Book bans are harming LGBTQ people, advocates say. This online library is fighting back.; CNN, December 16, 2023

Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN; Book bans are harming LGBTQ people, advocates say. This online library is fighting back.

"The Queer Liberation Library (QLL, pronounced “quill”) is entirely online. Since launching in October, more than 2,300 members have signed up to browse its free collection of hundreds of ebooks and audiobooks featuring LGBTQ stories, Lundstrom said.

After becoming increasingly alarmed at efforts to censor LGBTQ stories in the nation’s public schools, Kieran Hickey, the library’s founder and executive director, said they set out to create a haven for queer literature that can be accessed from anywhere in the country.

“Queer people have so many barriers to access queer literature – social, economic, and political,” Hickey said. “(For) anybody who’s on a journey of self-discovery in their sexual orientation or gender identity, finding information and going to queer spaces can be incredibly daunting. So, this is a resource that anybody in the United States can have no matter where they live.”

Until recent years, books featuring LGBTQ stories made up a small percentage of titles challenged in schools and public libraries in the US.

Between 2010 and 2019, just about 9% of unique titles challenged in libraries contained LGBTQ themes, according to data from the American Library Association, which tracks and opposes book censorship.

But books featuring the voices and experiences of LGBTQ people now make up an overwhelming proportion of books targeted for censorship – part of a broader, conservative-led movement that is limiting the rights and representation of LGBTQ Americans."