#queer library

[makingqueerhistory]

how do you even go about finding queer friendly libraries or queer owned bookstores?

This is a complicated question depending on where you live. I wish I had a handy-dandy list for you, but unfortunately I don't. But here is my experience, which is largely informed by a lot of privilege.

A great way to see what your library is open to is visiting your library, look at their displays (especially around pride month) and see if there are any queer books dotted in there. If there aren't that doesn't necessarily mean that the librarians themselves are unfriendly to the idea. It might be in accordance to local regulations.

But one big thing you can do to effect how queer friendly your local library is use it. Give them data that they can point to and show their board to say that queer books are in demand.

That can look as obvious as requesting books or as subtle as picking up queer or queer adjacent books and putting them on the carts to show that someone was looking at them.

I don't want to assume your experience or your country of origin, but if you are going to a larger city, you should be able to use a search engine to look up if there are any queer specific bookstores there.

Otherwise you can also contact local queer orgs, and see if they have a library themselves, because some do! Again this varies greatly depending on where you live.

That being said, libraries in my experience give so much room for advocacy. There is a reason I talk so often about requesting queer books, and checking them out from libraries. Honestly libraries are one of the best places to make big waves with small actions.

[conspiracy-dearest]

To anyone in the US who is queer and likes to read, there is an online library that you can get a card to with access to hundreds of books by/for/about queer people!

It's called the Queer Liberation Library! (Linked below)

My current queer book recs:

- What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

- Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

- An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

- Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

- Wilder Girls by Rory Power

I'm not sponsored or anything, just an avid reader living in a conservative area that wants to spread the word! Let me know if you have any queer book recs!

Happy reading :)

[heyftinally]

Happy Birthday, @queerliblib !

One year of bringing queer lit to our community for free! Thank you to all of the hard work from all of the staff and volunteers who make this amazing resource possible!

[hyprunivers]

Folks!!!! We’re down to the last few days!!! Help us at @queerliblib make an even better library for you!!!

[persephoneflouwers]

Castro 💘💘💘💘💘💘

[amaliazeichnerin]

This is awesome. 🏳️‍🌈

Book bans are on the rise across the US, but even if you want to go read and buy as many books with LGBT+ representation as you can get your greedy little hands on--it's hard to know what you don't know :/

The Queer Books Database lists over 3,500+ fiction and non-fiction titles in a google docs spreadsheet that lets you search by representation, or just by age, genre, year published, and more. It doesn't just track LGBT+ rep but also tags for people of color, disability, mental health, neurodivergence, fat rep, older characters, and religion!

You can use the database to search for:

multiple identities at once--find rep for a schizophrenic asexual lesbian, an autistic black boy, or a non-binary soldier with tinnitus

age appropriate books--search for children's books, junior chapter books, teen titles, and YA

non-fiction education--this includes biographies and memoirs, self-help, mental health, sexual education, LGBT+ history, legal resources, and affirming spiritual texts

trope/setting/time period--get a list of ghostly paranormals, queer fiction set in africa, gay regency romances, enemies-to-lovers, dark academia, and tons more!

Using the database, supporting my patreon, or buying me a ko-fi also really helps out the autistic transgender librarian who put this all together during the pandemic! Please share and reblog if you can~

[queerliblib]

Nine volunteers are ensuring anyone in the U.S. has access to over 1,200 books with LGBTQ themes and authors.

-Jay Valle, This Library is Offering Free LGBTQ Books Amid the Wave of School Bans

[okayto]

Hey, this pride month (or literally any time of year), you wanna know something fairly easy and great you can do?

Contact your local library (or comment on their social media) positively for any pride/LGBTQIA+/queer-related displays or events they have going on.

Seriously.

What I’m seeing and hearing from the (mostly US-based) library workers in my groups and social circles is that the anti-queer (anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-drag queen story time, etc.) comments and complaints that have ramped up in the past year aren’t going away. Even library workers with supportive coworkers/bosses/boards are steeling themselves to deal with an avalanche of garbage, or are second-guessing their displays and events because the amount of vitriol can wear a person down so much. And the ones without supportive people or work environments? It’s worse.

Give the library something else: give them both the ammo (by being one of the numbers they can count worth the positive group) if they need to show their community isn’t wholly negative. Give them the compliment of knowing that their work got appreciated.

A comment like “I love this” or “Wow, that looks great!”

An email about how much you’re excited about X event

A call saying you wanted to let them know you appreciate this thing

Tagging them if you share a picture or positive comment on social media

“Cool shirt/pins/etc!” (Because people are also bring harassed about personally being queer, even if it’s not a library display)

Literally anything that would be positive for them to receive

[makingqueerhistory]

Anti-Fascist Queer Literature to Buy and Request from Your Library Today

All about Love: New Visions

Bell Hooks

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Liberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Cahun

Kaz Rowe

Dinner on Monster Island: Essays

Tania de Rozario

How to Read Now: Essays

Elaine Castillo

Your Art Will Save Your Life

Beth Pickens

How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

Mia Birdsong

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir

Kai Cheng Thom

Tell Me I'm Worthless

Alison Rumfitt

The New Queer Conscience

Adam Eli

Branded by the Pink Triangle

Ken Setterington

(Affiliate links above, profits go to Making Queer History)

[culturefit]

Everyone reading this should know that you can only sign up if you have a US mailing address, so just read the membership policy before you get too excited and try to sign up.

⚠️PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT⚠️

The Queer Liberation Library is, as the name suggests, a digital library centered around queer literature. They offer library cards to anyone in any place, all you need in order to sign up is an email address. Then you can access their catalog online or through apps like Libby.

When I signed up I received an email that said there’s sometimes a waitlist, but I should have my card within a week or else someone would get back to me within that timeframe to explain if I had to wait longer. I ended up getting my card after only a couple of days.

Their website is very accessible and easy to use. My favorite features are the button at the bottom of the screen which lets you switch between light and dark mode, and the Quick Exit banner along the top of the page that doesn’t go away regardless of where you navigate on the site.

This is such an incredible resource and I can’t believe I didn’t know about it until very recently. I want every queer person to know about it! They have accounts on most of the major social media sites (such as tiktok, Instagram, even here on tumblr at @queerliblib). There’s also a place on their website where you can suggest books they should add to their catalog.

After you get your card, I’d suggest the first book you read to be Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon. It is a short but powerful little book that I think is an incredibly concise analysis of societal gender-based discrimination, and a great place to start a lot of really important discussions. I listened to the audiobook this morning (it was only an hour long, which is a win for my trash attention span) and I couldn’t believe how good it was for so little page time.

I will absolutely be reading the rest of the Pocket Change Collective (the series which Beyond the Gender Binary is part of) and I can’t wait to see what I’ll learn from them.

[brinconvenient]

For those brave soldiers in the Queer Terminology Purity War, evidence that there's nothing new under the sun.

This t-shirt is on display at the Gerber-Hart Library and Archives in Chicago. It belonged to bisexual and queer activist Melissa Ann Merry, who donated her materials from 1990-1995 to the library.

The shirt was part of the 1991 queer woman activism against the malicious portrayal of lesbian and bisexual women in "Basic Instinct"

Policing each other's language will never lead to our liberation.

Kill the cop in your head and be the slur you want to see in the world!

Queer as in Fuck You!

[musenextdoor]

Btw if you’re sapphic and love to read you should apply for a free membership on queerliberationlibrary.org to access a ton of queer books on Libby 🤍🤍🤍

[thebibliosphere]

A quick update while @queerliblib is being run off their feet across social media, they have reached just over $6k in their first 24 hours. That's 41% of their goal!

Thank you to everyone here, signal boosting and donating! Please keep the signal going even if you cannot donate. People need to know there are organizations like @queerliblib fighting back against the wave of hatred and book bans we're seeing at the moment.

(ID in alt)

Hello Tumblr! I am posting this on behalf of the Queer Liberation Library, who don't yet have a Tumblr, but have promised me they're working on it. Some of you may remember them from the Twitter Poll I was involved in a few months ago where Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites beat multiple award-winning, trad-pub queer authors with a hefty 69% (nice).

For those of you unaware, the Queer Liberation Library, or QLL, is an organization fighting to build a vibrant, flourishing queer future by connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of our community.

And today, June 12th, 2023, they launched their fundraiser to try and reach 15k so that they can start purchasing digital licensing for queer media and hopefully open their digital doors to library patrons across the US in 2023 with as many queer and trans books as possible.

You can check out their newly redesigned website here:

(If you are in an unsafe space and need to exit the webpage quickly, there is a quick exit bar at the top that redirects to a weather page. When I spoke to them about their web design they were also open to accessibility suggestions and are potentially working on a dark mode for those of us who need it.)

If you know me, you know I am unequivocally pro-library, both as a reader and a queer writer. But with the current rise of homophobia, transphobia, and the proposed ban on books taking hold in certain States, the importance of having protected access queer books cannot be over-emphasized enough.

The QLL aims to protect that access, aiming to provide FREE access to queer and trans media (ebook and audio) to patrons regardless of location within the United States.

They are funded entirely through regular donations from their supporters and their now annual Pride fundraiser, where they hope to afford the cost of not just library books but also maintaining their web presence and staff.

I cannot emphasize enough how much this project is a labor of love for everyone involved and its importance.

And just to clarify, I am not involved in any way beyond raising awareness. When QLL reached out and asked me to retweet their fundraiser tweets, I readily agreed and offered to post about it on Tumblr because I believe in their mission and the world they are trying to build.

One where queer and trans books can't be banned or taken off of shelves because of bigotry and hatred.

If you would like to donate to the cause, you can do so here:

They've already surpassed their first 2k, and it'd be absolutely wonderful if we could help them reach their next milestone. And if you can't give, please consider signal boosting this post.

You can also follow QLL at:

Twitter: @queerliblib 

Instagram: @queerliblib 

Tiktok: @queerliblib

[hyprunivers]

Are you kidding me??? We’re down to the last 2 days??? I’m not physically or psychologically build to maintain this kind of energetic optimism for a full month!!! 2 days left to share and donate and then I can fully implode!!! BOOK BLITZ IS GO!! @queerliblib

[local-queer-classicist]

I have acquired several dusty tomes (books) from the ancient archives (college library) with which to perform evils (research paper writing).

[duckprintspress]

AHHHH BOOKS OF OURS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE QUEER LIBERATION LIBRARY ( @queerliblib ) I AM SO EXCITED.

If you don't know what the QLL is this is a great chance to find out!! They're an online library of hand-curated queer e-books with really awesome range (non-fiction! fiction! many genres and disciplines!), and they keep growing! Anyone in the US can become a member FOR FREE. From their webpage: Queer Liberation Library (QLL) is fighting to build a vibrant, flourishing queer future by connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of our community.

They're also a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, and completely funded by donations (we donate a pittance monthly, I wish we could do more).

I HIGHLY recommend you go to their webpage here to find out more, and you can follow their tumblr (tagged above) too!

And if you didn't know - all our published anthologies to-date are available through multiple library apps, including Libby (if selected by the library) and Hoopla (should be available to all libraries with Hoopla subscriptions). So even if you aren't a member of QLL, you might want to check your local library e-book system to see if you can read our books. Titles potentially available at your library include our anthologies Add Magic to Taste, She Wears the Midnight Crown, He Bears the Cape of Stars, Aim For The Heart: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers" and And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," and our stand-alone titles To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh and Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley. There's more on the way, too, so be on the lookout.