Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic
\n Idaho librarian June Meissner was closing up for the day at the downtown Boise Public Library when a man approached her asking for help. As an information services librarian, answering patrons\u2019 questions is part of Meissner\u2019s day-to-day work, and serving the community is one of her favorite parts of the job. But when the man got close enough, \u201che took a swing at me and tried to punch me in the head,\u201d said Meissner, a transgender woman. \u201cI blocked it and he started yelling slurs and suggesting that he was going to come back and kill me.\u201dWorldwide Pride Month events are well underway to celebrate LGBTQ+ culture and rights. But it is coming at a time when people who identify as LGBTQ+ say they are facing increasing difficulties at work, ranging from being repeatedly misgendered to physically assaulted. Gender nonconforming library workers in particular, like Meissner, are also grappling with growing calls for book bans across the U.S., with books about gender identity, sexual orientation and race topping the list of most criticized titles and making the attacks all the more personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we see attacks on those books, we have to understand that those are attacks on those kinds of people as well,\u201d said Emily Drabinski, who is the president of the American Library Association and is gay. \u201cTo have my identity weaponized against libraries and library workers, the people and institutions I care about the most, has made it a difficult and painful year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ALA said it documented the highest-ever number of titles targeted for censorship in 2023 in more than 20 years of tracking — 4,240. That total surpassed 2022\u2019s previous record by 65%, with Maia Kobabe\u2019s coming-of-age story \u201cGender Queer\u201d topping the list for most criticized library book for the third straight year.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers are increasingly considering lawsuits, fines, and even imprisonment for distributing books some regard as inappropriate, including in Meissner\u2019s home state of Idaho. Lawmakers there passed legislation that empowers local prosecutors to bring charges against public and school libraries if they don\u2019t keep \u201charmful\u201d materials away from children. The new law, signed by Idaho Gov. Brad Little in April, will go into effect on July 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think that a lot of that political speech around it does make things more dangerous and worse for me,\u201d Meissner said. \u201cIt is so much politicking and getting the general public riled up.\u201dMeissner\u2019s own attacker was arrested and convicted, and she says that while the vast majority of her interactions at work are positive, she still struggles to let her guard down and is constantly assessing whether a situation could turn unsafe.\u201cAs somebody who is working face to face with the public and trying to help people as much as possible, that really does get in the way,\u201d she told The Associated Press, describing how she waits to make eye contact with a patron \u201cand then, based on what I see when they look at me, that\u2019ll tell me whether or not I should just be on edge, be wary.\u201d <\/p>\n
Florida-based conservative nonprofit Moms for Liberty, which describes itself as a parental rights organization and refers to its members as \u201cjoyful warriors,\u201d has been at the forefront of a nationwide push to remove books that deal with race and gender identity.But co-founder Tiffany Justice says the organization \u2014 which she says has more than 300 chapters in 48 states and more than 130,000 active members \u2014 is not anti-LGBTQ+, although Justice herself told the AP she thinks that the Q in the acronym, which stands for queer or questioning, \u201cneeds to go into the trash bin.\u201d And according to the ALA\u2019s Office for Intellectual Freedom, about 38% of book challenges that \u201cdirectly originated\u201d from Moms for Liberty activity have LGBTQ+ themes.Justice said Moms for Liberty challenges books like Gender Queer \u2014 a graphic novel about a young person\u2019s struggle with gender identity that contains illustrations of sexual contact, masturbation and a sex toy \u2014 because they view the material as sexually explicit, not because they cover LGBTQ+ topics. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe least interesting thing about a child should be their sexual orientation,\u201d Justice said. \u201cWhy are we flooding them with sexual content?\u201dDespite the thousands of petitions to censor books about gender and sex, legal standards for deeming materials obscene or harmful to minors \u2014 and therefore not protected speech under the First Amendment \u2014 are very specific and high, and courts have historically sided with libraries, according to Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who focuses on rights to free speech in the digital age.\u201cThe mere fact that something is describing sex, describing nudity, even depicting those things, is not enough to make it qualify as obscenity,\u201d she said.Regardless, the book banning movement has in many cases successfully restricted access to materials in which LGBTQ+ youth can see themselves depicted. <\/p>\n
As of June 1, Louisiana libraries must allow parents or guardians to decide which books their child can check out. M\u2019issa Fleming, a public librarian in New Orleans who uses they\/them pronouns, says the new law could make it even more dangerous for queer and trans kids, who are already at higher risk of being victims of violence, substance use, and suicide than their straight, cisgender peers. And losing access to LGBTQ+ themed books may cause kids to turn to less reliable sources like Reddit.\u201cPublic libraries could be offering as many ways as possible to make it less dangerous to learn about yourself, and the law just added another challenge,\u201d Fleming said. Chaz Carey, a children\u2019s librarian in Worthington, Ohio, knows firsthand how powerful books can be. Alison Bechdel\u2019s 2006 graphic memoir \u201cFun Home,\u201d in which the author comes to grips with her sexual orientation, changed Carey\u2019s life as a teenager. \u201cI felt seen. It was like my whole body just let out a breath,\u201d said Carey, who is queer and uses they\/them pronouns. \u201cIt is just so important that these books remain on shelves. They save lives.\u201dCarey says being a children\u2019s librarian is a dream job, but the rise in book challenges and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric takes a mental toll. They are frequently misgendered at work, including by some patrons who go out of their way to do so while airing their political beliefs.\u201cThe political environment is just an extra kind of weight as we navigate our lives and our places in our community,\u201d said Carey, who chairs ALA\u2019s Rainbow Roundtable, which aims to serve the information needs of LGBTQ+ people. For Carey, what helps is \u201ctaking some time to feel sad, but then choosing queer joy and pride.\u201d___The Associated Press\u2019 women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. <\/p>\n
window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
\n FB.init({<\/p>\n
appId : ‘870613919693099’,<\/p>\n
xfbml : true,
\n version : ‘v2.9’
\n });
\n };<\/p>\n
(function(d, s, id){
\n var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
\n if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
\n js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
\n js.src = “https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js”;
\n fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
\n }(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Idaho librarian June Meissner was closing up for the day at the downtown Boise Public Library when a man approached her asking for help. As an information services librarian, answering patrons\u2019 questions is part of Meissner\u2019s day-to-day work, and serving the community is one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-136244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136246,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136244\/revisions\/136246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}