Underdog Bookstore in Old Town Monrovia — whose owners previously announced they would close the bookshop’s doors after several experiences of homophobia and racism — will soldier on under new leadership as a nonprofit, beginning in July.
The bookstore’s mission is to support and center underrepresented authors and communities, including authors of color, queer writers and more. Underdog is one of only a few LGBTQ+ -affirming spaces in the San Gabriel Valley, its advocates said.
But in the year since opening, the space has been the target of repeated hate, including threats of physical violence and verbal abuse. As recent as February, bookstore employees and customers have reported escalating incidents of homophobic, transphobic and racist remarks from people coming into the store. Things seemed to escalate last year as June Pride Month — and planned corresponding events — approached, shop founders Thomas Murtland and his husband Nathan Allen said.
The decision to step down this summer was not based on Underdog’s financial situation, Murtland and Allen clarified in an April announcement. It came as a response to the levels of hate and homophobia that both co-founders and other shop employees were receiving, along with personal matters.
Murtland and Allen said they’ve experienced online abuse and homophobia, and the “continued impact of the hate we receive” was taking its toll.
“We ultimately came to the decision that what was best for us, the owners, was just to step back from being in the store and running it,” Murtland said in April. “We started receiving frequent messages and comments… (people) would call the store owners pedophiles, groomers and other gross things. And that was when we realized that we couldn’t do the bookstore forever.”
Temple City resident Kealie Mardell-Carrera has supported Underdog Bookstore when the Myrtle Ave. store was just a pop-up table at the Old Town Monrovia Friday street fairs. She said she was…
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