For Taylor Brorby, growing up gay in North Dakota — the least visited state in America — would have been impossible without books featuring queer stories to help him navigate the world and provide a model for who he could be and what kind of life he could lead. His memoir Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land is exactly the kind of book a young man like him could take comfort in today … except in North Dakota. Ali Velshi discusses with Brorby, an advocate for access to literature, the hostile climate toward literature and libraries that the state’s legislature is creating.

Two bills introduced in the state legislature last year directly attacked libraries and even threatened librarians. The first, House Bill 1205, prohibits public libraries from possessing or lending “explicit sexual material,” while the second, which was vetoed by the governor, proposed prosecuting librarians who allowed books with this undefined sexual material to be within the view of minors.

Restricting the type of texts that are offered to the public is no less than a path to fascism, Brorby says. But he insists we can fight back.

“You fight it by raising your voice. We each have a voice, and I’ve been so grateful to the publications that have allowed me to share mine. People need to be speaking up. They need to be going into their public libraries and demanding much more of their library boards in particular.” He concluded with, “We need people with moral courage to enter the fight, to run in our local elections, and to say this is enough. Enough is enough.”

Listen to Velshi and Taylor Brorby :

Watch Velshi’s interview with Brorby:

Velshi on banned books on MSNBC:

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