An Abundance of Librarians, Both “Sexy” and Unspecified: 544 Jobs A+ Members Have!

Below are the responses we received when we asked you all what you did for work in the 2020 Autostraddle Reader Survey.

AND WOW going through your responses was so heartening . The gays really are everywhere! On a Very Important note, this survey was anonymous, so I’m also left wondering who our cheesemonger is. So if you are a cheesemonger, you have to tell me, okay? Thank you.

Just as an FYI, if we had multiple people responding with the same job, I wrote, for example, “x3” so that if that’s you, you know you have company! Did you not respond to the survey? Go ahead and tell us about yourself in the comments!

Jobs You Fascinating Weirdos Have:

  1. 911 Dispatcher
  2. Academic advisor
  3. Academic in gender studies
  4. Academic publishing production coordinator
  5. Academic researcher
  6. Academic...
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Nico

Nico Hall is a Team Writer for Autostraddle (formerly Autostraddle's A+ and Fundraising Director and For Them's Membership and Editorial Ops person.) They write nonfiction both creative — and the more straightforward variety, too, as well as fiction. They are currently at work on a secret longform project. Nico is also haunted. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram. Here's their website, too.

Nico has written 239 articles for us.

54 Comments

  1. So many cool jobs! Always great to learn more about who the AS community is made up of, and nice to know there are more queer data analysts out there.

    • In fun but not surprising facts: people reporting that they held jobs in data (both members, and non-members) were among the first to answer the survey! When I saw this trend, it made a lot of sense, but it was still charming to see play out.

  3. Hello from 218! As someone who got my MLIS and has been job hunting for archives or library full time positions (but who works part time at a public library and then full time at a hotel front desk because its what I could find in pandemic, night auditor I see you I do that too) it is so exciting for me how many GLAM people are a part of A+ and on this list! Library and archives people let’s be friends! I’m on twitter @miranda_biblio

    • Indeed! I defected for UX/webdev stuff (that I couldn’t do without the library background) about five years ago, but there’s a lot of us. I’d bet there’s even more ‘former librarian/library folk’ or now quasi-information management/archive folk floating on the list.

      • I am merely librarian-adjacent (my great-aunt was one and I spent a few semesters shelving, scanning in Electronic Course Reserves, and being a de facto reference librarian without the title or official training for a smoking-cessation-training research group at my university 20 years ago), but can confirm every library I’ve worked at or been in has been full of family. :)

    • I ended up in what seems like the only library with out queer folks (don’t even understand how), but every library conference I go to is SO. OVERWHELMINGLY. QUEER I love it.

  5. Hooray for all opera singers, but especially queer ones! (Autostraddle should interview Jamie Barton some time.)

  8. Found myself (since I forgot what I wrote) and my girlfriend very quickly. We both have very specific jobs (and I have 2 careers – not sure why I only put 1 on the survey…) I am #242, the Jewish event programmer – not to be confused with a computer programmer. I’m also a musical theatre writer & producer, which I may have left off because COVID temporarily killed theatre. I feel a little lonely as the only Jewish non-profit professional on here. Any rabbis, cantors, or other Jewish communal professionals out there?

    Additionally, #506, please be my friend! Love unexpected networking opportunities.

    • hello!!! im barely employed right now (teaching hebrew school on zoom lmao) but into all the things you do!

  9. I swear I answered this but I always write the same thing so maybe not… “Preschool teacher by day, sound designer by night, writer also by night”

    Theatre folks, where y’all at? Doing anything in the pandemic? I got to design one outdoor one-woman show and I almost cried into my script I was so happy to be creating again

    • Costume designer here! I’m in my second year of my MFA program and we just opened and closed a live production! Everyone was wearing masks, at least 6 ft+ apart at all times and we had an audience of just 10 people for six performances. We were really the guinea pigs for NYC live production, but thankfully it all went smoothly. I’m right there with you- I burst into tears that first night when we had an audience applauding because it was so magical to be back in a theater sharing space!

    • I graduated in may with a BA in theater (& english) so mostly crying in unemployed, watching old behind-the-scenes stuff on youtube, and roasting the shit out of my school’s hack attempts at zoom productions… and waiting…

  10. Speaking as one of the numerous librarians/GLAM professionals, I really wanted some authority control on job titles even though you sacrifice some nuance that way

  11. Fascinated by the plethora of archivists and their assistants.

    Also I would love to connect with #19 (the adult education specialist at homeless shelters), as we’ve tried to start up similar programs here and they’ve always fizzled, so it would be great to hear some ideas about what works.

  12. big ups to my fellow policy analysts–one day those elected officials will read past the infographics!

  13. Hey #310 opera singerx did you see the Met orchestra’s study? It seems opera singers are not superspreaders! Though I know that news probably doesn’t help much with so many houses closed (and refusing t9 be creative and treating their workers like crap, coughMetcoughLyriccough)

  14. hello all archivists (and library professionals)!!!mad i missed the survey…anyways if you are in MA or CT please let me know as I am a fresh college grad looking to do archives :) if you’re from elsewhere still say hi

  15. I’m glad to see so many people in my personal industry, and sad to see that there is only one listing for pastry chef.

  16. This was great! Just yesterday I read a list of peoples jobs in a very straight forum and was so bored. But all these jobs sound enriching and interesting. I’m number 403, the queer youth worker! But I now have a new job as a project manager (which I see is a v popular queer job!). My project is about educating employees and volunteers within non-profits about anti-racism so that their services don’t do more harm than good. I hold workshops, write educational material etc. I miss the queer kids at my old job v v much. I miss working with 100% queer colleagues as well. But it’s nice to have a new professional challenge (my new job is in my second language which I only recently became fluent in so it’s an extra mental load on top of the emotionally challenging work itself!!).

  17. Forgot to fill this out back then, but I call myself a “natural resources professional” or “outdoor professional”, and this work season I was a Wildland Firefighter in Idaho! So happy to see other natural resources workers!!!

    • Hello! 👋🏻 (From someone with an archives certificate but sadly not employed in the field yet.) So great to see so many archivists!!

  20. this is VERY COOL TO KNOW, i feel a bit the way i felt at a-camp which is like DANG, OUR COMMUNITY IS MADE UP OF SO MANY INCREDIBLE AND KNOWLEDGABLE HUMANS, MAYBE WE SHOULD INDEED PLAN TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD?!?!?!

    it would be so cool to make a database of everyone on this list who wants to be included so when people want a queer accountant they can reach out, a queer PR specialist, etc etc, and then we could all support each other and keep our money very very very gay!!!!!!

  21. I was looking for fellow medical people and spent a solid 5 min searching for physician/MD/resident/fellow/clinician and befuddled that there didn’t seem to be any before finally remembering we are also known as… Doctors. Why yes I am post call and apparently it shows.

  23. Helllloooo fellow writing center and tutoring people!! Also shoutout to everyone else in education and librarians bc I hope to be one of you soon

  25. Hello to the TTOC! I’m pretty sure that term is specific to the certain area where I live, hence hello to a fellow local A+ member! I’m a TC this year, so looking forward to being a TTOC next year! :)

  28. Hello to everyone being brilliant and especially to the indexer and the Yiddish translator! Hmu new friends!

  29. So many training/education curriculum developers!

    Hi, hello, other training/education developers/designers/editors, I’d like to be your friend :)

    • HELLO RUTH I’d like to be YOUR friend! I am the “I edit training content for pharmaceutical sales reps” person. I stand by “(Big Pharma… blerg)” despite forgetting I had written it.

  30. so many book ppl!!! i did not do this survey (for unknown reasons) but as i have been trying and failing to start doing something (anything!) book-related for months now i would love 2 connect with yall!! it should be known that i hate networking but this feels, like a wholesome version, idk
    Also any of u who work with a non-profit!
    i miss making new friends hahah & this is a very cool & exciting list

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