In honor of ALA Annual next week, here’s a photo from the 1971 conference held in Dallas, TX. “Librarians Get To ‘Kiss A Homosexual!”‘
Friday Funny
Category: Columns
Happy Birthday, Alan Bennett
In 1996 English play and screenwriter Alan Bennett declined to accept a knighthood from the Queen of England, on the grounds that “it would be like wearing a suit every day of your life.”1 He had similarly refused the award of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (or CBE–because what a […]
Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week
February 17 – 23, 2019 What better way to follow weeks of commercial bombardment of hearts, kisses, and cupids with arrows than by acknowledging and celebrating the fact that some folks don’t experience romantic attraction at all! Heck yes, I say. Aromantic representation is still a growing trend in literature and media, with more representation […]
Interview: Meetup in Tuscon
Three years ago, I relocated to Tucson, Arizona after 30 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a young person I had moved considerably. I grew up in NY and by the time I moved to Oakland I had lived in 5 cities in 4 states. In each place I found my way to […]
LGBTQIA+ World News
A Pakistani lesbian lives in hope, the Pope worries about “fashionable” gayness, and LGBT “acts” are now a fine-able offense in Pariaman, Sumatra, Indonesia. ‘Rejected by my family, raped – but proud to be gay’ Gay people should not join Catholic clergy, Pope Francis says Indonesian city plans to fine residents for ‘LGBT behavior’
#TBT – Transgender Day of Remembrance – November 20
In November of 1999, Gwendolyn Ann Smith organized what would become the first Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR). Smith began the then-virtual TDoR project as a way to honor trans woman Rita Hester, who had been murdered in her Boston apartment in the winter of 1998. Now, nearly 20 years later, Transgender Day of Remembrance […]
#TBT – National Coming Out Day
There are many ways LGBTQ+ persons have advocated for themselves throughout history, whether it be with friends or family, in the workplace, or on the political stage. One of the most personal forms of activism in and of itself has been “coming out”–revealing to the world through an act of self-disclosure that one identifies as […]
LGBTQIA Scholarship Roundup for January 25, 2017
By Emilia Marcyk Current scholarship and academic news addressing LGBTQ identities and concerns, of interest to librarians, educators, and information professionals. Publications Abate, Michelle Ann. “‘The Capitol Accent Is So Affected Almost Anything Sounds Funny in It’: The Hunger Games Trilogy, Queerness, and Paranoid Reading.” Journal of LGBT Youth 12.4 (2015): 397-418. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2015.1077768 In […]
School Is In: Getting (and Keeping) LGBTQ Books in the Library
By Elizabeth Gartley June is GLBT Book Month! While I’m excited to take the time to celebrate LGBTQ literature in libraries, I still often find myself in the position of trying to get (and keep) LGBTQ books into school libraries so that they can be celebrated. From my own observations, schools and school libraries still […]
Queer Quest 20 – Why I’m Not Mad At Deadpool
By Ashley R. Lierman Last fall, before the Deadpool movie came out, I reported on an interview where Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller confirmed that the movie would portray a pansexual Deadpool. At that time, it wasn’t clear what the character’s sexuality would have to do with the movie itself, and to a certain […]