Tag: books

North Carolina county dissolves library board for refusing to toss book about a trans kid

Read more at The Advocate.

A county government in central North Carolina has dissolved its entire public library board after trustees voted to keep a children’s picture book about a transgender character on library shelves, turning a local book challenge into one of the most severe reprisals yet in the national campaign against LGBTQ-inclusive materials.

The Randolph County Board of Commissioners voted 3–2 last week to dismiss all members of the county library board, weeks after trustees declined to move or remove Call Me Max, a picture book about a transgender boy who asks his teacher to use his chosen name. The decision followed a public hearing that drew nearly 200 residents and revealed a community split almost evenly between those calling for the board’s removal and those urging commissioners to respect the library’s review process.

Library staff and trustees had reviewed the complaint earlier this fall and, in October, voted to keep the book in the children’s section, concluding it complied with the county’s collection policies, local CBS affiliate WFMY reported. Commissioners nonetheless moved to dissolve the nine-member board outright — a step allowed under North Carolina law but rarely taken.

Free-expression advocates said the action represents a dramatic escalation in the political response to book challenges. Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, told The Washington Post that Randolph County’s decision is among the harshest penalties she has seen imposed over a single title.

“It’s a pretty dramatic response to wanting to have diverse and inclusive books on shelves,” Meehan said.

Opponents of the book claimed the dispute was a matter of child protection. Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the conservative North Carolina Values Coalition, which urged supporters to attend the commission meeting, argued that Call Me Max teaches children that their parents may be “wrong” about their gender.

The book has been banned by several school districts and was prominently invoked by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 while promoting his so-called “don’t say gay” legislation restricting classroom discussions of gender identity, a law later challenged in court.

To critics, the Randolph County episode demonstrates how procedural safeguards are increasingly overridden when LGBTQ+ inclusion is at stake. Kyle Lukoff, the book’s author, who is a trans man, said the case is especially troubling because the library followed its own policies and was still punished.

“Policies can be helpful, but this is ultimately a question of power,” Lukoff told The Post. “If there are people in power who believe trans people don’t belong in their communities or the world at large, they will twist those policies to make it a reality.”

Randolph County, home to about 150,000 people, voted nearly four to one for President Donald Trump. Commissioners have not announced when or how they plan to reconstitute the library board.

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Texas A&M committee rules professor’s firing over gender identity lesson was unjustified

Read more at CNN.

A Texas A&M committee agreed that the university was wrong to fire a professor earlier this year after a controversy over a classroom video that showed a student objecting to a children’s literature lesson about gender identity.

The internal committee ruled that the university didn’t follow proper procedures and didn’t prove there was good cause to fire Melissa McCoul, who was a senior lecturer in the English department with over a decade of teaching experience. Republican lawmakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott, had called for her termination after seeing the video.

The committee unanimously voted earlier this week that “the summary dismissal of Dr. McCoul was not justified.”

The university said in a statement that interim President Tommy Williams has received the committee’s nonbinding recommendation and will make a decision in the coming days or weeks after reviewing it.

McCoul’s lawyer, Amanda Reichek, said this dispute seems destined to wind up in court because the university appears to plan to continue fighting and the interim president is facing the same political pressure.

“Dr. McCoul asserts that the flimsy reasons proffered by A&M for her termination are a pretext for the University’s true motivation: capitulation to Governor Abbott’s demands,” Reichek said in a statement.

The video showing a student questioning whether the class discussion was legal under President Trump’s executive order on gender roiled the campus and led to sharp criticism of university president Mark Welsh, who later resigned, but he didn’t offer a reason and never mentioned the video in his resignation announcement.

The opening of the video posted by state Rep. Brian Harrison showed a slide titled “Gender Unicorn” that highlighted different gender identities and expressions.

Students in the class told the Texas Tribune that they were discussing a book called “Jude Saves the World” about a middle schooler who is coming out as nonbinary. That was just one of several books included in the course that highlights LGBTQ+ issues.

After a brief back-and-forth discussion about the legality of teaching those lessons, McCoul asked the student to leave the class. Harrison posted other recordings of the student’s meeting with Welsh that show the university president defending McCoul’s teaching.

The Tribune reported that McCoul had taught the same course at A&M at least 12 times since 2018. University officials decided to end this particular summer class early after the confrontation, but McCoul returned to teach in the fall until after the videos were published online.

Welsh had said when McCoul was fired that he learned she had continued teaching content in a children’s literature course “that did not align with any reasonable expectation of standard curriculum for the course.” He also said that the course content was not matching its catalog descriptions. But her lawyer disputed that, and said McCoul was never instructed to change her course content in any way, shape or form.

Earlier this month, the Texas A&M Regents decided that professors now need to receive approval from the school president to discuss some race and gender topics.

The new policy states that no academic course “will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless approved in advance by a campus president.

Various universities and their presidents around the country, including Harvard and Columbia have come under scrutiny from conservative critics and President Donald Trump administration over diversity, equity and inclusion practices and their responses to campus protests.

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Only 0.03% Opt Out Of LGBTQ+ Education In Maryland After SCOTUS Gives Them A Right To

Read more at Erin in the Morning.

In June 2025, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling allowing parents to opt out of classes that teach material conflicting with their religious beliefs. The decision, which could affect lessons on everything from evolution to cultural diversity, was driven primarily by challenges to classroom instruction about LGBTQ+ people. The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, originated in Maryland’s Montgomery County School District—the state’s largest—which had previously required lessons on LGBTQ+ inclusion without permitting opt-outs. The ruling was celebrated by far-right activists as a major victory in a deep-blue state. But months later, the results are in: of more than 160,000 students enrolled, only 43 families chose to opt out of LGBTQ+ education districtwide.

In a report released on October 2, the Montgomery County School District approved just 58 opt-out requests from 43 families—under 0.03 percent of the district’s 160,000 students. In other words, 99.97 percent of families, even when given the option, chose to let their children learn about LGBTQ+ people.

The books targeted by the handful of families include Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, about the marriage of two gay men; Intersectional Allies: We Make Room for All, which features a genderfluid character; and Planting the Rainbow: Places of LGBTQ+ History in Maryland, which teaches about key moments in the state’s queer history.

For the families choosing to opt out, their children will be placed in separate classrooms or given alternate assignments when LGBTQ+ topics arise. The arrangement underscores a point the school district made during the court fight: creating entirely new materials for such a vanishingly small group is disruptive to classrooms and burdens teachers with unnecessary extra work—all to accommodate the religious beliefs of a tiny minority. Still, because of the Supreme Court’s ruling, those accommodations will now have to be made.

Meanwhile, in Republican-controlled states, officials have taken a far more oppressive approach to LGBTQ+ education. Rather than offering families the option to opt out, many states simply ban the material outright. Under “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” laws—first popularized in Florida and now enacted in 19 states—teachers are prohibited from acknowledging LGBTQ+ people in class instruction at various grade levels. In Texas, several colleges have gone even further, barring professors from recognizing that transgender people exist at all. When contrasted with the minuscule number of families opting out when given the choice, these policies look less like a reflection of public will and more like a top-down morality ban—one that would almost certainly be rejected if parents actually had the freedom to decide for themselves.

Anti-LGBTQ+ school policies remain among the most unpopular measures pushed by Republicans in red states and by the Trump administration. A Navigator Research poll published in August 2023 found that fewer than 25 percent of Democrats and independents—and only half of Republicans—named “protecting children from being exposed to woke ideologies about race and gender in school” as a major priority. Book bans ranked even lower: 92 percent of respondents said such bans were concerning. A more recent Knight Foundation poll echoed those findings, with two-thirds of Americans opposing efforts to restrict books in public schools.

Respondents from Montgomery County, Maryland expressed frustration and vindication after hearing the results of the opt-out process. “Every single one of these ‘anti-woke’ lawsuits and headlines comes from one or a few people making a stink,” said one commenter in a local subreddit dedicated to the county. “Imagine living in Montgomery County and thinking you can opt out of cultural diversity,” said another.

“It looks like most were from elementary schools, but there’s a few from middle schools and two from a high school. Can you imagine what these students’ classmates will think of them?” added a third.

The Supreme Court’s decision is just the latest example of how religious exemptions are being weaponized to roll back civil rights under the guise of “freedom.” Each new ruling gives a single person the power to disrupt an entire classroom, claiming that their beliefs are incompatible with learning about LGBTQ+ people, racial diversity, or any worldview outside their own. These carve-outs have already spread far beyond schools—empowering business owners to deny service to queer customers and pharmacists to refuse medication. But the data out of Montgomery County, Maryland makes one thing unmistakably clear: this crusade is not a mass movement. It’s the obsession of a vanishingly small minority, inflated by a Republican Party that has turned resentment of diversity—and especially of LGBTQ+ people—into the centerpiece of its politics.

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Library director fired over LGBTQ+ books gets $700,000 from Wyoming county

Read more at the Washington Post.

Librarian Terri Lesley said she endured years of “pure hell” fighting to keep embattled books on the public library shelves of Gillette, a deeply conservative coal town in northeastern Wyoming.

After getting fired, Lesley fought two more years alleging public officials wrongfully terminated her for refusing to bow to their demands for censorship — all while being threatened, failing to find another librarian job and suffering so much stress she lost sleep and hair.

Now, the 62-year-old’s legal fight is over. On Wednesday, Lesley, who worked for Campbell County Public Library System for 27 years, including 11 as executive director, agreed to settle her federal lawsuit against Campbell County, the county’s library board and several officials for $700,000. In a 78-page complaint filed in April in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, she accused them of helping to wage a years-long campaign to bully her into removing books about race and LGBTQ+ people from the library. After she refused, she said they fired her, which led to her lawsuit.

“I wanted to take a stand on it and try to put up a barrier from it happening to other librarians,” Lesley said Thursday in an interview. “I thought, ‘If I don’t do this thing, it’s just going to keep happening.’”

Campbell County, the county’s public library board, county commissioners and the lawyers who defended them against Lesley’s suit did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. In court filings, they denied Lesley’s allegations and said she was fired because of “concerns with her performance,” not in retaliation for engaging in constitutionally protected activity. They described her lawsuit as “an improper run-on narrative combining fact, fable, self-praise, and a self-heroic, tale.”

The controversy in Campbell County happened amid a larger movement to target content available in public libraries around the country, particularly those aimed at children and having to do with race, gender or sexual identity. For years, the number of “book challenges” — efforts to remove or restrict access to books — remained flat. But in 2021, challenges spiked 1,300 percent to more than 3,900, according to American Library Association data. They increased each of the next two years to more than 9,000 in 2023 before falling to about 5,800 last year.

School libraries experienced the same thing during that stretch, leading the free-speech nonprofit PEN America to declare book censorship in the United States “rampant and common” and “unprecedented in modern times.”

“Not since the 1950s McCarthy era of the Red Scare has censorship become so entrenched in schools,” the group said Wednesday in a news release, referring to the period when anti-Communist paranoia intensified to a fever pitch.

Campbell County was part of the first wave of the “book-banning craze engulfing the country” in 2021 when several residents demanded county commissioners and library board trustees censor young adult and children’s books with LGBTQ+ content, according to Lesley’s lawsuit.

Those critics denounced books such as “This Book Is Gay” and “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness” as pornographic, obscene or racist. When Lesley resisted pressure to transfer such books out of the young adult and children’s sections or remove them from the library altogether, they targeted her for roughly two years, threatening her and accusing of criminal activity and endangering children, according to her lawsuit.

Instead of defending Lesley from that “campaign of fear and hate,” two county commissioners and four library board trustees allegedly joined it. In doing so, commissioners and trustees alienated LGBTQ+ people and propagated the hateful ideology that they are “dangers, abnormal, unwelcome, and their voices should be suppressed,” the suit states.

Over the next two years, Lesley kept resisting attempts to remove or restrict various books with LGBTQ+ themes, saying at library board meetings that doing so constituted censorship and violated the First Amendment, the suit states. Several lawyers agreed with that legal interpretation, which they shared with board trustees and county commissioners, according to the suit.

At one library board meeting, one of Lesley’s critics held up a sign that read “[Campbell County Public Library] Knowingly Encourages SEX for Minors and that’s a crime,” the suit alleges.

Amid the controversy, the American Library Association in March 2022 announced Lesley had won the John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award that recognizes “notable contributions to intellectual freedom and demonstrations of personal courage in defense of freedom of expression.”

Over the next five months, four of five library board members were replaced by county commissioners with ones more inclined to remove or restrict LGBTQ+ books, the suit states.

In July 2023, the library board voted to terminate Lesley.

“Their actions not only devastated Ms. Lesley professionally and personally, but also undermined the very mission of [the library system] and inflicted harm on the broader community,” the suit states. “For this, they must be held responsible.”

Lesley said she continues to be harmed by officials’ actions. More than two years after being fired, she hasn’t gotten a job in her field. A resident of Gillette since the second grade, she’s unwilling to move. She sought remote work in the field that wouldn’t require face-to-face interactions with patrons, but none of her efforts panned out.

Still, Lesley said she doesn’t regret standing up for what she believes was right, even if she’s paid a heavy price. She said she hopes the $700,000 settlement — more than five times what the county paid her annually — deters officials elsewhere from meddling with which books go on library shelves and where.

“They’ll see what happened here and maybe reconsider going down that road,” she said, with a pause, “is what I’m hoping for.”

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SCOTUS rules parents have a right to prevent their kids from reading books with LGBTQ+ characters

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation.

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the case brought by parents who said that their First Amendment rights were violated when schools used books that included LGBTQ+ characters.

The decision was 6-3 along ideological lines, with the Republican-appointed justices siding with the religious parents who wanted to opt their children out of reading books like Prince & Knight and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding in the Montgomery County, Maryland, school system.

“The Court does not accept the Board’s characterizations of the LGBTQ+-inclusive instruction as mere ‘exposure to objectionable ideas’ or as lessons in ‘mutual respect,’” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. “The storybooks unmistakably convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender.”

“Regardless, the question in cases of this kind is whether the educational requirement or curriculum at issue would ‘substantially interfere with the religious development’ of the child or pose ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices the parent wishes to instill in the child.”

“Casting aside longstanding precedent, the Court invents a constitutional right to avoid exposure to ‘subtle’ themes ‘contrary to the religious principles’ that parents wish to instill in their children,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion. “Exposing students to the ‘message’ that LGBTQ people exist, and that their loved ones may celebrate their marriages and life events, the majority says, is enough to trigger the most demanding form of judicial scrutiny.”

The case involved several sets of Christian and Muslim parents who objected to their kids reading books that mentioned LGBTQ+ people. The district had an opt-out policy that they later rescinded because, the district claimed, the opt-outs were becoming “unworkable.”

Some parents in the district protested to get the opt-out policy reinstated, while others protested in favor of learning about LGBTQ+ people.

“The books geared to younger kids are just showing a diverse range of families,” said Christina Celenza, a mother of a student in the district, during one of the 2023 protests. “We have a two-mom household, so my wife and I are really proud and out, and, of course, my kid in kindergarten or pre-K is going to probably talk about his family and his two moms.”

The district didn’t budge, so several parents sued. Two lower courts denied them a preliminary injunction, but the Supreme Court just granted them one.

The parents want the courts to ultimately order teachers to notify them of every possible discussion where LGBTQ+ people may come up so that they could opt their children out, lest their kids learn that LGBTQ+ people exist. They claimed that knowing that LGBTQ+ people exist is contrary to their religious beliefs and violates their right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.

Public education advocates warn that the ruling could lead to even more requests for opt-outs of public education on wide-ranging topics including Earth Day, critical thinking, and anti-drug programs.

Free speech and LGBTQ+ advocates denounced the ruling.

“This ruling is a deeply disappointing blow to the right to read under the First Amendment,” said U.S. Free Expression Programs staff attorney for PEN America Elly Brinkley in a statement. “It is a fundamental betrayal of public schools’ duty to prepare students to live in a diverse and pluralistic society. By allowing parents to pull their children out of classrooms when they object to particular content, the justices are laying the foundation for a new frontier in the assault on books of all kinds in schools.”

“While religious liberty is fundamentally important, it should not force public schools to exempt students from lessons that don’t align with their families’ personal religious or cultural beliefs,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang in a statement. “LGBTQ+ themed books are already among the most banned and challenged in school districts and libraries across the country. Today’s decision will make it even harder for these books to find their way into the hands of students who simply want to read — and who may find validation and acceptance in the process.”

“Today’s ruling does not change schools’ obligation to prepare students to interact with and thrive in a diverse and ever-changing world,” said GLAD Law’s Mary L. Bonauto. “LGBTQ+ people and families exist, students in our public schools have LGBTQ+ parents, and books that include LGBTQ+ people should not be treated differently than those without LGBTQ+ people.”

“The Court’s decision does not require our schools to abandon these efforts. Parents, students, educators, and neighbors can encourage opportunities for learning about diverse people and families by staying involved with school districts, school boards, and in our local communities.”

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Christian extremists in Georgia get librarian fired for displaying book about transgender child

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation

Lavonnia Moore, a 45-year-old library manager, had worked at the Pierce County Library in Blackshear, Georgia, for 15 years. She was ultimately let go when a Christian extremist group filed a complaint to the library after Moore approved the display of a children’s book about a transgender boy.

According to Moore, the display (entitled “Color Our World”) included the book When Aidan Became a Brother (by trans male author Kyle Lukoff), a story about a family accepting a trans child named Aiden while also preparing for the birth of Aiden’s sibling. Library volunteers created the display as a part of a regional-wide summer theme featuring books that celebrate diversity.

“I simply supported community involvement, just as I have for other volunteer-led displays. That’s what librarians do — we create space for everybody… I did not tell the parents and children what they could or could not add to the display, just as I do not tell them what they can or cannot read,” she wrote in a statement.

However, the book caught the attention of a group calling themselves the Alliance for Faith and Family (AFF), not to be confused with the anti-LGBTQ+ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. The AFF had previously been in the public eye for demanding the removal of a mural in the Waycross-Ware County Public Library, which included a Pride theme declaring, “Libraries Are For Everyone.”

The AFF campaigned on Facebook, urging their followers to pray and take a few moments out of their day to email the Three Rivers Library System and Pierce County Commissioners to “put a stop to this and show them the community supports them in taking a stand against promoting transgenderism at our local library,”

In an update post, the group wrote, “The display has been removed, and LaVonnia is no longer the Pierce County Library Manager. Please thank the Pierce County Commissioners and Three Rivers Regional Library System for quickly addressing our concerns.” 

Moore and her sister Alicia confirmed that LaVonnia Moore had been fired. A statement to The Blackshear Times from the Three Rivers Library System Director Jeremy Snell explained that the library board leadership decided to move to new leadership for the Pierce County Library. He specifically cited the display of an “inappropriate” book as his reasoning.

“The library holds transparency and community trust in the highest regard,” Snell said.

“Instead of investigating, talking to me or my team, or exploring any kind of fair process, they used the ‘at-will’ clause in my contract to terminate me on the spot. No warning. No meeting. No due diligence. Just the words ‘poor decision making’ on a piece of paper after 15 years of service,” Moore claimed.

“I am just heartbroken,” she said of her dismissal.

According to Moore’s sister Alicia, “She messaged the family group and said ‘I was just fired.’”

“I don’t think she’s doing emotionally good, because imagine having to pack up 15 years in two days,” Alicia Moore told First Coast News.

“She’s heartbroken that a place she gave so much of herself to turned its back on her so quickly. And yes, she’s still in disbelief. She didn’t expect to be punished for doing her job with integrity and love for all patrons — especially children.” the sister explained.

The sisters are currently seeking legal counsel, and Alicia is urging people to reach out to the library board and county commissioners.

“I’m hoping the same method will be useful to get her justice,” Alicia said.

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NC councilman’s ‘nasty’ anti-LGBTQ comments spark protest in Catawba County

*This is reported by the Charlotte Observer.

Community members in Catawba County are planning a protest after backlash erupted over a scheduled Pride event, including anti-LGBTQ comments from a Newton city council member. The LGBTQ+ Democrats of Catawba County plan to protest at the Newton City Council meeting on May 6. The group rebranded and reorganized its event, formerly called the “2025 Newton Pride Takeover,” after what its leaders described as “nasty” Facebook comments led businesses to withdraw. The comments included discriminatory remarks from Council Member Jon McClure, said group president MacGregor VanBeurden. “That’s when it got really nasty and a lot of people I think felt emboldened by that,” VanBeurden said about McClure’s comments. “So we got a lot of hate, a lot of bad comments, and then our businesses started pulling out from the event. There were some really serious things said and it’s really blown up in the last week.” Newton is a city of more than 13,000 people about an hours drive northwest of Charlotte. McClure responded to a Facebook post announcing the Pride event with a video where a woman made false claims about transgender people. The councilman said in subsequent comments he does not support queer and transgender people. McClure did not respond to emails and phone calls from The Charlotte Observer requesting comment. Newton Mayor Jerry Hodge said in an interview with the Observer the city will allow people to speak about the issue during public comment like they would in any other meeting. “One council member does not speak for the entire council, and that may have been perceived as the case, but it is not,” he said about McClure’s comments. “We’ll be prepared to conduct a civil meeting for our citizens… and we will conduct the meeting within the realm of respect and dignity for all who speak.” Event rebrand The original Pride celebration, planned for the week of June 23rd, included a networking event, a queer karaoke night and a drag fundraiser, VanBeurden said. Facebook comments — from the councilman and others — prompted numerous businesses to pull out, VanBeurden said. But the show will go on. Since rebranding the event as the Newton Rainbow Celebration, numerous new businesses have signed on to participate. The event will include the networking event as well as a festival and drag event. One business that pulled out was local bar Pour Choices, which was supposed to host the queer karaoke night, VanBeurden said. Local boutique Emporium 23 also pulled out following the backlash but recommitted once the event was rebranded. About 20 local vendors signed up to participate in the celebration in just a few days, VanBeurden said. VanBeurden said it is important to him to remain resilient in the face of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. “We’ve had a lot of progress made for lesbians, gays and bisexuals. We are nowhere near where we need to be, and there are still issues within our community from the outside world, but we’ve made a lot of progress,” he said. “I think that’s part of the reason that it’s so important is because as a gay man I have to stand up for other members of my community that are struggling even harder than I am.” That resilience includes the protest, which VanBeurden expects to draw turnout from the Carolinas LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce and the North Carolina Democratic Party. Catawba County isn’t the only area where LGBTQ+ events have faced pushback this year. In March, Union County commissioners voted to ban “obscene” and “sexualized” events in public parks, a move many interpreted as targeting Pride and drag events. In Monroe, two city council members also pushed for local rules to restrict drag performances, classifying them as “adult entertainment.” VanBeurden said rural and conservative areas remain critical battlegrounds in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. “I think that the most effective way to make a change in any movement is to bring visibility and to show people that we exist and we exist outside of the big cities,” he said. “We exist in the middle of nowhere. We exist everywhere.”

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A digital library offers hundreds of free LGBTQ books in response to wave of school bans

*This is being reported by NBC.

When Sara Katherine moved back to her hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana, from New York, she noticed a lack of support for LGBTQ youth. So she started volunteering as a mentor at a local nonprofit, chatting with queer teens who hadn’t seen LGBTQ people reflected much in media or in their community. Then she came across a resource gold mine: the Queer Liberation Library, a digital catalog of over 1,200 LGBTQ books for anyone across the country to access.

“I was able to tell them, ‘Hey, guess what? I have something free for you, and it’s thousands of books you can read where there are characters just like you who are falling in love, who are having adventures,’” said Katherine.

The Queer Liberation Library (QLL) was started by a team of nine volunteers in November to fill the queer literature gap amid a wave of state laws and school policies challenging books with LGBTQ themes. To “check out” a digital book, all readers need to do is provide their name and U.S. mailing address — information that QLL keeps private and secure — and they are granted access to the QLL catalog via Libby.

“It was one of those ideas that I was surprised that nobody else had thought of it already,” said Kieran Hickey, co-founder of QLL. “I knew it could be very impactful.”

While some public libraries, like the Brooklyn Public Library in New York, offer free digital access to their entire collection nationwide, QLL is one of the few services specifically curating books with queer themes or written by queer authors. In its first few months, QLL attracted nearly 4,000 readers. Today, it boasts a readership exceeding 50,000.

“The queer experience in the U.S. is so different, not just from state to state or city to city, but even from county to county,” said Erik Lundstrom, who handles financial and legal issues for QLL. “Being able to provide books in a safe manner, regardless of location or circumstances, is some of the most important work I’ll ever do.”

The ‘Avengers’ of the Queer Liberation Library

QLL was the brainchild of Hickey, whose love of, and lack of access to, LGBTQ literature led him to earn his master’s degree in library science from the University of British Columbia.

“My queer experience in particular, as a trans person, was very much not knowing what I was missing, not understanding why I felt so different, not understanding myself and feeling very detached from the world around me,” said Hickey. “I would escape into books.”

After volunteering at an in-person LGBTQ library in Vancouver post-college, he set out to replicate the concept upon moving to the U.S. Through connections with mutual friends, Hickey formed the QLL team — all volunteers who collaborate remotely across the country and have yet to meet in person.

Hickey calls the team “Queer Literature Heroes,” each with a role that helps them grow the library’s titles, reach and access.

Lundstrom, known as the “The Business Gay,” deals with legal matters and webpage management. Laura, the “Book Lister in Residence,” aids in the curation of titles. Fern Odawnul, or QLL’s “Social Media Gremlin,” shares updates on new book releases, merchandise launches and fundraising initiatives on Instagram, TikTok and X.

As a parent, Odawnul also consults on the library’s children’s book collection. Among the featured children’s books is “My Shadow Is Purple” by Scott Stuart, which introduces nonbinary identity to young readers. Through engaging illustrations, the story follows a child’s exploration of their shadow as neither blue nor pink, but purple. This realization helps the main character understand that they are not confined to specific gender roles.

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LGBTQ advocates fear Iowa bill targeting ‘obscenity’ would deter drag performances

*This was originally published by the Des Moines Register.

Exposing minors to an “obscene performance” would be a crime under a bill winding through the Iowa Senate that critics fear could discourage drag shows and spur lawsuits against venues offering LGBTQ pride programming.

The legislation, Senate File 116, would make knowingly exposing anyone younger than 18 to such a performance an aggravated misdemeanor, as well as knowingly selling a ticket or admitting a minor to a venue where such a performance is held.

Similar to legislation that was introduced but did not pass last year, the bill that advanced out of subcommittee Wednesday defines “obscene performance” as one that exposes genitals, invokes sexual acts or “appeals to the prurient interest and is patently offensive.”

“I brought this bill forward because I had constituents complain to me about performances that, if not meeting the definition of obscenity in our law, at least approach that definition, and concerned about this in our communities and the exposure of minors to it,” said Sen. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville, who was part of a group of GOP lawmakers who introduced the legislation.

Critics argue the bill would encourage frivolous lawsuits

Keenan Crow, policy and advocacy director for One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, raised concerns with a provision establishing a private civil cause of action allowing parents of minor children to sue to determine whether something is obscene.

The bill states “a cause of action may be brought against any person that has knowingly disseminated or exhibited obscene material to the minor or who engaged in or caused or allowed a person to knowingly engage in an obscene performance in the presence of the minor.” It sets the minimum award of damages at $10,000.

While drag shows are not explicitly labeled in the bill as obscene performances, those opposed to the legislation fear it would target drag performances.

“What we are doing is we are allowing parents to target these venues for SLAPP suits, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, which are not designed to actually win the suit,” Crow said. “They are designed to make venues spend money and to reconsider hosting drag events entirely, lest they be sued on the off chance that it meets the obscenity definition, which obviously Drag Story Time does not.”

Drag Story Time events are sometimes held at libraries or other venues where drag performers read stories to children. In recent years, the events have increasingly been at the center of a larger GOP-led effort to restrict public drag events as conservative critics suggest they “sexualize” children.

Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said she worried the provision would incentivize frivolous lawsuits.

“This bill, as written, could encourage potential frivolous or bad actors to shake down local governments and private businesses, and that’s the taxpayer on the hook,” said Weiner, who opposed the bill.

Elizabeth Hall, a local trans woman, said bills targeting the LGBTQ population create “an aura of fear” among trans people that has pushed those she knows into psychiatric care.

“We fear for our communities,” Hall said. “We fear for our lives, and even if the particulars of how this bill would come into effect aren’t necessarily like that extreme, that fear still has a tangible effect on our lives and has caused so many people that I know to reach ends that I fear have continued to lead to detrimental effects.”

Supporters say the bill ensures performances shown to minors are ‘age appropriate’

Ryan Benn, a lobbyist for the conservative religious group The Family Leader, said the group supported the law because obscene materials that may be illegal to show children in movies or other material are not illegal to perform.

“I think it fixes that loophole,” Benn said.

Sen. Jeff Taylor, R-Sioux Center, said he would like to see a more clear definition of a “performance,” but overall obscenity is rarely prosecuted.

“In general, obscenity does not have constitutional protection in terms of freedom of speech,” Taylor said. “Something that’s obscene is, by definition, not protected by the First Amendment, and that’s regardless whether you’re sharing that with adults or with children. But to me, especially in the case of children, I feel like this is appropriate.”

Sen. Cherielynn Westrich, R-Ottumwa, said she supported the bill to protect children from obscenities.

“I think that what the one thing that we all in this room have agreed on is that we need to protect children from those sort of obscene or performances that are sexual in nature,” Westrich said.

Bill would repeal exemptions for public institutions

Melissa Peterson, with the Iowa State Education Association, said the group opposed the bill, especially a proposal to repeal an Iowa code section that allows minors to access appropriate material for educational purposes, at art exhibitions or in public libraries.

She said Senate File 496, the 2023 state law that requires school staff to remove books depicting sex acts, already sought to establish what content was age appropriate by existing obscenity standards.

“We worked closely together in a compromised fashion to come with what we thought would be considered age appropriate, and we would really like to see that exemption maintained for public institutions that are public spaces,” Peterson said.

Weiner also opposed repealing the exemption for public institutions.

“To repeal it is in some ways to admit that this bill really isn’t about obscenity,” Weiner said.

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