She rushed to blame the shooting entirely on the shooter’s identity… and then got that identity wrong.
Following a shooting incident involving an AR-15 at a Texas megachurch, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) used social media to shift the narrative solely towards the identity of the shooter.
However, it was later revealed that Greene had inaccurately identified the individual involved.
“Not only was the shooter a trans from El Salvador,” Greene posted on X, “she also had a gun engraved with ‘Free Palestine’ but investigators can’t say if she was politically motivated or not.”
“When this country starts being truthful, regardless of who’s feelings get hurt, we will solve many problems.”
The shooter, identified as 36-year-old Genesse Moreno, entered Lakewood Church in Houston accompanied by her seven-year-old son and carrying multiple weapons. Notably, Lakewood Church is associated with anti-LGBTQ+ televangelist Joel Osteen.
Moreno proceeded to shoot a 57-year-old man in the hip before being fatally shot by two off-duty officers. Tragically, her son sustained critical injuries during the exchange of gunfire. Fortunately, the 57-year-old victim has since been discharged from the hospital.
While the motive behind Moreno’s actions remains unclear, it’s important to note that she was not transgender. Initially, Fox News reported her as transgender, but later amended their article without issuing a retraction or correction.
“She utilized both male and female names but, through all of our investigation to this point — talking with individuals, interviews, documents — Houston Police Department reports she has been identified this entire time as female: she/her,” a Houston police officer said.
Conservatives swiftly seized upon the report to portray transgender individuals as inherently violent and hazardous, disregarding the statistical reality that mass shootings are predominantly carried out by cisgender men. Over the span of a decade, from 2013 to 2023, the Gun Violence Archive documented approximately 4,400 mass shootings in the United States. Of these incidents, fewer than ten were perpetrated by transgender individuals, accounting for a mere 0.11%—a figure lower than the estimated percentage of the population that identifies as transgender.
“Fox News is SO desperate to paint trans people in a negative light that today they ran with rumors that a shooter was a transgender woman before quietly admitting three hours later that they made that part up,” Media Matters’s Ari Drennen posted to social media.
Greene’s post incorrectly labeling Moreno as transgender remains visible online.
Unfortunately, Greene wasn’t the sole individual on the right to exploit the shooting to vilify transgender individuals, despite the overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of mass shootings are committed by cisgender men. Chaya Raichik, an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist known as Libs of TikTok, also referred to Moreno as a “trans terrorist” and questioned her medication regimen, insinuating a connection between transgender identity and mental illness.
Raichik further propagated misinformation by sharing a list of mass shootings purportedly carried out by transgender and nonbinary individuals. However, this list included the Club Q shooter, who identified as nonbinary only after being arrested for a mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ venue, indicating a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.
Greene additionally emphasized Moreno’s birthplace in El Salvador, presumably reflecting her stance against immigration into the United States. However, it’s crucial to note that immigrants are statistically less likely to be incarcerated compared to individuals born in the U.S.
The proposed legislation appears to harbor the intention of subtly challenging the legal foundation of marriage equality through its intricate provisions and language.
The Tennessee Senate has passed legislation enabling individuals to decline officiating marriages if the couple’s relationship conflicts with their “conscience or religious beliefs.”
S.B. 596 is aimed at LGBTQ+ couples, but it grants officiants the ability to refuse service to anyone. State Representative Monty Fritts (R) introduced a similar bill in the Tennessee House last year, stating to NewsChannel5 that the legislation is intended to “simply and clearly protect the rights of the officiate.” However, Huffington Post reports that there is currently no state law mandating officiants to conduct marriages they oppose.
The bill’s language primarily centers on “solemnization” – the process of conducting a wedding ceremony. However, upon its introduction last year, there were concerns that some interpreted the legislation to imply that clerks could decline to issue marriage licenses to couples they disagreed with.
“Solemnization is not issuing a license,” explained officiant Eric A. Patton. “When the clerk issues you a license, it’s issuing you a license. They are not performing the marriage rites.” Patton clarified that while clerks have the authority to solemnize marriages, many have ceased doing so since the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality to avoid potential lawsuits if they were to refuse.
In an interview with WKRN in March, Patton expressed his belief that the legislation is essentially an attempt to challenge the boundaries of marriage equality. He stated, “There’s nothing in the law right now that says anybody has to do any kind of marriage at all, so there’s no clarification that this bill provides. This bill does nothing, essentially, except open the opportunity for a lawsuit… The way they have vaguely worded this is that they’re trying to invite a Kim Davis-type lawsuit to go up against Obergefell, because they’re wanting to test the marriage equality law as it stands.”
The bill will now proceed to the Tennessee House of Representatives for further consideration and a vote.
Maine lawmakers have dropped a proposal aimed at safeguarding transgender youth’s access to critical healthcare in the face of intense conservative backlash on social media, notably fueled by Chaya Raichik, a controversial figure known for spreading hate online.
Chaya Raichik, the hate influencer, spread false information by asserting that the bill aimed at protecting transgender youth’s healthcare actually legalized child trafficking.
The state’s Judiciary Committee voted unanimously, with one member absent, to halt the progression of L.D. 1735. This bill intended to safeguard transgender youth and their families from legal repercussions in other states when seeking gender-affirming care in Maine.
L.D. 1735 aimed to implement measures to shield families seeking healthcare for their transgender children in Maine. Among these provisions, the bill would declare that an out-of-state arrest warrant related to violations of another state’s law against gender-affirming care for youth would be considered Maine’s “lowest law enforcement priority.”
On social media, Raichik – who goes by “Libs of TikTok” – claimed that the bill would allow Maine to “take custody of a kid if the parents oppose s*x change surgery and the chemical castration of their kids.” She dubbed the bill the “Transgender Trafficking Bill.”
Chaya Raichik falsely asserted that L.D. 1735 legalized child trafficking based on the bill’s provision granting state judges “temporary jurisdiction” over situations involving minors.
Jurisdiction means that a judge can rule on a specific case; “jurisdiction” is not a synonym for “custody.” But Raichik still highlighted the part of the bill about jurisdiction and wrote that it “says the state can take custody of a kid if the parents oppose s*x change surgery and the chemical castration of their kids.”
Raichik proceeded to share the email addresses of Judiciary Committee members and urged her 2.8 million followers to flood them with messages.
The message was then reposted by conservative commentator Megyn Kelly, who wrote, “This is SICK! Bombard them with emails. This cannot pass.”
Donald Trump Jr. also responded to Raichik’s post, writing that “they want full control of your kids. They want parents to have no say so they can do whatever they want,” an ironic take considering those seeking to ban minors from accessing gender-affirming care are trying to take away parents’ power over their kids’ medical care.
“These people are evil and insane. Stop this madness,” Trump Jr. added.
Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines urged her followers to send letters to the Judiciary Committee that falsely claimed that the bill “would permit state government to separate children from their parents over a social issue.”
The assertion was related to the provision in the bill permitting a judge to have temporary jurisdiction over a minor present in the state to rule on such cases. Moreover, the bill did not mandate judges to favor supportive parents in custody disputes; it merely allowed judges to consider such factors.
State Rep. Laurie Osher (D) introduced the bill earlier this month as a means to prevent prosecutors from other states from interrogating trans minors and their families if they seek healthcare that is unavailable in their home states. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), for example, has been requesting medical records for trans youth from Texas who are suspected of having sought healthcare out of state.
The bill would have made Maine the fifteenth state to enact a trans sanctuary state law.
Police treated the activist as a criminal, raiding his home while he was still recovering in search of evidence to prove he was gay.
The resurgence of anti-LGBTQ+ bills and draconian laws in Africa has led to a surge of homophobic attacks across the continent, further endangering LGBTQ+ people whose lives were already at risk.
These anti-LGBTQ+ laws not only criminalize same-sex relationships but also systematically target LGBTQ+ activists. Steven Kabuye, a prominent Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist, was recently stabbed and left for dead outside his home by two men on a motorcycle who had been following him for a number of days. Graphic video footage shared on X shows Kabuye writhing in pain, a visible laceration stretched across his arm and a knife embedded in his abdomen.
Kabuye, an activist and editor of Coloured Voices Media Foundation-Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, was ambushed on his way to work. His helmet-wearing assailants swung the knife at him, aiming at his neck, which he shields with his right arm in the video. As he attempted to flee, the attackers chased him and stabbed him in the stomach. Kabuye was discovered by residents and taken to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery.
Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, recently signed into law one of the most severe anti-gay bills in the world. The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 stipulates long prison sentences and capital punishments for “aggravated homosexuality.” It has also intensified homophobic sentiment nationwide. A surge in attacks and arrests has been reported all over the country since the signing of the law. LGBTQ+ rights activists said the bill has led to a rise in abuse, including torture, rape, and evictions, against LGBTQ+ Ugandans by private citizens.
Kabuye, who is still recovering, disclosed on X that he’s already been harassed by the police since the attack. He said they forcefully entered his house searching for lubricants, rainbow flags, or any other incriminating items they could use as evidence to charge him under the Anti-Homosexuality Act. He said he believes the failed attempt on his life was a planned assassination.
A similar incident happened in 2011 in the tragic story of David Kato, a Ugandan teacher and LGBTQ+ rights activist. Considered a father of Uganda’s gay rights movement, Kato was murdered in cold blood after winning a court victory over a tabloid that called for homosexuals to be killed.
Kabuye went on to reveal that after being denied entry into his home, police arrested his flatmate and tortured and threatened him with forced anal examinations in a bid to get him to confess that he and Steven were lovers – at the same time asking him to stop the international community from putting pressure on them or he would be falsely charged with attempted murder.
Kabuye wrote on X, “When they came to get a statement from me, they kept on asking me questions like, ‘Who sponsors you?, How and when did you become gay? Have you ever engaged in any sexual activities with any man?’ Questions unrelated to the case at hand. They just didn’t want to accept it was a hate crime or an attempted murder/assassination.”
Another LGBTQ+ activist, Ronald Agaba, who has been speaking up and demanding justice for Kabuye, said the Ugandan police are trying to cover up the crime and are busy blaming the victim. He went on to post screenshots of the death threats he’s been receiving since he spoke up.
“Police won’t help you. Uganda is not for homosexuals” one X user said.
“Look at this Gay, run for your life in Uganda because we’re killing the so-called LGBTQ,” another added.
Other victims around the country include Arianna, a transgender woman who was falsely accused in a viral TikTok video of forcing young men to take hormones. She came home after shopping one day to find an angry mob gathered outside her front door. “When they saw me, they started grabbing me and shouting that I needed to die,” she told The Guardian. “The only thing I remember next was waking up in a hospital.”
The new law also targets activists with 20 years of imprisonment for promoting homosexuality, leading to a crackdown on human rights organizations and the criminalization of any LGBTQ+ advocacy. A Ugandan MP, Hon. Cecilia Ogwal, who was one of the 387 members of Uganda Parliament to support the Anti-Homosexuality Act, called LGBTQ+ advocates “A force from the bottom of Hell” and urged Ugandans to “destroy” these LGBTQ+ forces.
Jane, a 24-year-old Ugandan activist, told LGBTQ Nation she is scared for her life and has been in hiding. “I’ve been receiving death threats online lately. One person promised to hunt me down, rape me, and slit my neck “ she said. “The disheartening part about this is that I can’t even report this to the police. The police are even the ones terrorizing us and encouraging this behavior.”
LGBTQ+ activists and campaigners in Africa have made no secret of their stance and how they feel about the new law. A petition was filed in the Constitutional Court to challenge it, but it’s uncertain if there will be a positive outcome. Court hearings began last month, but no ruling has been made yet.
Among the people to file the petition were the only two MPs who voted against the bill, Fox Odoi-Oywelowo and Paul Kwizera Bucyana, as well as prominent rights activists Pepe Onziema and Frank Mugisha. Additional petitions were filed by the Ugandan Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum and a host of international groups.
Activist Jackline Kemigisa wrote in OpenDemocracy that she joined the petition “because the law’s vaguely defined offense of ‘promotion of homosexuality’” endangers her “work and freedom as a journalist and researcher covering queer and feminist movements in Uganda.”
“Should my work, in which I write about minority communities with fairness and dignity, be deemed ‘promotion of homosexuality’ under Section 11 of the new law, I would face up to 20 years in prison,” she said.
Another Ugandan activist, Kira, explained how the new law has changed her life. “Uganda has always been homophobic,” she told LGBTQ Nation, “but since this new bill was signed things have changed. Prior to the new law, getting catcalled was the worst thing that could happen to you in public as people rarely attack you unprovoked. But the new law has emboldened them.”
“They publicly attack us now based on perception, some of them even go as far as stalking and ambushing us in our homes. Being a masculine-presenting woman, I’m scared to go out in public these days because not being traditionally feminine enough could possibly get me killed. We almost lost a friend last month after he was beaten up by a mob in the market for his feminine mannerisms.”
According to Reuters, Uganda’s Constitutional Court began hearing a challenge on December 18th that says the law violates constitutionally protected rights. A panel of five judges told the petitioners they would be notified when a ruling was reached.
“To be honest I don’t have any faith in our judiciary or this entire case having a positive outcome,” John Mukasa, a queer rights activist and medical officer living in Uganda told LGBTQ Nation. “Homosexuality is a very controversial subject in Africa and homophobia has eaten deeply into our society.”
“Our politicians are exploiting this hate for their own benefit in the disguise of protecting African cultures and would continue to do so no matter the cost. Uganda has a myriad of problems from insecurity to multidimensional poverty and hunger, these anti-laws are just being used to distract people from the problems that actually matter.”
This set of laws was pushed by American Evangelical ministers
The Human Rights Campaign State Equality Index (SEI) is a comprehensive state-by-state report that offers a review of statewide laws and policies impacting LGBTQ+ individuals and their families.
The SEI rates all 50 states plus Washington, D.C. in six areas of law and assigns the states to one of four distinct categories.
Check your state’s scorecard by texting SEI to 472472 from your mobile phone. (msg & data rates may apply. Text STOP to quit, HELP for info.)
A new bill put forward by Indiana Republican lawmakers aims to legally erase transgender individuals and reassert the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.
The bill also says, “Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female.”
H.B. 1291 proposes the removal of the term “gender” from state laws, substituting it with “biological sex,” even within anti-discrimination statutes. The bill seeks to redefine “male” and “female” based on an individual’s ability to produce sperm or ova, along with redefining other gender-related terms based on physical characteristics.
The proposed bill, H.B. 1291, would effectively eliminate trans identity from legal considerations, prohibiting transgender individuals from updating gender markers on official documents to align with their lived experiences.
It says that intersex people are male or female “but for a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development,” which is related to a common conservative idea that all intersex people can be easily categorized as male or female.
“Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female,” the bill reads in a section that lists state laws and how they need to be changed to implement the new, anti-trans definitions. “A marriage between persons of the same biological sex is void in Indiana even if the marriage is lawful in the place where it is solemnized.”
Although the provision related to same-sex marriage in H.B. 1291 wouldn’t be applicable under the current legal framework due to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in 2015, it underscores a persistent stance within some Republican circles against marriage equality. This position continues to be part of the national Republican Party platform, indicating an ongoing desire among some Republicans to overturn or limit same-sex marriage rights in the United States.
“Indiana has filed a bill to end ALL recognition of transgender people,” journalist Erin Reed posted on X. “It is one of several states to do so, perfectly mirroring Russia’s 2020 law and Hungary’s 2023.”
In April of the previous year, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed a bill into law that prohibited transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care. However, this legislation faced a temporary block from a federal judge two months later.
Indiana instituted a ban on same-sex marriage in 1986 and further prohibited the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states in 1997. Despite several attempts to pass a constitutional amendment explicitly prohibiting marriage equality in the state, none of these efforts proved successful.
The conservative Greek government has garnered support for its same-sex marriage bill from liberal lawmakers.
Just days after hesitating on a timeline to introduce legislation to legalize gay marriage in Greece, the recently reelected center-right Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis received a significant boost for his campaign pledge with the endorsement of gay opposition leader Stefanos Kasselakis.
The legislation, revealed on Wednesday, faces strong opposition from a faction within Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party, other right-leaning lawmakers in the Greek Parliament, and the Greek Orthodox Church. However, support from the left-leaning Syriza party’s 38 members would secure its passage.
Kasselakis stated that he would overlook “imperfections” in the bill and would instruct his party to vote for the proposal, even though it maintains a prohibition on surrogacy for gay couples seeking parenthood. A prior draft legislation presented by Syriza earlier in the week would have granted this right to same-sex couples.
The leader of Syriza emphasized the “positive elements” of the legislation and criticized the right-wing New Democracy lawmakers opposing the bill for what he called their “political cowardice.”
Kasselakis rose to prominence in September after his unexpected election as the leader of the left-leaning opposition party. The 35-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker married his American husband, Tyler McBeth, in the U.S. in October.
“When this draft law comes to parliament,” Kasselakis told Star TV in Greece, “it will be approved thanks to Syriza.”
While surrogacy remains restricted for gay couples in the proposed bill, full parental rights would be extended to same-sex parents who already have children.
“We won’t change the law on assisted parenthood,” Prime Minister Mitsotakis declared, addressing the issue publicly for the first time on Wednesday evening. He emphasized that same-sex couples would still be able to adopt children.
The prime minister pointed to the challenges faced by the children of gay couples, who lack recognition under Greek law, as a driving force behind the proposed change. Greece legalized same-sex civil partnerships in 2015.
A recent poll indicates that 49% of Greeks are against legalizing same-sex unions, while 35% are in favor. A majority also opposes granting full parental rights to gay or lesbian couples. The Church’s objections to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples are centered around concerns about gay parents raising children.
A new California social media law could harm LGBTQ+ youth, according to an internet civil liberties group. The group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has advised California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) not to approve the proposed law for an upcoming voter referendum.
Two advocates have called it “a misguided and unconstitutional proposal.”
The law, entitled “The Common Sense Initiative to Protect California Kids Online,” seeks to protect minors from specific online “injuries” by allowing people to sue social media companies for $5,000 per violation, up to $1 million per child, according to The Sacramento Bee.
“It would be up to the courts to decide the merits of a parent’s claim,” explains James Steyer, the CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that provides information on the suitability of tech platforms for children. “Tech companies have avoided any accountability for their profit-driven actions and it is time to change that, either through the Legislature or through the ballot.”
But the proposal currently doesn’t specifically list which “injuries” are covered or how social media companies could avoid inflicting them. That non-specificity concerns the EFF because they worry that the law could be used to censor LGBTQ+ content as “harmful.”
In a letter to Bonta, the EFF policy analyst Joe Mullin and senior staff attorney Aaron Mackey wrote that the proposed law violates social media companies’ constitutionally protected free speech rights and would result in the censoring of LGBTQ+ content.
“For example, elected officials in both California and other states have said that access to LGBTQ+ content harms children,” Mullin and Mackey wrote. “Lawsuits would likely push online services to restrict access to medical, health, and sexual information that many LGBTQ+ children need.”
Mullin and Mackey’s concern isn’t unprecedented. In fact, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU and the parents of transgender youth worry that a similar proposed federal law, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), could compel social media companies to censor LGBTQ+ content to avoid possible lawsuits.
Specifically, the ACLU and parents of trans youth worry that state attorneys general who consider queerness a social fad or a form of mental illness that causes kids to harm themselves, participate in risky sexual behavior, and increase their risks for depression, suicide, or drug use would use KOSA to sue social media platforms companies.
“[The proposed state law] is a misguided and unconstitutional proposal that will restrict all Californians’ access to online information,” Mullin and Mackey added.
Firefighters in Decatur, Georgia have determined that an October fire at a local gender-affirming care clinic was intentionally set in a move one activist has labeled “terrorism.”
The fire in the city’s historic Blair Building was “contained to one office, and no injuries were reported,” according to a recent statement from the City of Decatur Fire Rescue Department.
The statement expressed that an investigation has determined the fire “to be incendiary in nature, indicating the fire was intentionally set.” No suspects have been identified.
The Blair building houses several medical providers, but a police report confirms that the target of the fire was QMed, which focuses on gender-affirming care, Decaturish reported.
“We won’t be intimidated,” QMed owner Dr. Izzy Lowell told Atlanta News First. “We will not stop providing life-saving care to our patients.” While the office is “completely destroyed,” Lowell said the clinic is seeing patients remotely. She also confirmed the FBI is investigating the arson attack as a hate crime.
Georgia passed a hate crime law in 2020. H.B. 426 became the first law in the state to specifically protect LGBTQ+ residents and give stronger punishments to those whose crimes target victims due to their LGBTQ+ identity, or due to other factors such as their race, religion, or national origin.
Trans activist Alejandra Caraballo wrote on X that the attack “is following the antiabortion playbook of destroying clinics to get them shut down.”
“This is terrorism,” she concluded.
The Movement Advancement Project gave Georgia 1 point out of a possible 44.5 for its LGBTQ+ policies, leaving it with an overall rating of “low.”
In March 2023, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed a ban on trans youth receiving gender-affirming health care. The law revokes the licenses of medical professionals who administer surgeries or hormone replacement therapy for transgender people under the age of 18. The law creates an exemption for cisgender youth; they are allowed gender-affirming care to conform to their sex assigned at birth.
Puberty blockers, however, are not banned under the legislation.
The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all rejected claims that gender-affirming care harms transgender children or adults. Additionally, gender-affirming surgery is almost never performed on youth.
In a recent incident, an anonymous complaint regarding a frequently banned LGBTQ+ book prompted local police to conduct a search in a Massachusetts classroom, citing concerns about “obscene” and “pornographic” material. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has strongly criticized this incident.
“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia,” Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told The Berkshire Eagle this week. “What are we doing?”
The Great Barrington Police Department and the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office initiated an investigation to determine if Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer” contains pornographic material. The inquiry was prompted by a complaint received on December 8, asserting that the book was present in an eighth-grade classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.
Upon receiving notification of the investigation, Superintendent Peter Dillon was informed by the police. Principal Miles Wheat, accompanied by a plainclothes officer, conducted a search for the book in the classroom after school on December 8. The English teacher, reportedly unaware of the impending search, was present during the search. Despite the use of a body camera by the officer, the book was not found.
District Attorney Timothy Shugrue announced that Great Barrington Police had concluded their investigation, stating that the complaint did not involve criminal activity. Consequently, the matter was closed, and any further action was referred back to the Berkshire Hills Regional School District. The superintendent assured the District Attorney’s Office that the issue would be reviewed according to the school district’s policies, treating it as a school department matter.
Teachers, parents, and students in the community expressed outrage over the incident. More than 100 students at Monument Mountain Regional High School staged a walkout in protest. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) released a statement supporting the walkout, asserting that “book banning has no place” in the state.
In a Facebook post, the teacher whose classroom was searched wrote, “How on earth is a cop more qualified to decide what books are OK to be in an educational setting for teens?”
According to The Berkshire Eagle, the police argued they had a duty to investigate the complaint about Gender Queer. However, the ACLU of Massachusetts expressed deep concern about this notion.
“They say anytime someone could call they have an obligation to go marching into places wearing a body cam, and you know, interrogating people,” Bourquin said, adding that state laws are “pretty clear about police not having roles in this situation.” Obscenity laws, she explained, have been “carefully crafted to ensure not tromping on constitutional free speech rights.”
Bourquin informed the paper that the ACLU has requested the officer’s body camera footage and other records related to the investigation.
Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, explained that obscenity laws test whether a book has value beyond sexual arousal. This “very specific” requirement is not necessarily something the average person or police officer might understand.
Silverman said that he’s concerned about the precedent the Great Barrington Police may have set amid the national rise in book bans primarily targeting books by Black and LGBTQ+ authors. “While it might be rare now, it doesn’t mean that it will be rare in the future,” Silverman said. “I think the school and the police department have to come forth with a policy to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
In a statement, the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee and Superintendent Peter Dillon apologized for the incident.
“The recent incident at the middle school has challenged and impacted our community,” the statement read. “Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers, and staff. In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry. We can do better to refine and support our existing policies. We are committed to supporting all our students, particularly vulnerable populations.”
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