All the library censorship stuff in the US right now re: queer books is reminding me when I was a kid in the '90s and I had to get Parental Permission to look up the word "homosexual" in the school library's copy of Encarta. The more things change, man...
I was so desperate to find literally anything about queerness before I had access to the internet (and I didn't live in a town with a queer bookstore, those were all way way closer to LA and not the more conservative city we lived in, and I'd already read the only age-appropriate lesbian history books my mom had) that I got incredibly good at searching microfiche. I'd be in the main library scrolling through old newspapers looking up queer custody cases. Very Normal and Cool Thing for a 10 Year Old To Do.
