A county fired its entire library board for refusing to ban a trans children’s book. “I just feel so bad for the people who live in that community and love their library.”
Source: southpawFA
A county fired its entire library board for refusing to ban a trans children’s book. “I just feel so bad for the people who live in that community and love their library.”
Source: southpawFA
18 Comments
elections have consequences
VOTE
>County commissioners in Randolph County, North Carolina, voted earlier this month to dissolve the county’s entire library board in response to trustees’ earlier vote against banning a trans-inclusive children’s book.
>Author Kyle Lukoff’s 2019 children’s book — the first in a series of picture books about the title character — follows a young transgender boy’s coming-out journey at school and eventually to his parents. As public radio station [WFDD](https://www.wfdd.org/politics-government/2025-12-09/randolph-commissioners-dismiss-entire-library-board-after-book-controversy) notes, the book is the only one of the nearly 20,000 books in the library’s children’s collection to so much as mention gender identity.
>Among those who spoke were library board trustees Steve Grove and Betty Armfield. Grove explained that trustees “rely on highly trained librarians” when deciding what material belongs on library shelves, while Armfield said the board had adhered to its own rules and its responsibility to serve the entire community.
>Lukoff responded to news of his book’s role in the debacle in a December 10 Instagram post.
>“A library’s entire board of trustees was fired and replaced because they refused to ban one of my books,” he wrote. “It’s so terrible.”
>
Christian nationalists find books more dangerous than guns, because knowledge is the biggest original sin, according to their interpretation of scripture. They hate anyone learning, because knowledge shows the mendacity behind Christian nationalism. So, they ban books in order to prevent anyone from learning, as Christian nationalists are trying to forcefully inculcate everyone from learning about the greater world.
This is what happens when you view knowledge as sin and the world as “beyond wicked”.
~~The more I hear about Oklahoma the worse~~ I feel for folks there who want to leave but can’t.
edit:Misread where this was but still feel bad if you want to get out and can’t!
Transgender rights are human rights.
A North Carolina county literally dissolved its whole public library board because the trustees voted not to ban one kids’ book about a trans boy. That’s not just a book politics, that’s firing elected/appointed guardians of intellectual freedom for doing their job.
Firing a whole board over literally one book sends a message: local officials can overturn expert review committees whenever they want. That’s scary for freedom of speech not just LGBTQ books, but all controversial materials down the line.
important details missing. Unless they’re all appointed, how can a board be fired by “a county”? Whomever(s) appointed them may have firing power, but who is that, specifically? it’s not “the county”.
It is no surprise that the KKK planned a cross burning in Randolph County as recently as 2017, and that their school desegregation process is still under federal supervision. It sounds like the kind of place where they closed public swimming pools to keep them from being integrated.
Religious freedom now = the right to persecute the rest of us.
And I bet these county officials are the same people who cried when Kim Davis was fired for standing firm for her beliefs.
Nothing says “we care about families” like taking away access to a library.
>Randolph County residents who wanted to see the book banned took the issue to county commissioners.
My two cents is that the county commissioners represent the people in their county. If those people in any kind of numbers want the book gone and there are no legal hurdles, it’s the duty of the commissioner to do it or resign.
Blame the people of that area not the commissioners.
But I was told by the LGBTQ community they weren’t going after kids. Which is it?
We need small government to protect conservatives from having to think.
Why does our government control our libraries? Isn’t that literally against everything the library stands for as a concept?
But billionaire sex offenders are not an issue. Cowards.
Hmmm. Seriously, kids are confused enough. I don’t mind it being there, but it’s not really for the kids section.
Right wing engineering project 101.
If you can’t win on the ideas, force a change on everyone else’s reality until you can.
These right wing extreme people are the literal embodiment of Neanderthals and they are going to cause our species to go extinct because we are being subjected to their absolute stupidity.