American Library Association President Stands By Tweet Admitting She Is a ‘Marxist Lesbian,’ States Look to Cut Ties

The president of the American Library Association (ALA) is doubling down on a statement she made last year calling herself a “Marxist lesbian.”

After being elected ALA president in April of 2022, Emily Drabinski posted a now-deleted tweet saying:

I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity! And my mom is SO PROUD. I love you mom.

Drabinski’s self-identification as a Marxist, an ideology antithetical to a constitutional republic, has led conservative lawmakers in several states to push for the withdrawal of their state’s libraries from the ALA, including Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Wyoming. Montana became the first state last month to cut ties with the ALA, with the Montana State Library Commission, stating that “our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist.”

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Matt Perdie / Breitbart News

In her first interview since taking office last month, Drabinski told NBC News she and the ALA are experiencing “targeted attacks” because of her Marxist views and called the backlash “regrettable.”

“I was excited to highlight and celebrate two aspects of my identity that are really important to me, and are often under a lot of scrutiny,” 48-year-old Drabinski said. “I didn’t anticipate these kinds of targeted attacks being used as a bludgeon against library workers across the country. I really think that is regrettable, and I wish that wasn’t happening right now.”

Drabinski said she doesn’t want the ALA to “get stuck talking exclusively on the terms that they have set for us rather than the terms that I think the rest of us operate on every day.”

“My own personal political viewpoint is a target right now, but my personal agenda doesn’t drive the association,” she said. “It’s the agenda of all of us together.”

Drabinski stepped into her role as ALA president during a time when grassroots parent organizations and conservative lawmakers have been sounding the alarm about some schools and public libraries making pornographic materials available to children and hosting “drag queen story hours.” Left-wing gender ideology activists and complicit media outlets often paint this campaign as an effort to “ban books” and oppress the LGBTQ+ community. 

Good. It is pornography. https://t.co/XQlpY7K9Eu pic.twitter.com/6sKOkUAYDg

— Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) February 15, 2023

As Breitbart News previously reported, Drabinski wrote on her website that her “vision” for the American Library Association is to build and use the “collective power” of its members to pursue a host of left-wing political issues. 

“The consequences of decades of unchecked climate change, class war, white supremacy, and imperialism have led us here,” Drabinski said. “If we want a world that includes public goods like the library, we must organize our collective power and wield it.”

“The American Library Association offers us a set of tools that can harness our energies and build those capacities,” she added.

Drabinski has also claimed that the “consequences of climate change” are a threat to libraries, and proposed a “Green New Deal for libraries” as part of her platform:

Floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and other consequences of climate change threaten libraries, library workers, and library publics around the world. We must build on recent association work in this area and connect to broader public legislation in order to preserve libraries and communities for an uncertain future.

She additionally promised to develop a “global vision of librarianship in which international cooperation and exchange are central to equity and justice,” insisting, “our solutions must be international too,” and calling for “cooperation beyond our borders.”

“I will direct resources and opportunities to a diverse cross section of the association and advance a public agenda that puts organizing for justice at the center of library work,” Drabinski said.

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Zac Bell with BRAVE Books

A look through Drabinski’s academic works render published titles such as Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction, and Gendered S(h)elves: Body and Identity in the Library.  In the second title, she detailed how “queers of all kinds have always found a home in the library,” and how when she was 14, she ran into a book that had a “fantastic queer sex” scene that awakened her to her own sexual preferences.

Last week, Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (FL), Kevin Cramer (ND) and Mike Braun (IN) called for federal funds for the ALA to be halted, and said the government should investigate the organization for allegedly advising librarians to discriminate against a Christian book publisher. 

Wyoming State Rep. John Bear (R) said he is pushing his state to leave the ALA because the association is full of Marxists who promote books that “create a sexualized child at an earlier age” and are “turning libraries into activist training grounds.”

“The ALA has allowed this political point of view to infiltrate every aspect of their training,” Bear said, according to NBC News. “And their trainings are just completely full of things like, how to deal with parents who don’t appreciate the type of materials that are available to children in the library, how to deal with your state legislature or your local government.”

Wyoming State Rep. Pepper Ottman (R) said in a July 12 webinar that the ALA’s recommended reading lists were provided “to open children up to pornography” and to groom them for sex trafficking, according to the report. 

The ALA told NBC News it has plans to increase monetary and legal support for libraries facing “political challenges” as well as provide “crisis communications support.” The ALA is also planning to launch a “campaign school” to encourage people “who believe in intellectual freedom” to run for school and library boards.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.