Illustration By Carla Labto
By Morgan Jacobson
A Perspective
America’s homophobes are a dying minority, but they are kicking and screaming all the way to the dustbin of history.
More than 9 in 10 Americans say members of the LGBTQ community should live without discrimination, according to the latest study by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination. The study reported that 84 percent of Americans said LGBTQ people should have full equal rights.
Not everyone got the memo. A single digit minority – like America’s dwindling number of racists – is drifting toward oblivion but inflicting as much pain and damage as possible on the way out.
A klavern of North County gay bashers thought they would have a little fun at the expense of the Rancho Peñasquitos Library and the community it serves. Library staff had prepared a display of books celebrating Pride Week. Homophobes swooped in like rabid vulchers and checked out every single book in the display and as much LGBTQ literature as they could carry.
“Hide Pride” had all the maturity of sticking putty in a keyhole or pissing in the punch bowl at the prom. Homophobes declared a Pyrrhic victory and crowed that they had removed “pornographic” materials from the reach of children.
One book in particular drew their wrath. “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, a best seller and a must-read in the LGBTQ community, was not appropriate for children, they bellowed. That would be correct. It is not a children’s book and the author never said it was. Homophobe’s straw man attack on Kobabe’s book was a fig leaf for their inability to articulate a valid reason to ban LGBTQ titles and innocuous children’s books promoting tolerance and peace.
LGBTQ community members have a guardian spirit animal lurking in Logan Heights. Libelula, the “impossible creature,” is a small bookstore near Barrio Logan that represents the LGBTQ and Black communities as well as the formerly incarcerated. Co-founder Jesi Gutierrez said he created a space for people to be who they want to be without repercussions.
“We brought the power of representation to Libelula,” he said.
Patron Roy Balane said Gutierrez succeeded.
“It is a very cozy, tucked-away bookstore teeming with life,” he said. “It represents the community it’s from and gave off a really cool vibe. It made me feel welcomed.”
Gutierrez said LGBTQ people are safe in his bookstore, but he sadly acknowledged that the community is not safe everyone.
“(America) is banning more books now (than ever before),” he said.
In 2021 the American Library Association reported that at least 729 books were challenged or banned in the United States. In 2022 the number doubled. Book ban data is driven primarily by conservative Republican governors in Texas and Florida.
Even so, Gutierrez said he remains an optimist in the spirit of Martin Luther King’s vision of the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice.
“It gets me very excited because (book bans) mean that we are really getting under the skin of the patriarchy, of the normalcy, of the heteronormativity. We’re really reaching and getting underneath that deep, deep, deep woven carpet that has been in place for so long. It’s like getting to vacuum under somewhere you haven’t cleaned for a really long time.”
California, thankfully, isn’t Florida or Texas. Gov. Newson recently signed into law a bill protecting LGBTQ material and books in public places. Rancho Peñasquitos homophobes did not get that memo, either.
Guiterrez said the battle is on. He also expects to win.
“The fact that we are hearing about book banning and anti-LGBTQ behavior makes me happy,” he said. “That means the revolution is stirring. Revolution is happening. Revolution does not take place in a day. First comes the demolition, then the rebuilding.”
It is all there in the book. Check
it out.