For the Love of Librarians
This is the story of how a librarian saved the life of a queer kid. It’s one story, one kid, but I’m confident there are a lot more stories out there just like this one. It’s about my friend, Daniel, my next-door neighbour, Mary, and her friend, Henry.
Daniel grew up just off Commercial Road in Melbourne, a well-known gay strip then as now. He was the son of strict Jehovah Witness parents who home-schooled him until high school.
The only place he was allowed to go by himself was the local library and he went whenever he could.
Fortunately for him, as far back as the early 1990s, one of the librarians had taken it upon themselves to put small rainbow stickers on selected books. Daniel read every single book — fiction and non-fiction — that carried that sticker. Mostly he read them tucked away in a quiet corner, but occasionally he would borrow one, take it home and hide it under his bed.
At thirteen, Daniel was aware that something was a little different about him and one afternoon, sitting between his two sisters in the back of the car, he announced to his mother: I will never be married to a woman and I will never have a family. His mother declared that he didn’t know what he was talking about, but shortly after she decided they were too close to the nefarious influences of Commercial Road and moved the family to St Kilda East. The irony was not lost on Daniel.
But irony aside, Daniel’s parents also started him on a regime of Bible study, prayer and penitence to overcome his same-sex attraction. At about this time, he started University High School where, introverted, awkward and a little lost, he automatically gravitated towards the library.
Enter Henry, drag queen by night, school librarian by day. I’d see Daniel sitting ramrod straight in a corner by himself, he recalls. I had a sixth sense about the kids who needed a bit of safety — they were the outliers, furtive little things ferreting around for books or information — and Daniel was an obvious one. I rounded up a couple of the other kids and got them to show him around and I kept an eye on him.
Henry had his own history, a not uncommon story of being beaten up and bullied at school. He left at the age of thirteen knowing that was the only way he’d survive. There had to be one safe space for Daniel and the others, he says. There were a few thuggish Year 12 boys and if they came anywhere near the library, I’d see them off.
When Daniel started at Uni High, there weren’t any rainbow stickered books in the library. The head librarian at the time was old school and strait-laced; all the ‘controversial’ books — mostly about sex — were hidden behind her desk and if you wanted to borrow one, you got the third degree.
And then she went on long-service leave and Henry and his fellow librarian, Mary, squeezed $500 out of the school principal and bought a stack of books from Hares and Hyenas. We put them out on the shelves, Mary recalls, but they didn’t last long. I think a few went out on ‘permanent loan’, but Daniel read them all and I always tried to keep him well-stocked.
Mary had a convent background and had worked in a Catholic Girls’ School before Uni High. She had an eye for the outliers, too. Daniel would come in early before school and he’d be back at the end of the day. I knew he lied to his mum about what time they finished. He was a special kid, clever and musical and talented, but clearly very, very sad.
Daniel spent more and more time in the library and slowly started to open up to Mary. There was never any judgement with Mary and I always felt safe, he says. I could talk about what was going on at home and I did. I didn’t have to filter. Mary would find other kids who were a good match for me — socially and intellectually — and introduce us. And when I was bullied by the jocks it was Mary who sent them running and who mopped up my tears.
Throughout this whole time, Daniel was working hard on his Bible studies at home, doing what his parents asked and meeting with elders of the church who were trying to ‘fix’ him. I remember him coming in with big black rings under his eyes sometimes because he’d been up half the night reading the Bible, Mary recalls. He was very vulnerable and I did worry. If we didn’t see him in the morning, we’d go looking for him just to make sure and we recruited some of the other teachers to check on him as well. I think the library was the only place he felt safe in the world. I wanted to wrap him up and take him home. And honestly, I was frightened for him.
For Daniel, the library wasn’t just a place to read, to hide, to be safe. Mary and Henry made it a destination, he says, and it became part of my everyday routine. But it was more than that. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to escape from home and I knew I could always go to the library. There was a security to that — when Mary shut the door and I was on the inside. I think I knew that she would have rescued me in a heartbeat, and I think that saved my life. Her kindness and care — I didn’t realise it as a kid — but it saved me.
And it wasn’t just me, Mary saved. It was like she and Henry collected all these queer kids and outliers together and we became a bit of a force. Between the two of them, they actually changed the culture of the school and by the time I left it was very different. I was voted Queen of the Prom in my final year and by then if anyone threatened me, it was actually the jocks who’d defend me; it was cool to be friends with the queer kids by then. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Mary and Henry really steered that change.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I am sitting at a dinner table listening to Mary and Daniel share this story. There is humour in the re-telling — as there often is in stories of great pain — but more than anything, there’s a profound sense of love and gratitude. And it strikes me that librarians, back then and right now, are our quiet unsung heroes.
Of late, they’ve been in the news a lot, bearing the brunt of attacks from the far right for asking drag queens to read stories to kids. So, to all the librarians out there, past and present, on behalf of the queer community, I want to say: we know you’ve been creating safe spaces for us for decades; we know those spaces have provided comfort, shelter and safety for our most vulnerable, and we know you’re creating those spaces still. For every book bought, for every rainbow sticker displayed, for every drag story time organised — and for every queer kid seen and saved — Daniel and I say, Thank you.
Jac Tomlins
July 2023
