By Buffy Boroughs | Community News Service
WATERBURY — Last year at the Waterbury Public Library, Youth Services Librarian Cynthia Ryle started noticing more and more young people coming in and asking for books with queer characters.
In an art club the library hosted, teen participants would show up with rainbow pins, Ryle recalled. So in February 2022, she offered a “book tasting,” picking a few titles with LGBTQ characters and plot lines that the young readers selected. From there, seeing the interest, Ryle grew the tasting into a full-course monthly book club called Queer Reads. Since the first events, the number of attendees has grown from three to 12 each month. “These kids clearly have a need to connect,” Ryle said.
Waterbury Public Library
The Queer Reads group meets at 6 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month, offering a chance for youth ages 12 to 18 to talk about books related to an LGBTQ experience. The idea is about more than books — it’s to create a safe space for self-expression and exploration, Ryle said, at a time when other states are banning books and discussion of LGBTQ content in schools and libraries.
Last week’s Queer Reads had a special guest speaker: Vermont’s new cartoonist laureate, Tillie Walden, a 26-year-old graphic novelist whose work embraces queer teenage themes. “Junior High,” her newest book, is scheduled for release this month and follows the twin sisters of pop music duo Tegan and Sara — who wrote the text — as they undergo the trials and tribulations of school, explore their own queerness and use music to figure it out. A Norwich resident, Walden last month was appointed as Vermont’s fifth Cartoonist Laureate. At the age of 22, Walden was the youngest recipient of the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for her graphic novel memoir “Spinning” in 2018. Her work includes a number of graphic novels. Walden is a graduate of and a professor at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction. Walden’s visit was intended as a small-group event for the youth book group. The library hopes to schedule a return for Walden at a larger event in the near future.
Finding community
According to a statewide risk survey conducted by the Trevor Project, 34% of LGBTQ youth in Vermont “seriously considered” attempting suicide in the past year. Those numbers can drop dramatically when young people have accepting spaces, according to the Trevor Project, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing suicide in the young LGBTQ population.
“It’s critically important that LGBTQ (youth) see themselves reflected in the community and in the programming around them,” said Amanda Rohdenburg, associate director of Outright Vermont, an LGBTQ youth advocacy group based in Burlington.
“Being able to offer young people that reprieve, even for just an hour or two, helps remind them that whatever else they’re facing, there are people in their corner,” Rohdenburg said. “There are spaces in places where you can be safe and free.”
Ryle makes suggestions for Queer Reads book options for discussion each month with the help of Max Titus, former co-chair of the board of directors of the Pride Center of Vermont. The participants, though, lead the gatherings.
“It’s important to me that the kids help pick the books,” Ryle said. “The kids lead, develop some leadership skills but also their voices.”
Connection is the focus of Queer Reads — not the reading. “The book discussion is really, really fun,” Ryle added. “And the kids don’t have to have read the book. If they just want to come and be here, then that’s fine.”
Ryle, who grew up in Florida and lived in Texas for several years, was worried about community backlash to Queer Reads, but she said she’s only had negative feedback once. Ryle has received letters from parents expressing gratitude for the creation of a community that gives their children support. One parent, whose child was too young to join, offered her homemade cupcakes, Ryle said.
Not all the participants have the same support of family and friends, Ryle said, so the library takes steps to protect them. Attendance is taken digitally, so only staff see the list of names. Attendees also generally agree to keep private the discussions and information their peers share within the Queer Reads group.
As popularity for the group has grown, so has demand. The Queer Readers wanted more frequent meetings, Ryle said. Time and resource restrictions made this difficult, so Ryle designated a room for young people to congregate twice a month. Now, she said, students get off the school bus at the library in the afternoon and use the room as a hangout until the Queer Reads program starts, Ryle said.
“I wanted them to have a community,” she explained.
Sharing with peers
The program’s popularity has received national attention. In March, Ryle spoke at a library youth leadership summit in Florida and shared tips for starting similar Queer Reads events with peers from across the country. Given that some states are considering LGBTQ book bans, Ryle had to navigate tricky terrain by focusing on a selection of titles that she believed would fall within such restrictions.
Ryle said she learned about and was horrified by experiences that librarians from elsewhere in the country are facing. “They have protests outside their libraries. They have people coming in and shouting at them,” she said.
Meanwhile, in Waterbury, the program has taken root in a largely supportive environment, she reflected. “I’ve been working hard to create a collection of books where every kid and every family — they can see themselves.”
The Community News Service is part of the Reporting and Documentary Storytelling Program at the University of Vermont.
Wonder is they will speak of LOVE?
Wonder if they were taught or exposed the following in school?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
They will find a longing for love, long after the orgasm. But they will likely become a slave to the sensual, all brought about by those who have gone before them…….leading them astray.
What is interesting is that it is not an open discussion about sexuality, but a completely biased discussion about sexuality.
It leaves out science, love and any spiritual discussion. Meanwhile on the Internet they are constantly shown porn between consentining familial members, step brother, sister, fatherand mother.
Wonder if they will be introduced to other trains of thought that protect them from the carnal nature of mankind, the social, emotional and physical dangers of promiscuous sex?
Wonder if there will be discussions of the life partner implications, of how sex is a binding, agent via the physical, emotional and chemical,changes it creates within the body, such a powerful force that can bring about the destruction of countries, marriages/family and a general obsession that can destroy your own life when not brought about in safe and ideal situation as intended by nature , science and God? To which they all agree.
Wonder if they will be told how sexuality and the confusion of ones. Sexual orientation is used by other countries to subvert and their down an country on its most basic level? Wonder if they will be told of the history of the secular world, where all this was common for thousands of years with little fulfillment, sexual gratification and marital happiness?
My guess is no. It’s not about education.mvermont is not about education.
Where is the Church? Silent, complicit, compromised, possessed? Why isn’t there a contingent of pastors or the remnants demanding equal time and sponsoring Bible readings? Discussions of faith, hope, and prosperity? Doesn’t have to be limited to one religion. Why not the Muslim community stand up and demand their time to decree these desecrations against their faith? If the Church (with more authority than the government) had the guts to raise the standard, these demons would not be allowed to flourish and prey upon the children. Seeing what the Pope said recently, the Catholics should be grabbing buckets of holy water and dousing their alters in earnest. Rise or be defeated by the most wicked of all.
Yeah…that’s a good question huh? Where is the church about all the pornography?
Well, here is the best I can tell.
There are two main branches of spreading the Gospel in Vermont. The Catholic Church is one, the other is The United Methodist Church. Now they are both struggling, from within and from most definitely outside forces. Some, many perhaps but not all are heavily influenced.
We talk about cancel culture in church, the original cancel culture was the Roman Empire and some errant leaders of the Old Testament. They thought they would cancel the rabble rouser…..so they nailed Jesus on the cross, only for him to rise up three days later.
Vermonters, know we are in Roman times. We will be canceled; you will lose your job. What they have forgotten is there is no power against Jesus Christ, he has already won. I don’t mean this lightly, they will allow a country of evil intent to have nuclear weapons before they allow the word of God or The Holy Bible in their country. No false religion, no theocracy can stand against the sword of God, which is the word of God, they are all found out for the liars and thieves they truly are.
There is no force greater than truth and love.
It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that what is being taught, isn’t exactly in the Bible. We, and I include myself will try and twist God’s word to our own desires, which can’t be done, God’s rules and word prevails, always.
When a country is subverted, another outside force infiltrates organizations and trains them from within, training people to sin is like…..teaching a fish to swim, they have an advantage, but their fruit is predicted, strife, anxiety …hatred, most certainly NO PEACE….hell they scream it in slogans.
80% of Christians have not read the Bible, probably 99.999% of non-Christians haven’t read it.
That would leave a population of Vermont with perhaps 646,972….54% Christian…349,364 Christians; and 20% having read the bible…69,872….which is a bigger number than I would have thought.
Here are some stats….
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/vermont/
We are filled with pride, so much so we put it on our license plate, Vermont Strong!
We are filled with a spirit that brings about hatred, anxiety, obesity…poverty, we are uneducated in how the world truly works.
We simply need to repent, as man has always needed. We don’t have the answers to the world but if you ask around Vermonters across the board are saving the world, while at the same time being fooled by those who are leading them down the wrong path. It’s everywhere.
We have a shortage of truth and love.
My grandfather told me as a child, if someone tells you they are a Christian, run for the hills. I know what he meant and your post outlines it as well. I challenge the believers of Christ and those of other faiths to decide now – is it right to placate and invite the demons onto their alters and into their homes for the sake of going along to get along? The hour of decision is now. Those sitting on the fence better choose now because that fence is about to be obliterated. Raise the standard or fall away.
Matthew 7:21-23 KJV Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Child endangerment under the governments blessings. Disgusting what VT has turned into.
Follow The Money.
What is the financial state of this Library?
I believe, based upon what my own town librarian told me, that Libraries are becoming another relic of the past..
They are used by older folks that are aging out and mothers with kids looking for something to do with little ones.
But this is not enough to keep these places going- this is what I was told.
Have you seen the price of books lately? in a time that it costs a fortune to heat these places.
At a time when less and less people even read or have spare time.
Young people can scarcely stay focused for anything longer than a Tweet.
They can’t put their phones down.
Our library wanted an addition to bring in more tech and there was such little interest that they ended the fund raiser and scrapped the idea. There was zero desire to grow anything that is going down the drain..
When places are desperately trying to stay afloat, they will redefine themselves into whatever the people funding them want.
When things become an empty shell.. often, bad things move in.
So again, Follow The Money.
Libraries over all are “going down the drain” because knowledge and intellect have fallen from grace in this demented reprobate society. Fostered along by more than five decades of “playing with a ball” being the thing of most paramount importance in the bulk of American Universities, replaced only now with an over fascination with one’s genitals… and who can be the biggest social media freak for the next 15 minutes.
American becomes the laughing stock of the modern world, more and more each day and with each degenerate generation.
Agreed.
We’d be better off as a society to simply close the doors and accept that many things are gone due to changing times- rather than allowing them to go on fueled by evil.