September 2024 - Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words

The Advocate: The Joy of LGBTQ+ Reading Clubs

In a composite photo, at left, three people gather with books outside the Little Gay Book Club. In an inside shot, about two dozen people gather around long tables to discuss a book.

September 24, 2024

The Advocate: The Joy of LGBTQ+ Reading Clubs

Posted in Austin, Journalism, LGBTQIA, and The Advocate

The ever-evolving membership of the Little Gay Book Club in Austin, Texas, gathers several times a month to read together, to celebrate their love of literature, and of course to debate the latest selections. They’re one of a small, but growing number of LGBTQ+ book clubs springing up across the United States—from Philadelphia to Richmond, Virginia, among others—that meet regularly to share books and dish about their lives.

I first met Lex Loro, the genderqueer manager of the Little Gay Book Club, in the sumptuous roof garden on top of Austin Public Library’s main headquarters during a book fair. We spoke under the shade of solar panels as Loro took a break from slinging books on behalf of their employer and the book club’s sponsor, the Little Gay Shop. Lex was dressed in a casual-yet-fab Barbie-pink-themed outfit, complete with dangly earrings declaring her pronouns: ‘They’ down one ear, and ‘She’ down the other. In addition to managing the shop’s book club and other literacy programs, they’re also the director of community health at the San Antonio Pride Center.

“Book clubs create an opportunity for queer people in particular, or just any minoritized people, to access stories about our realities that are similar to us and access stories about people in our community that are different from us,” Loro told me.

The Barbed Wire: Jonny Garza Villa on Censorship & Writing for Queer Kids

Jonny Garza Villa, an nonbinary Latine person with thick dark hair in a top knot and bandanna and short beard and moustache, wearing a khaki jacket over a white tee. They are sitting on a bench with red and blue pillows behind them along with a potted palm.

Jonny Garza Villa in Austin Kit O'Connell

September 20, 2024

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The Barbed Wire: Jonny Garza Villa on Censorship & Writing for Queer Kids

Posted in Austin, Journalism, LGBTQIA, and The Barbed Wire

“The most rewarding part of stories,” said author Jonny Garza Villa at a book signing hosted by Austin’s Little Gay Shop, is “realizing that I can write something that’s hyperspecific, a Mexican-American experience in a specific city in Texas, and how what that character is going through can relate to anyone, anywhere.”

Garza Villa’s young adult fiction is imbued with rich cultural details of Latiné Texas life, including the perhaps unlikely queer joy one can find here, despite the hostility that LGBTQ+ Texans face. One rising form of such hostility is book bans. Since 2021, Pen American found Texas has banned more than 1,500 books in public schools and libraries, many of which featured LGBTQ+ identities. In the U.S., only Florida has banned more books. And, as Garza Villa has experienced first-hand, that antipathy may be extending to authors.

Austin Free Press: Transgender Community Responds to Shut Down of Texas Driver’s Licenses

A drag queen sings into a microphone in a hot pink faux fur jacket, with bright, sharp yellow nails and bright red hair.

The Trans Era is one of the performers at the upcoming 'Transistence' drag show.

September 19, 2024

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Austin Free Press: Transgender Community Responds to Shut Down of Texas Driver’s Licenses

Posted in Journalism, and LGBTQIA

Austin’s trans community is girding itself to fight back legally – and on the catwalk – against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to stop transgender and gender nonconforming Texans from updating their genders on state identification documents.

On Sunday, the Local Queer Foundation is organizing to help its community apply for passports to thwart Paxton’s draconian measures to collect the names of anyone asking the state for a gender update, said Caleb Armstrong, a founder of the Austin nonprofit.

“I think it’s very dangerous, and people are scared, mostly because having mismatched documents can affect their work, their ability to get on a plane, or to show someone who they are,” Armstrong told the Austin Free Press.

Until last month, trans Texans could update the name and gender on their driver’s licenses or other state records by presenting the Texas Department of Public Safety with a court order. A similar process existed for updating birth certificates through the Department of Vital Statistics. That changed in August, when DPS began refusing court orders for gender marker changes, under orders from Paxton. Reports soon surfaced of the state refusing to update birth certificates, too.

Columbia Journalism Review on Kit: “Otherwise Lost”

Wearing a midnight blue jumpsuit, Kit rides a white ebike with black accents along the Austin boardwalk.

Kit rides their ebike along Austin's boardwalk. Montinique Monroe/Columbia Journalism Review

September 16, 2024

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Columbia Journalism Review on Kit: “Otherwise Lost”

Posted in Austin, and Journalism

In the spring of 2023, Kit O’Connell broke a story for the Texas Observer about the dress code at the Texas Department of Agriculture. The rules stated that, at the TDA office, “pants and Western attire are allowable” for women. Skirts higher than four inches from the knee were not, nor was clothing that encouraged “excessive cleavage.” Men should not wear Crocs or slides, nor tuck their pants into boots. Also, the policy noted, “employees are expected to comply with this dress code in a manner consistent with their biological gender.” If they did not—and refused requests from their supervisors to “change into conforming attire”—they could eventually be fired.

The story got picked up quickly by NPR, NBC News, The Guardian, and beyond. O’Connell’s framing—that this was “anti-LGBTQ+ oppression”—was echoed by those larger outlets, with context on a cascade of recent anti-trans legislation in the state. The TDA didn’t respond to the Observer’s request for comment, but as attention mounted, Sid Miller, the department’s commissioner, provided an interview to Austin’s local Spectrum News channel. “When a man comes dressed in drag, or vice versa, it’s very disruptive. It’s not professional,” he said. “My people need to look and act professional.”

Time slid on. As of this summer, the dress code remained. No major national or international outlets had followed up. O’Connell checked in. “For over a year,” they wrote for the Observer, “employees of the Texas Department of Agriculture have been subject to a dress code that is transphobic and potentially illegal.” In researching the second story, O’Connell combed through internal TDA emails obtained by a nonprofit called American Oversight, which procures government records. The emails about the dress code, O’Connell wrote, showed that “senior agency staff were aware TDA was wading into legally dubious waters and that a number of employees objected to its implementation and felt personally discriminated against.” O’Connell pulled a quote from an employee who noted that “within the past six months, several trans, queer, and/or gender-nonconforming staff have been hired by the TDA. This timing could lead one to conclude that this policy is a direct result of trans visibility in the workplace.”