Transgender Woman Facing Discrimination in the Neighborhood

By Alysha Scarlett

Public libraries are supposed to be there for the public — even a Mister Rogers-type place.

For me, however,  the Granada Hills Branch Library made clear they wouldn’t be asking me, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

And beyond that, a Los Angeles Public Library librarian discriminated against me. I am a transgender woman.

Another woman claimed that I looked “scary.” The librarian I told that to responded by misgendering me (more than once). Having shown me her hand, she then compelled me to leave the library.

I went to the library to read “Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith.” One of the patrons would not stop staring at me.

I asked if I could help them. The woman, who was working with the starer, told me that they are a client.

Then, the woman made her “scary” comment.

At that point, I went to a library/librarian desk to complain. 

The librarian walked over to the woman and started to talk with us. (My table was next to the woman’s, as part of a row of tables for the public.) Then the vibe headed toward negative for me. At that point, I said to the librarian, something to the effect of, ‘Watch — this will result in me being told to leave.’

After that, still among us, still while claiming to be addressing the situation, the librarian misgendered me. (For what it is worth, I was dressed highly feminine.)

Immediately after doing that, she looked at me as if she had egg on her face. She was coming off as being respectful — and then, she wasn’t.

I then said something like, that I don’t understand how the librarian’s intervening/claiming to weigh the sides of the story was fair. That is because while doing so, she indeed referred to me as male, which I also said.

The librarian then went back to the desk. The library’s security guard told me the librarian is not mentally well.

A tiny bit after that, the librarian asked me to leave. Really, shortly after doing so, two police officers walked in. 

“This isn’t happening,” I said to myself immediately upon seeing them.

One said he had to ask me to leave, as the librarian asked him to.

Also, he encouraged me to file a complaint. (I went to the San Fernando Valley Sun. Also, the other officer, another woman, said that I was coming along appearance-wise in my medical transition. That was really kind of her.)

While I was talking with the police, and I believe shortly thereafter, the woman who called me “scary” went to another room in the library. And then after I stepped outside (because of behavior by the librarian), the woman left.

This means she stayed when I was there and left after I left. If she truly was scared, I don’t know why she didn’t leave when I was still there. Or then, stay after I had left.

It seems clear she wasn’t waiting in the library until I left because she still needed to use it. I say that because what did she do after I had to leave? Indeed, leave herself.

As she did, she passed me. I told her that she had been antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ in how she treated me.

Gender-affirming care is not a matter of political games, but addressing health. But given the political reality, in March 2023, I moved from Utah to Los Angeles to fully access gender-affirming care. I didn’t expect that anywhere in a city where most lean left, I would be discriminated against. By a library.