Rita Meade

A digital drawing of author Maia Kobabe, a white nonbinary person with short brown hair wearing a patterned blue shirt, who scowls while holding up a copy of eir book GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR. Maia is saying: H.R. 7661 is a national book banning bill which seeks to remove any book that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" from all public schools in the US. This would ban my books, and any other book with trans themes, from public schools. PLEASE call your House Reps and say: NO ON H.R. 7661!

H.R. 7661 is a national book banning bill which seeks to remove any book that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" from all public schools in the US. This would ban all my books, & any other book with trans themes, from public schools. PLEASE call your House Reps & say: NO ON H.R. 7661!

Americans? Please call your reps.

A strike in Iran hit a Girls school in Manib with the semi-official Tasnim news agency reporting more than 80, including children, were killed. This strike was geolocated by researchers including @ntabrizy.bsky.social , @chrisosieck.bsky.social and @annonemo.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/chri...

City Council, we demand half a percent of the overall city budget for libraries! In response to the NYC FY2026 Budget, adopted this June, the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York Public Library, and the Queens Public Library released a joint statement thanking City Leaders for in...

Have you sent your letter to your council member yet about the need to fully fund our public libraries? actionnetwork.org/letters/city...

It is as bad as it sounds, and freedom to read folks have been anticipating this now for years.

Make your phone calls. Send your emails.

An official letter from the Kansas Division of Vehicles dated February 23, 2026, with a redacted recipient address. The letter notifies the recipient that due to the enactment of Senate Bill 244, all Kansas driver's licenses and IDs must reflect the holder's sex at birth. It states that the recipient's current credential will become invalid immediately upon the law's publication on February 26, 2026, with no grace period. The recipient is directed to surrender their current ID to receive a new one matching their sex assigned at birth. The document concludes with instructions on how to appeal the notice if received in error, along with contact information for the department.

Kansas is sending letters to trans people telling them that their licenses will be revoked as of tomorrow and that they risk arrest for driving on a suspended license.

This is pure cruelty.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...

And every time libraries "step in" to do things, it's added load to library workers who too often are seen as "no one."

In the concentration camp universe, this is what's known as a filtration camp. A government preemptively takes a whole class of people to interrogate and detain extrajudicially in order to inflict duress on them while arbitrarily assessing their (supposed) culpability.

So stupid! I hope you are right.

It's tough being right all the time.

A key life lesson is that you should not piss off librarians...

OK, let’s discuss what’s happened with the proposed NYC public libraries budget for FY 27. Mayor Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov released his preliminary budget yesterday. This kicks off the city budget process. [Long thread]

Forget cautious optimism, reckless pessimism is where it's at.

I really thought this year/mayoral term would be different with regards to the NYC library budget fight. I guess it's important for me to remember to never actually let my guard down and hope for good things! Silly me!

NYC Public Library Action Network Read our response in our latest newsletter Mar 21 at Make the Road New York (in Queens). Learn how you can advocate for increased public library funding, hear more about the services that libraries…

Public libraries are actually existing examples of the world we want. We should not have to fight for them under a democratic socialist mayor.

@nycplan.org is organizing a response. Tell Mamdani to make good on his commitment to baseline funding for libraries!

nycplan.org

State Department orders nonprofit libraries to stop processing passport applications The State Department has ordered nonprofit public libraries to stop taking passport applications, cutting off a popular local service.

This scheme to make passports harder to obtain comes as Republicans are trying to make passports one of the few documents that can be presented in order to be permitted to register to vote.

Tomorrow morning, Iowa's House subcommittee is going to bring their latest anti-library bill–this is the "age appropriateness" bill that would defund libraries for not bowing to right-wing sex fantasies. If you can, show up. If not, leave a comment here.

www.legis.iowa.gov/committees/m...

“I Have Been Here Too Long”: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility Hundreds of children are currently being held with their parents at an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas. In letters and drawings, eight kids convey the pain of feeling trapped with no end...

Please take the time to read what the children detained in Dilley wrote me in their own words: www.propublica.org/article/ice-... 10/

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Really disappointed in your vote on S 1071. Shameful.

Hi!

thank you! ❤️

Thanks so much!

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Pure trash. bsky.app/profile/acyn...

There are things you can do to help.

Despite *everything,* there's really, really good stuff happening inside public libraries these days. I'm clinging to that with all I've got.