The Left and the LGBTQ activist cadre appear to have lost their minds over parental outcry over sexually-explicit books in public school libraries at the K-12 level, particularly in elementary and middle schools. To school librarians, school administrators and bureaucrats, and activists, sexually-explicit language belongs in K-12 school libraries.
Parents have raised serious concerns and questions with the Katy Independent School District, which is located in the Houston, Texas suburb of Katy. During one school board meeting, a parent asked the board, “Why are we sexualizing our precious children?” The same parent questioned why the district allowed for books in libraries that caused children to question their gender identity.
Some of the books that parents objected to, due to their LGBTQ content and language, are as follows:
- “Lawn Boy”: a book about a Mexican-American male which discusses homosexuality
- “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts)”: a book about a “queer teen working to uncover a blackmailer threatening him back into the closet”
- “The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy”: a book about children questioning their gender identity due to teasing from classmates
- “All Boys Aren’t Blue”: a so-called “memoir-manifesto” about the author’s gender identity journey
Unfortunately, this is not an incident isolated to Katy, Texas, but it is a trend across the country. For example, Accuracy in Academia has covered Modern Language Association conferences in the past, which conferences featured sexually-explicit books geared towards a K-12 audience. Attendees at these conferences are teachers and professors, who could hypothetically convince their schools to purchase these types of books for the school library.
The overall theme is that parents are concerned that public schools are allowing a form of indoctrination without their explicit consent or approval. For years, parents were the decision-makers in discussing sensitive topics such as sexual education. Yet, due to the sexualized content in public school libraries, school librarians, administrators and district officials have effectively placed themselves between parents and their children.
In spite of legitimate parental concerns over contents of many books that they found in school libraries, NBC News published an article that defended the books in the name of free speech and affirming gender identity politics. It erroneously claimed that Republicans, conservatives, and concerned parents are banning books.
However, removing a book from libraries is not book banning, but it could be perceived as censorship. Yet it is the right for parents and taxpayers to demand certain books be removed if the content is offensive, regardless of race, sex, or political affiliation.
According to NBC News, there were 75 formal requests by parents or members of the community to remove books from school libraries during the first four months of the school year in the cities of Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Interestingly, compare that number to the previous school year, where one request was issued, and it shows a renewed interest by parents to find out what content is in their child’s school libraries without their knowledge.
Librarians have also complained to the mainstream media about being unfairly targeted by parents over their library content. But, as with all publicly-funded jobs paid for by taxpayers, accountability to the taxpayer comes with the territory and the taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent.
