MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — For 36 years, Quatrefoil Library has been a center for books and archived magazines about the queer experience.

"The mission, I think then as now is to be a crossroads, to be a place where people connect and to be a place where people can explore and be exposed to new ideas or existing ideas that they might already be thinking about," said executive director Claude Peck.

It’s a place that believes in the power of books for folks to see themselves in and connect to a community that they might otherwise not have. With this belief, the current culture war is something that worries Peck.

"It's a concern and things seem to be accelerating," he said.

According to PEN America, between July 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, 1,586 books were banned in 86 school districts across 26 states, including Minnesota where Quatrefoil is located. Most of the books had to do with race and LGBTQ topics.

"Books were an important part of my coming out process and so for me to be able to think about like, what was missing then and what is probably missing now. And can I write that?" said Rachel Gold, who is an associate professor and author of young adult books about queer characters.

"Representation is immensely important in young adult because it's this identity formation stage," they said.

Rachel says that they believe these bans come from fear. They believe that stories are one of the safest ways for teens to see themselves as they figure out their identity or for people to learn about others.

"Learning about LGBTQ lives is not going to turn anybody gay, but it is going to allow for broader, interesting, productive, and fulfilling work and friend relationships for the whole rest of your life," they said.

Just like Gold saw a gap in representation in literature, Rebecca Lawerence saw a gap in the telling of queer history. Lawrence started telling queer history, a series of gatherings for these stories to be passed down.

"There's like anger and also just hilarity that they think that that will keep us from knowing who we are or keep us from being who we are," they said.

Limiting exposure to queer literature won’t erase their community, but they believe barriers to access are harmful.

"Having stories to reflect yourself is extremely validating. It's a way to understand yourself and be like, okay, that's not exactly my story, but I can understand this. Like that's how we build empathy," Lawrence said.

When a new LGBTQ book is banned, Quatrefoil makes it a point to have it available.

"My parents hated my Frank Zappa album when I first bought it and I liked it twice as much as a result, so you gotta be careful of that to," joked Peck.

While conversations about excluding books in libraries continue, advocates for more available literature hope people consider the benefits of representation.

"People just need to be aware that this wisdom comes from all kinds of sources and that it's a changing world," said Peck.

It began in the 1950s, during the communist witch hunt known as the Red Scare: A belief that gay people would be vulnerable to blackmail. 

"Homosexuals must not be handling top-secret material," former U.S Senator Joseph McCarthy said. 

Something that was never proven. 

David Johnson is a historian and author of the book "Lavender Scare" and says the name came from a color associated with LGBTQ people — a mix of the stereotypical blue for boys and pink for girls.  

"Before the Lavender Scare, as far as we know, gays and lesbians didn't have much trouble with the federal government. So there was a kind of openness," Johnson recounted. "The FBI or the Civil Service Investigators would call an employee into their office, make them swear an oath, would not allow them to have an attorney and would start asking questions. And usually the first question was, 'We have information that you are a homosexual. What comment do you care to make?'"

Johnson says thousands of gay and lesbian people were ousted from government jobs. 

"Most of them resigned quietly rather than, you know, face some sort of public humiliation," Johnson continued. "And some of them, we've learned, actually committed suicide after the brutal interrogations."

Then came government astronomer, gay activist, and veteran Frank Kameny.  

"To the best of my knowledge and belief, I was the first person to fight back out of all those large, huge numbers of people that were fired in the ‘50s," he said.  

He fought in the courts and on the streets, saying his civil rights were violated.  

The Lavender Scare ended after 25 years, in 1975, but the purge continued in the national security community. For LGBTQ Intelligence Officers, the discrimination often started with polygraphs.  

Tracey Ballard is a former Intelligence Officer for the CIA.  

"In 1988, during my polygraph, I decided to come out as a lesbian," she said.  

NEWSY'S SASHA INGBER: Wow. How did the polygrapher respond? 

TRACEY BALLARD: The polygrapher was just kind of like, 'Ohhh? Okay,' and we turned off all the recording machines, and we just had a conversation. 'Well, what did I mean, how did that work?,' and so we went through the questions and we reworked them so that I could answer them honestly. 

Ballard contacted every person involved in her investigation to get them to sign off and nearly two years later, she was cleared. Then, she founded and chaired a group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender officers at the CIA. 

"We went through the regulations, looked at the language and said, 'This is how this language affects this officer’s ability to move up in their career,'" Ballard continued. 

The game changer was President Bill Clinton signing an executive order that ended a ban on security clearances for gay workers. 

"We always said that we were the best persons to go undercover because we lived it on a regular basis back then. There were instances where we could engage with those in the foreign field, that perhaps were also in the LGBTQ community that others weren't reaching out to. We had the ability to go in, and speak to them in a way that others couldn't — where they could then trust us," Ballard said.  

But working overseas was complicated. Graham Segroves was one of the first intelligence officers to be openly gay during job the application process. He says when he started in 2002, he learned the CIA would not ask host countries if his boyfriend, now husband, could accompany him on foreign posts. 

"Let's be clear. I was talking about, 'Could I go to Europe? Could I go to Australia? Where could I go with my partner?,' and the answer was pretty much nowhere," Segroves said. 

He says he was never harassed or bullied, but the policy compelled him to stay in Washington, D.C. and silently stymied his career.  

"We were willing to spend money to send someone's pet overseas. But we were not willing to send their spouse," he said.  

That officially changed when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. As the CIA raised the pride flag at its headquarters this month, an openly gay intelligence officer sat down with Newsy to discuss the culture today. We're concealing his identity and calling him "Drew," as he is still active in the CIA.  

DREW: Have I experienced any overt discrimination or people who have been outright rude or unkind to me because I'm gay? No. Have I heard about times when there might be something said that causes offense? Yes.

INGBER: So what is the agency doing, to make sure that the LBGTQ community isn't discriminated against in high stress situations?  

DREW: They have provided a seat at the table for members of the LGBTQ community, to talk about their experience with the senior-most leaders of the agency. My experience has been that those senior leaders have not just listened to what the individuals have to say, but they've acted on it. And they have, and they have picked up the phone and called the appropriate team and said, ‘this is an issue that we are wanting to address right now. What can be done?’ 

He says the CIA is currently working on it system updates so transgender officers can see their preferred names instead of their legal names, providing gender-affirming restrooms and training staff to handle medical issues and travel requests.  

INGBER: Is the agency recruiting in the LGBTQ community? 

DREW: Yeah. We have had a presence at DC pride, for example, and we've also been working with, in some instances, student groups — so that we can have an open conversation about what it looks like to be gay at CIA.  

There is now an Intelligence Community Pride Network, and this officer says all of their work was made possible by the people who bravely faced adversity before them. 

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WORCESTER, Mass. — It isn't easy for 25-year-old Sumaya to talk about the life she left behind in Africa. Three years after leaving her home in Uganda, this refugee is still afraid for her family she doesn't want her real name used.

Sumaya fled to the United States in 2019 after people in her hometown found out she was a lesbian. Being openly gay in Uganda is considered a crime and can be punishable by death.

"When I came here, I totally lost my family. They don't want to communicate with me. Back home I had a girlfriend for 10 years, but we had to hide it," she said.

There are not a lot of statistics kept on LGBTQ asylum seekers like Sumaya. Around the world though, being openly gay is illegal in about 70 countries. The latest data from the US government shows that from 2007 to 2017, at least 4,385 people were identified as seeking asylum because of their LGBTQ status.

"I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I thought I would try and change, but I couldn’t," Sumaya said about her life in Uganda.

For asylum-seekers like Sumaya though, just fleeing persecution is only the beginning of their journey. Once in the United States, many have a hard time finding housing while they wait for work visas to be approved.

Which is where Pastor Judith Hanlon comes in.

Pastor Hanlon is with the Hadwen Park Church United Church of Christ in Worcester, Massachusetts. Over the past decade, the congregation has worked to create a nonprofit which provides housing opportunities to LGBTQ asylum seekers like Sumaya.

"We have all new appliances, granite countertops!" Pastor Hanlon explained as she showed us around the nonprofit's newest and most expensive endeavor.

Before this year, the LGBT Asylum Task Force was housing people in rented apartments around the city of Worcester. Thanks to years of hard work and donations, they were able to raise more than $500,000 to purchase a three-story home and renovate it for asylum seekers to live in until they're able to secure permanent housing.

It's the only housing program in the country tailored specifically to LGBTQ asylum seekers.

"We were paying $43,000 a month to keep people in these apartments and realized a mortgage would cost one of the rents. So, we made a decision and had a three-year campaign to purchase a home, so we purchased this home I’m in right now," Pastor Hanlon said.

In addition to housing, the task force provides a $500 monthly stipend for immigrants until they can receive work authorization—a process that usually takes around two years.

When thinking of the most historical places in the U.S., things like the Washington Monument or U.S. Capitol often come to mind. But historical sites that proved crucial for equal rights are getting more recognition.

At 91, Walter Cole holds the Guinness world record for the oldest performing drag queen. He performs under the name "Darcelle" at Darcelle XV, his club in Portland, Oregon.

Darcelle XV is one of only two known drag clubs that were open in the U.S. before 1970. It was recently added to the national register of historic places, and it's the first LGBTQ Oregon business to be designated a national historic site.

"We found out that his club is the oldest in America that is still continuous and the same location from the beginning to the end," said Donnie Horn, the executive director of Triangle Productions in Portland, Oregon. "There's one more in Chicago that has just like, two, or three years (ago), moved (locations)."

The club was also around long before LGBTQ became a category for nomination for historic sites in 2000.

Before that, the National Park Service says other similar historic places may have been listed under a less descriptive area of significance, like "social history," so it's hard to know exactly how many listed today are LGTBQ significant.

In fact, the earliest nomination to specifically identify LGBTQ appears to be the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The bar was the site of an uprising in 1969 that helped inspire the Gay Rights movement. It was listed in the national register in 1999, designated in 2000 and became a national monument in 2016, paving the way for other nominations.

"It was kind of hiding you were in a club, or you were whatever, you were still hiding," Horn said. "Now it's full bore, I am who I am, and I think there's that shift. But remember, there was many people that came before you that plowed down all of these fences to get where we are today."

Over the years, the National Park Service has expanded the "areas of significance" to places to recognize more properties that may be of interest to specific communities.

It also has grants to help cover surveys and inventories of historic properties associated with communities underrepresented in the national register.

New York City's annual LGBTQ Pride parade was held virtually for the second year in a row Sunday due to the pandemic, but that didn't stop thousands from marching, celebrating and making their presence felt at a series of events around the city.The main New York City Pride parade, which usually draws throngs of participants and spectators, was presented as a television broadcast special, since now-lifted pandemic restrictions were still in effect at the time it was being planned.In a pre-recorded video aired during the event, actor Wilson Cruz, one of the parade's grand marshals, said, "Pride for me is about how we work in earnest to truly include all of us across the spectrum of identities in our struggle for freedom and liberation."On a day marked with high temperatures and brilliant sunshine, throngs gathered around the city, at PrideFest, a street fair with vendors, food and entertainment in Manhattan; at Herald Square where a dance party was planned, and at Washington Square Park, where videos posted online showed a raucous party in progress. Fireworks, music and food were prepared for Pier 45 in Hudson River Park.Sean Gannon from Maplewood, New Jersey, attended with his husband and two 3-year-old sons."It’s such an important thing for them to see that they have two dads and that there are other people that have two moms, two dads, single dads, single moms," Gannon told WCBS Radio. "There are all different ways that families are made up, so it’s really awesome to be able to share this experience with them today."For people looking to march for LGBTQ rights, the Reclaim Pride Coalition held its third Queer Liberation March from Bryant Park to the Stonewall National Monument and into Washington Square Park. The liberation march event does not allow police or corporate participation.New York City's gay pride parades began in 1970 to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising, which started after a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.The Stonewall Inn is still there, now under different owners.