Your Friendly Nonbinary Librarian

Alex, they/them, Children's Services Librarian in Chicago. I mostly post about books and libraries.

[teenslib]

My sideblogs

No Gender, More Trees! - Where I post about nature, science, turning my yard into a wildflower garden, and other outdoorsy stuff

mysecretlittletmblr - Random stuff I like, mostly humor

[naamahdarling]

ID: a small fluffy gray cat of nebulously criminal aspect writhes in satisfaction upon a concrete sidewalk of identical color. A human pets her. She emits several raspy sounds of evident pleasure. "Fancy?" says the human. Fancy gives a really BIG friendly screech, mouth wide open, then gets up and wanders offscreen as the human laughs.

[teenslib]

EXCUSE YOU THAT IS *MY* CAT

[epicsause-official]

d*mn!

[ftmtftm]

Sometimes I really want to take everyone under the age of 24 (as of 2026) by the shoulders and say:

"I'm really sorry that lockdown and the ongoing pandemic interrupted pivotal educational and social/emotional development moments for you. You have an uphill battle towards adjusting to a lot of community based efforts because you experienced a mass trauma during an incredibly important time in your life where you should have physically been around your peers learning to engage in shared community. There is no "but" here, I'm genuinely really sorry. Something many of us consider key points in our interpersonal growth as youths was taken from you, not without reason but without care for its impact on you. I hope you know we are eternally allies in our struggles and if that is something you struggle to know I hope you can learn it someday."

Because so many of the angriest, most disenfranchised people I see on this website are under 24 and I often try to put younger people's behavior in the context of where they might have been 2020. I've seen the impact on my siblings and their peers+friends first hand, all ages 18-24. We've talked about how its impacted them, the isolation, the attachment to the internet, the anxieties and phobias and fears it developed in them due to the pandemic, the political unrest, and the responses to both that we've seen since. I know they're not the only ones and I know how much being marginalized also influences that impact too.

It's terrifying. I know it must be terrifying for a lot of the young people on Tumblr too. I hope one day we're able to bridge all of those complex feelings into something collective and positive so we can do our best to prevent similar traumas from happening to future generations.

[night-vale-community-radio]

How to Successfully Study in the Library

bring all of your materials with you

find a nice quiet spot void of distractions 

make sure to take little breaks every half hour or so

maybe bring a little snack

don’t look at the giant floating baby

just don’t 

try to forget about the giant floating baby in the library 

use different colors of highlighters to organize your notes  

[night-vale-community-radio]

you folks think this is like a fuckin doctor who or phineas and ferb reference but nah this is the shit I gotta put up with every day

[incorrectclassicbookquotes]

I looked it up and this is what a website said about it: Ralph Helmick’s monumental sculpture “Mind’s Eye” is in the skylight of West St. Petersburg Community Library. This surreal tribute to literature’s transformative power features suspended sculptural elements, including a colossal infant floating amidst swirling books. Comet-like sculptures radiate themes of language, spirit, science, and creativity. Clusters of tiny sculptures depict local flora, fauna, and human activity. Helmick’s “3-D pointillism” technique creates light-infused forms, blending realism with imagination. Through this innovative approach, “Mind’s Eye” invites viewers into a world of cognitive possibility, celebrating the profound impact of learning and exploration.

[spankerella]

@ perfectunion

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[teaboot]

My mom likes to tell me about how when I was a little kid riding public transport with her I'd always smile and giggle and chat with weird old ladies who smelled like cat pee and homeless folks and strangers dressed in bizarre outfits but any time a tidy and respectable businessman in a suit and tie waved at me I'd immediately clam up, and she takes a great deal of pride in my supposed inherentability to clock personalities but the truth is I do vaguely remember those bus rides, and it was never about the clothes or the hair or the smell, but more because everyone "strange" asked interesting questions and listened to what I had to say and seemed to think about what I said while the neat and tidy and rigid folks only ever acted like they were going through the motions, which was boring as hell and also pretty annoying

[teaboot]

Well-to-do finance manager with tidy shoes: "Why hello, sweetheart. Can you say 'hi'? Aren't you cute. Are you on a trip with your mom?"

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"

4 year old me, suddenly paying attention: Finally, A Person Of Intellect

[blackdykegirlblogger]

ik pride is all ppl think of when june hits but i also wanna say HAPPY CARIBBEAN AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH BITCHES ‼️‼️‼️

[pinnipetal]

It deeply saddens me that "pdf file" has become slang for pedo. Don't you dare disrespect my wife the beautiful portable document format ever again

[dualcasterjay]

and to the children in the notes saying we need this fucking baby talk to get around censorship online; there's been no credible evidence that any site other that YouTube (which will only demonetize your video, ftr) will actually censor or hide content that include words like rape, pedophile, gun, terrorist, etc. etc. and even if we take as a given they were (which, again, they are not), do not fucking comply in advance, you absolute fucking coward. and ESPECIALLY do not comply by altering your real life fucking vocabulary. don't let the technocrats dictate what words you say holy fucking shit dude!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cricketcat9]

FOR FUCK'S SAKE! I just read a text written by a young woman, about the important issue of domestic violence; everything seemed right, until there it was: " she was UNALIVED by her boyfriend".

Then someone writing about fucking GARDENING does this: "d*ad flowers".

I'm old and I may be old-fashioned, but is everyone losing their mind? Orwell was so right about the newspeak. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the damn book.

[iguanamouth]

so the first four hoards were so popular that theyve become kind of on ongoing series ! some of the ones here feature the commissioners ocs and personal items, but ALL of them involve things very dear to me: weird lizards on piles of junk

[beholdingslut]

in absolute tears about the pride module at my work

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

[bigfoots-biggest-fan]

HOLY SHIT GUYS, I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS POST TO TRY MAKE THE SONG AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN I DRAGGED THE TRAINING AUDIO OVER THE BACKING TRACK AND IT LINED UP PERFECTLY

Visit Original Link

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

Tagging @batshit-auspol because as an Australian you're the only big account I know who might share (sorry).

[punkrorschach]

happy first day of pride everyone

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

[barkingbarghest]

[ID: Screenshot of a Twitter post by user ActualNames1 that reads "Prosper Faggot. United States, Census, 1900." End ID.]

[crabussy]

trans women and trans men and nonbinary people and everyone else being friends and holding each other close and falling in love and thinking of each other. I'm making this my future. let's all be okay together

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

After school care pulled me aside about my child dropping an f-bomb “without remorse” and I put on my concerned face and nodded a bunch.

Apparently he was building something with a younger kid “who really looks up to him and is just starting to make friends” and said “Hey, you’re really fucking good at this.” which is, in my estimation, really a parenting victory.

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

I absolutely failed at doing this:

[paper-mario-wiki]

do not forget the patron saint of these weeks that we celebrate ourselves proudly and openly in the streets

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

thank you, Marsha. we remember you.

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[busket]

I think a lot of yall will hear a trans person talking about a legitimate experience and respond like "uhh isnt that a terf talking point 🤨" without having the critical thought to know WHY its harmful when terfs talk about it.

like I just saw a transmasc who drew a short comic about reading BL as a teenager and thinking "wow I wish I was a gay man too" and growing up to be a trans man. and a reply said "isnt this a terf talking point"

no. its not. the terf talking point is that straight girls pretend to be gay men to fetishize them as a form of autoandrophilia. or that exposure to gay male relationships or trans men will groom little girls into wanting to be gay men. that is an extremely harmful view because it deligitimizes a trans man's existence. but plenty of trans men DO grow up reading MLM/gay media and BL and do grow attached to it, because they are seeing themselves. even before you know who you are, you will be drawn to who you want to be. transfem lesbians also become attached to WLW media before transition and are also treated like creeps and fetishists. but they are just young gay kids seeing their true selves reflected back at them. terfs see these kinds of common phenomena that happen all the time in the trans community and try to explain it away with bigotry and hateful stories. and then they talk about it so fucking much that it confuses people and before you know it you got trans people sharing their real lives and being accused of spreading terf talking points from people who never think about anything.