#protect libraries

It's Right to Read Day, celebrating libraries, highlighting the relentless attacks against them, and encouraging folks to take at least one action to defend them! The American Library Association's data on the most banned books from 2024 is now out; after 3 years in the top spot GENDER QUEER came in at second on the list with George M Johnson's beautiful queer memoir ALL BOYS AREN'T BLUE at number one. If you haven't read it yet, please go pick up this book.

Unfortunately, instead of dying down, we are now seeing the book ban movement morph into an effort to defund and destroy ALL public libraries and ALL public education, as exemplified by the Trump Administration aiming to dismantle the Department of Education and placing all employees of the Institute of Museum and Library Services on administrative leave. The IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums across the country. According to the American Library Association, the IMLS provides “the majority of federal library funds.” The IMLS says it awarded $266 million in grants and research funding to cultural institutions last year. This money goes to help staff, fund maintenance, and create new programs. If you are curious how the termination of this grant funding will effect the state of California, here is a press release from the California State Library. Please call your state governor and representatives asking them to demand support for the IMLS!

I also wanted to share some resources to help you talk about book bans/book challenges if the topic comes up in conversation. There are a set of really common bad faith arguments which book banners make, and I helped write up a set of responses for Authors Against Book Bans (much of this was also written and compiled by superstar author and AABB leader Maggie Tokuda-Hall). Below the responses to bad faith arguments are a list of resources you can contribute to, especially if you live in a blue state and don't have a current legislative battle over books and libraries in your own backyard.

Sign the petition and email your legislators to help protect libraries from project 2025

People are often focused too much on physical preservation, writing things in stone, or on hard drives, imprinting these stories and histories onto physical mediums that, as with all things physical, are subject to decay. My partner tells me “Art is a conversation,” and holy books, whether you believe in some literal divine being or not; whether you hold them in high regard or not, are undeniably forms of art and self-expression. These stories told about the golem; or a man walking on water; or floods that seem to end life on Earth as we know it; while they have a grain of physical truth to them, are largely figurative (imo). Because that’s how we’ve passed on information for thousands of years, before the invention of hard drives or silicon or even writing, we told abridged/poetic stories that contained what we as people took from that experience. We passed on that information from person to person, from generation to generation. Unfortunately, that method of preservation is not foolproof either.

The first kick in the ladybits with regards to this method’s fallibility is that art, by its very nature, is EXTREMELY subjective, and each person’s interpretation of that information is equally as subjective.

Religious Trauma Side quest: I believe Christianity (among others I’m sure, but my experience is with evangelical Christianity) has attempted to resolve this by punishing critical thinking and attempting to establish a dogmatic belief that authority should not be questioned. To them, there is only ONE way to interpret the world, and you can NEVER stray from the accepted mythos. It’s taken a lot of time, but I no longer believe this approach was meant to harm others, but to establish harmony between all peoples. The good intentions still pave the road to Hell, however. But as I’ve said in one of my previous posts, one force of nature will never ever fully succumb to the other. And that brings me more comfort than dogma ever could.

“Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other.”

This dogmatic, authoritarian approach to belief; while inevitable, being a contrary force to harmony; is unhealthy and not in keeping with the Tao (at least in my own subjective opinion.).

Here's the other punt to the gnuts (girlnuts uWu): our minds are *also* physical mediums. Our minds are *also* subject to decay. *Collective* consciousness, however, while still a collection of physical mediums, is less subject to physical decay than any individual. As one generation of minds decay, the other takes its place as the foremost bearers of knowledge and humanity’s history. Humans, at our very core, are archivists of our own history, and the best way to preserve that history is to have several copies of it spread out among different libraries and archives across existence. This is why the burning of The Library of Alexandria and Der Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were so tragic; some books were the only copies of themselves. That's why we’ve only just now caught up with and rediscovered trans healthcare as a concept, for instance.

This is why the federal attacks on libraries and archives are not only awful, but genocidal. This is why erasing Marsha’s name off of a National Monument’s website is so fucking monstrous. This is why burning books and erasing information is a bigger deal than most people think it is. They are not only erasing our history, they’re erasing our humanity; and it is our job, as the curators and archivists of our own humanity, to make sure that doesn’t fucking happen. Doom and gloom aside, I can safely assure everyone that this will NEVER happen, at least not fully. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how many of us they kill, no matter how many books of ours they burn, we will still be here. We have already made an impact on the world by merely existing when others believe we shouldn’t. While harm reduction is still *essential* to our duties, our history is now a part of human history. Take pride and comfort in the fact that, if nothing else, they’ll never take that away from us.

because of that, i was able to check out queer literature without my family noticing. it kept me safe and she didn’t even look at me different. and keep in mind, i live in the deep south. so this is even more of a kind feat than you’d realize.