Q&A: Nancy Garden

You grew up as a lesbian during the 1950s. Are things any better for today's young gay people? Yes and no. The Internet is a wonderful tool that is great for gay teens if they have access to it... The fact that GLSEN [Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network] exists, the fact that there is a growing number of GSAs, gay-straight alliances, throughout the country is very helpful. There are many more [gay] books now, than there were then--there were none then, actually. But there's also a backlash going on, because gay people in general are so much more visible. And that has a very negative impact on a lot of gay kids who are, I think, probably more openly harassed and more prone to being attacked violently than we were back in the '50s. It's great that gay kids can see movies that have gay characters, that there are gay characters on television, even though they're not always terrific, but [at least] they're there. There's a much greater awareness on the part of the public to homosexuality in general, and that has both a good and a bad impact.

What advice do you have for librarians who want their libraries to be more responsive to the needs of gay teens? One way to make the library responsive to gay teens is to have an exhibit on coming out gay, during Gay Pride Month, of books and videos....with gay themes. Another way, that a high school library that I know of has done--which I think is very nice and very clever--they have an honor system with certain books, which you can take out without charging out. You can take out gay books and other books that kids would be embarrassed to be seen with and officially check out. The books are marked, I think, on the spine with some kind of little sticker...I don't know the logistics of how it works. But apparently it's quite successful and these books do get back into the library after they've been taken out.