The Daring Librarian

Our Middle School Library in Laurel, Maryland has been a loud and proud Safe Space and Ally for ALL of our  LGBTQIA and Neurodivergent students for years. We have purchased every well reviewed, requested, intriguing, and middle school approved fiction and non-fiction book on these topics. I daresay we have one of the largest collections around! We have Safe Space signs around, a rainbow narwhal (pictured above) and groupings of books on display all the time. I have also blogged about our support of our diverse communities. Dear Queer Teen - It Gets Better! - 2012  Create a Safe Space - 2018 BUT... I have strong opinions about putting a Genre label on these books. I am really cognizant that some of my Middle Schoolers are curious or questioning to learn more about but aren't ready to out themselves. To their peers and to their parents. This is yet another reason I'm against Genrefication. I know, among some of my other Future Ready Librarians this is a controversial topic....

Hi! My name is Gwyneth and I was a Gleek in high school. Though there was no name for that, then. It was the 80's and I was an alternative / new wave / hardcore punk rock chick with short spiky red & dyed black hair who had a part-time job at Kemp Mill Records (!), wearing skinny vintage men's ties & round band buttons & who hung out with the other freaks behind the high school on the theater loading dock. There's nothing that said bad-ass in 1983 like a black leather Members Only jacket adorned with safety pins. BwaHaHa! Was I teased? You Bet!...Bullied? Hmm, occasionally. Though snarky charm has always been my armor. Sometimes tough as iron and sometimes tissue thin. (Pssst! Keep reading for my first FREE BOOK Giveaway!) Having lots of friends in studio art, music-theater & punk rock scene, I had lots of LGBT & geeky friends who were reeeeally bullied. And it sucked! I guess the term Ally wasn't created then, either. I guess I was just a f...