Marcel LaFlamme

Point Scholar: 2006-2007

Simmons College
M.S., Library and Information Sciences

Marcel spent the summer before his senior year of high school in the stacks of his small-town library, furtively reading Chastity Bono’s memoirs and coming to terms with his sexuality. At the end of the summer, he came out to his friends and family and began his one-year term as a voting member of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Marcel spoke out against the right-wing Parents Rights Coalition when they called for cutbacks in state funding for Gay Straight Alliances (GSA). He went on to continue his activism at Harvard University, where he became public relations chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA).

Marcel is committed to the idea of libraries as safe spaces and as nodes for progressive activism in rural communities. His vision of radical librarianship led him to Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science, where he is working toward a Master’s degree. At Simmons, Marcel serves as co-chair of the Progressive Librarians Guild, and under his leadership the group has joined the Transgender Civil Rights Coalition in support of trans-inclusive nondiscrimination laws for the state of Massachusetts. After completing his degree, Marcel expects to be working at a small public library in Kansas or Nebraska.