LGBTQ books: Last News

Metro Weekly. “They would share with each other like a little underground network.”The students asked Carver to help establish a library so others could access the books.“It was such a beautiful moment where I could hear young people understanding the importance of books, who want to help other people,” he says.Together, Carver and the students applied for an “It Gets Better” grant and received $4,000 to build the inclusive library.After hearing an LGBTQ student at a neighboring school committed suicide, the students donated half of the grant to build a second library in their honor.With the remainder of the grant, Carver and the students worked with a local bookstore to curate a list of titles.

Two San Diego residents checked out nearly every single book in their library’s Pride Month display, claiming that such materials shouldn’t be available to children.Across the nation, conservative groups have pushed to ban books that discuss LGBTQ issues from libraries and schools, often arguing that they are pornographic or obscene merely because they depict LGBTQ identity.This attempt to stoke culture-war flames in San Diego backfired, according to The New York Times, ending with an outpouring of community support for the library in the form of increased monetary and book donations. As soon as The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the protest, new copies of the checked-out books began to arrive at the library.

Antonio Ferme editor More than 1,600 books were banned during the 2021-22 school year — and 41% of them featured LGBTQ content.   At PFLAG’s 50th anniversary gala on Friday night, host Amber Ruffin encouraged the audience to belt out thunderous boos while she read off statistics about school book bans.  An actor playing a drunk teacher with an exaggerated Southern accent stumbled into the middle of Ruffin’s monologue. Waiving a pile of banned books in her arms, she declared her mission to eliminate LGBTQ content from her school library. “I’m a public school teacher in Florida and I won’t stop until I’ve had every single book banned that has LGBTQ content in it,” the actor proclaimed before sifting through her pile of books with “inappropriate” content. “‘Frog and Toad.’ Two male frogs who hang out all the time and they’re just friends? I don’t think so!”

A local Fox affiliate reported on the "unexpected alliance" between conservatives and Arab Americans in standing up to public school boards in Michigan that are stocking "explicit" LGBTQ books in school libraries.  The report detailed the attendance of concerned conservative and Arab American parents at a Dearborn, Michigan public school board meeting Thursday night to protest "having LGBTQ+ books on the library’s rolls saying they’re sexually explicit." Fox 2 said, "Their presence was a nod to the unexpected alliance of sorts between conservatives and many in the Arab American community as their interests overlap on this issue."  Michigan parents protest school board over explicit books in school library. (Fox News) Republican Michigan attorney general candidate Matthew Deperno, in attendance that evening, commented on this united front.

NBC New York.A mother in Brunswick, Maryland, recently performed a similar stunt, checking out all the books from an LGBTQ library display in order to preserve children’s “innocence.”The move prompted outrage from members of the LGBTQ community. “I was horrified by the display of ignorance at last night’s Board meeting,” Brianna Baker-Stines, the president of the library board, said after the vote last Tuesday.

A parent in the Kansas City area who fought last year to ban LGBTQ-themed books from school libraries is now facing accusations of child molestation.

KMBC reports.Last year, Utterback joined a growing trend of conservatives across the country demanding the removal of LGBTQ books from school libraries, often under the guise of objecting to “sexual content.”During an October 2021 school board meeting, Utterback attempted to convince North Kansas City School District to remove lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, which chronicles her childhood in rural Pennsylvania, claiming it contained sexual material.In video of the meeting, Utterback can be seen holding boards showing enlarged images from Fun Home while standing alongside Northland Parent Association president Jay Richmond.Richmond demanded that Fun Home be removed from libraries and suggested that the board could be accused of solicitation of a minor for stocking the graphic novel due to its “descriptions and pictures of oral sex.”After students protested the attempted book ban, Utterback told KMBC, “I definitely understand their struggles. It’s not lost on me.