Libraries are gay

or maybe that was just mine?

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The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!

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photo by Pexels

I had to dig deep on the topic of libraries to really come up with something worth writing about. And if you know me, you’re likely thinking this is strange, because I always have a story about everything. Which I do.

Thing is, this one probably doesn’t fit the mold for what you’d expect out of a library essay. It’s not about the books I read (which was absolutely everything by Marguerite Henry—Misty of Chincoteague is a pony gateway drug) or the first library card I got (which was blue cardboard with a metal chip they would use to make an imprint on the tag of the book you borrowed). It’s not about discovering myself in the world of a classic novel or finding that it’s possible to actually hate a book because it’s so awful.

It's about love.

I was an awkward teen. That’s not terribly unusual, but I was a real go-getter in that category. I was a nerd and a geek, I didn’t usually have friends, and the friends I did have were fellow geeknerds. Oh, and my mom picked out my clothes until I was in high school. So let’s all do ourselves a favor and skip to freshman year.

To properly orient yourself, this was 1991 in rural Indiana. The year and location are significant because Ryan White died from AIDS in 1990, and there was a furor of hatred being spewed everywhere about anyone or anything gay, especially in sweet home Indiana where Ryan had lived. Ryan, you see, was a perfect, harmless STRAIGHT teenager. That point was driven home again and again. And the messaging around his death was that gay people had done this to him, to “us” (clearly not me, right?), and that they should pay for the loss of such a pure, beautiful white boy.

I am refraining from sharing the actual language used during that time in our American history as it does not bear repeating for any valid purpose. Suffice it to say, the slurs used were horrific and very damaging to the entire queer community. Queer folx did not have positive representation at that point in time. It would be another 6 years until Ellen DeGeneres came out on her sitcom. The early 90s were a dark time for those of us with zero role models or access to any kind of queer icons that weren’t a punchline. Should we make it even worse? Ace Ventura, one of the most explicitly transphobic pop culture films of all time came out in 1994. And… this is the first time I’ve ever written a sentence that actually makes me laugh, because now I’m reading it as though a transphobic film had it’s own “coming out,” and that just feels so fitting.

I would not go so far as to say that I truly understood at that point in my life that I was “gay” (it’s funny now, looking back, realizing that I was actually transgender and—oddly—kinda straight after all). But I certainly knew I was not like the other kids around me. Nothing I did could get me to have romantic or crush feelings about a boy. And trust me, I tried very, very hard to make that happen. So when my feelings around girls started to shift and blossom, I knew to hide those feelings deep, deep under cover. And it would have been so easy to keep that up forever, except this one really cute girl stared back at me, and she smiled.

But, alas, how could we possibly get to know one another without alerting the whole world to our queerness?

—Enter the Library—

I asked my parents if I could go to the library to “study” with a friend. I mean, what parent says no to studying? And libraries are wholesome and quiet and had zero screens back in the day. They’re the pinnacle of “good behavior” for a teen.

We did, in fact, have books with us. She read her French book for an upcoming exam. I worked on an essay for my Lit class. I think I even wrote a dozen words. She wrote little messages to me in French on lined notebook paper. I had no idea what they meant, but her handwriting flowed so beautifully, so feminine and soft. We whispered little things back and forth, desperately afraid to anger the librarian who would hush us. Under the table we delicately laced a few fingers together, neither of us wanting anyone to see, both of us needing to know how it felt to hold hands. We met like that for weeks, hiding in plain sight, falling for one another in the way only teenagers can and feeling like there was nothing else in the whole world worth caring about.

That library was a safe space in ways that no other place could possibly be, and it made all the difference in my growing confidence of knowing myself and learning to love others. Thanks, Library. You were pretty cool after all.

Your trans friend,

Robin

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