New guidance from councils aims to make libraries friendlier to LGBT visitors - by hiding gender critical books

[IwantToRetire]

Libraries across the country are being advised to prevent LGBT people seeing “offensive” gender-critical books, the Telegraph can reveal.

Guidance shared as “best practice” among council-run public libraries suggests measures to be more inclusive, including hosting drag queen story hours and making toilets gender neutral, partly to relieve anxiety for women with “masculine” hairstyles.

Advice on handling “transphobic books” states that librarians should not promote works by gender-critical authors, while mitigating the “risk” that LGBT readers might encounter these “offensive” titles on shelves.
The guidance titled “Welcoming LGBTIQ+ users: advice for public library workers” also suggests that staff limit the number of gender-critical books they stock.

In a section of “transphobic” titles it states: “There have been a few titles published which claim to be ‘gender critical’ and argue for removal of trans rights.

“These authors and their work can be labelled transphobic, and the writers themselves Terfs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). We, along with many in the LGBTIQ+ community, find these books offensive.”

The guidance was produced in 2022 by an Islington “LGBTIQ+ library” called Book 28, founded by Southwark Council librarian Isadore Auerbach George, who drew up the advice with Lambeth librarian Colette Townend and academic Dr Elizabeth Chapman, whose doctoral thesis was on “provision of LGBT-related fiction to children and young people” in public libraries.

The guidance has been provided to staff working for local authorities, with Leicestershire, West Berkshire and Gateshead council making use of the advice.

The Book 28 advice is also shared on the websites of professional bodies the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland, and charity Libraries Connected, an organisation whose membership includes every library service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

From a much longer article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/01/librarians-hide-books-from-gender-critical-authors/

Also available by pasting in the Telegraph link at https://archive.ph

Yep, this is what I'm thinking. Be good to see a list of which books they've banned, but we can probably guess.

Time To Think, Hannah Barnes
Hags, Victoria Smith
Trans, Helen Joyce
Material Girls, Kathleen Stock
Feminism for Women, Julie Bindel

And in the case of my council, any feminist books post about 1930, it seems.

Doesn’t surprise me that Southwark is involved.

Just had another quick look at my Council's online catalogue - Shon Faye is on there (under a search for feminist) but none of the wrong think books.

https://www.cilips.org.uk/lgbtq

Here's their feminism page:

https://www.cilips.org.uk/feminism

One can leave anonymous feedback for Cilips here:

https://padlet.com/admin2966/cilips-edi-hvtqjx0wwc1zy35d

My library has GC books and trans books eg Juno Dawson in same section. I make a point of borrowing the gc ones to show they are popular

and making toilets gender neutral, partly to relieve anxiety for women with “masculine” hairstyles.

Stroke of genius turning this around to make it look like it is in the interests of and in response to women.

How is a masculine haircut defined 🧐 I don’t have anxiety about using the ladies loos so maybe mines a very short feminine hairstyle

our library doesn’t even have loos, i once watched from the library door as 5 year old dd ran to the public loos, watched her come out and start running back to the library and then i got questioned by two police officers!

i am very disappointed in any library that does this….i have a feeling it’s probably most, very reminiscent of actual nazis or very christian americans like in Footloose

Downloaded the Book 28 guide. It's 77 pages! Unnumbered ... 😣so I can't give page references, sorry. A selection of quotes:

'Librarians are not neutral and a malicious or misinformed librarian may take over a collection you have run. They may not put the same enthusiasm and time into maintaining the collection unless they are held to do so by clear collection development guidelines. Your collection is also at risk from self-censorship following a downturn of public or local mood turns against queer people; or even laws - during Section 28 many librarians culled their collections conciously and unconciously. Put caveats and procedures into place in policy to protect your collection.'

'Heavy marketing of ‘Mother’s Day’ and ‘Father’s Day’ activities, especially when paired with materials that only portray only nuclear families, may leave many children feeling left out. Promoting diverse portrayals of families and general celebration of caregivers can be a far more welcoming alternative. For example, instead of having a craft activity focusing on making a Mother’s Day card, children could simply be invited to ‘make a card for someone they love’.'

'Don’t forget about children and young people’s events! They are often overlooked in LGBT+ History Month, but many children and young people are queer* *or will come to identify as queer, and/or live in queer families.'

The whole section on wrongthink books:

'Transphobic books

In the last year especially, there have been a few titles published which claim to be ‘gender critical’ and argue for removal of trans rights. These authors and their work can be labelled transphobic, and the writers themselves TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). We, along with many in the LGBTIQ+ community, find these books offensive.

However, these titles are legally published and members of your community may want to read them. We do not say you shouldn’t stock these books or consider methods of censorship around them. Rather, we would recommend to be mindful of and not promote these books, and to think carefully about how many you want to buy, perhaps based solely on individual requests. Furthermore, some of these titles claim to present ‘facts’ while lacking peer reviewed research, and thus may fall below your local standards of reliability for non-fiction. Be especially careful to make sure you do not make mistakes such as putting them on LGBTIQ+ displays or sections where they might cause upset.

You can interfile them in your general stock and those who want to seek out these titles can always do so via your catalogue without the risk of a LGBTIQ+ person coming across the book in a way that looks like it may be being endorsed. Also be wary of judging a reader’s reasons for borrowing one of these books: borrowing a book for free from a library without purchasing it can be a way a reader reads a variety of sources to come to an understanding of a situation.'

Are we to use toilets according to hairstyle, now? Maybe signage should be updated to reflect this?

Stroke of genius turning this around to make it look like it is in the interests of and in response to women

i am getting a bit tired of the doing it for women with shirt hair or women for PCOS rubbish

I borrowed Trans by Helen Joyce from my library last week. I already have a copy but wanted to notch up an extra borrow. Was kind of expecting the librarian to make a comment, although he didn't. Will return it this week to get it back into circulation.

'Also be wary of judging a reader’s reasons for borrowing one of these books: borrowing a book for free from a library without purchasing it can be a way a reader reads a variety of sources to come to an understanding of a situation.'

I must be misreading this. Why would this be something to be wary of? It's one of the main purposes of libraries, surely?

Presumably librarians are in some way supposed to be judging readers? Are we to be categorised?

Are they trying to suggest that even if a book is popular (gets borrowed often) that doesn't mean that people like it or agree with it?

WTF is it to do with a library why someone reads something? reading a variety of sources to come to an understanding of a situation is, well, the way to understand a situation. Not something to ring alarm bells.

Have we now to account for our reading matter?

One of the authors writes extensively on the topic:

https://shu.academia.edu/LizChapman

The other author, too.

https://hcommons.org/members/colettet/

'How Drag Queen Storytime in libraries helps early years children develop multi-literacies, empathy and centres inclusion'

Reading a variety of sources to come to an understanding of a situation used to be seen as a good thing. I'm dumbfounded that librarians are now seemingly suggesting that it is something to be wary of.

To be fair the guide is suggesting being wary of judging. Although it does carry the implication that the librarian will be judging, and that tendency has to be countered.

Exactly Jellysaurus and I will add any book that brings you face to face with a difficult or sensitive situation; that creates feelings, that teaches, that enlivens, that takes you on magnificent adventures. So sad, so manipulative, so shortsighted. As said by another pp I struggle to understand how such a tiny % of the population have brought such chaos to the detriment of the majority. Being dramatic, what might come next now that the practice run has worked so well?

That's it - it's the judging aspect of it that's so chilling.

I think the guide is saying be wary of judging as the person might not be a stinky TERF after all but a gender right-thinker who is researching the enemy texts in order to combat any arguments within.

I think it means “don’t assume they’re a bigot just because they’re reading the terfy book; they may be an ally wanting to learn how to argue against the enemy’s views.”

Yes I agree with this. They don't want the poor TRAs to be lumped with the evil TERFs when they borrow these books in order to disprove their points.