleak. And, the trouble is, novels with secondary lesbian characters are usually shit like Dairy Queen, where the (straight) protag spends the whole novel sideeyeing the lesbian for being (GASP) gay, and then, at the end, goes, oh, okay, I’ve decided to tolerate your deviancy; aren’t I enlightened?

***Francesca Lia Block has short stories with lesbian protagonists, but no novels, I believe. And I object to Pretty Little Liars’ inclusion on that list, because lesbian Emily is one of FOUR protagonists. And also because it’s awful.

Annie On My Mind is a fantastic YA lesbian book that my mom bought me when I was like 11, because my mom is super awesome!

Also, I can’t think of a YA book I want more to see made into a movie.

(via entropicflux)

Dec 27

It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living by Dan Savage, Terry Miller, others

Dutton, 2011. 9780525952336.

Reviewed by sharonlevin - link to this review

Many LGBT youth commit or attempt suicide because of bullying. Dan Savage (Savage Love, The Kid, The Commitment) was deeply disturbed by the suicides of fifteen-year-olds Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas. Both were bullied for being gay or perceived as gay. Savage wrote a blog post about Billy. A reader left this comment: “My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas. I wish I could have told you that things would get better.”

Realizing that this is a simple powerful truth, he wanted a way to deliver this message to LGBT teens. Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, created the first It Gets Better video, letting LGBT teens know that life does get better. Almost instantly, others started posting their own videos. The It Gets Better Project “has turned into a worldwide movement, inspiring more than 30,000 user-created videos viewed more than 40 million times.”

This book contains essays both from the video project and others written specifically for it. They range from people talking about how difficult high school was to others reminding the LGBT community that there are many who support them.

(via The Unshelved Book Club)

Nov 11

Palo Alto family's experience depicted in children's book on gay marriage - San Jose Mercury News

“When ‘Yes on 8’ signs began popping up on lawns in their Palo Alto neighborhood in 2008, Kathy and Lee Merkle-Raymond found themselves on the front line of the battle over gay marriage in California.

The same-sex couple, who were campaigning against Proposition 8, had to explain to their two young daughters why some of their friends’ parents didn’t want them to be allowed to marry. Then, with their daughters’ encouragement, the couple decided to tie the knot before the ban on same-sex marriage took effect.

Their story is now the basis for ‘Operation Marriage,’ a new children’s book that could make its way into classrooms and school libraries now that California passed a law ensuring that children learn about the contributions of gays and lesbians. Author Cynthia Chin-Lee debuted the book Wednesday at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park before an audience of local families, educators and faith leaders.

Chin-Lee, a publications manager for Oracle, has written several well-received children’s books exploring cultural diversity in her spare time. With ‘Operation Marriage,’ she has taken on the subject of gay rights, mixing in broader themes of tolerance and bullying.”