Greenville County library committee advances proposal to limit transgender-themed materials

Despite public outcry both during and after its meeting, the Greenville County Library System's Materials Committee voted Monday to advance a proposal limiting access to transgender-themed materials.

The full board of trustees will vote on the proposal later this month.

The committee debated changing the library system's collections development and maintenance policy, which governs the type of books and materials that are included in the library.

The committee specifically proposed changes to the library's juvenile and young adult collections, seeking to move materials with "gender transition ideologies" into other collections that require an adult-access library card to check out.

In its proposed policy changes, the committee also sought to limit access to materials containing explicit descriptions or depictions of sexual acts, incest, pedophilia and graphic depictions of violence or abuse.

Although the committee is only made up of five board members, all 10 Board of Trustee members were present at the meeting either in-person or virtually to debate the proposed changes.

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Greenville County Library System's Materials Committee reviews 24 books, chooses broader action

The committee was expected to make a decision regarding the fate the 24 books that have been under review since last November, but instead of issuing permanent bans on any of those books, the committee focused instead on the library's larger collections policy.

The committee was initially tasked by the board last fall to review 24 books, many with LGBTQ+ themes, that were subject to scrutiny from the county GOP and board members themselves.

A single copy of each of the following books was removed from circulation pending that review:

• "Adventures with My Daddies"

• "Daddy & Dada"

• "Feminist Baby Finds Her Voice"

• "Generation Brave: The Gen Z Kids Who Are Changing the World"

• "Heather Has Two Mommies"

• "It's Perfectly Normal"

• "It's So Amazing: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families"

• "Love, Violet"

• "Pride Puppy"

• "Sex Is A Funny Word"

• "Stella Brings The Family"

• "Teo's Tutu"

• "You Don't Have To Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves"

• "Gender Queer"

• "Lawn Boy"

• "All Boys Aren’t Blue"

• "Out of Darkness"

• "The Hate U Give"

• "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian"

• "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

• "The Bluest Eye"

• "This Book is Gay"

• "Beyond Magenta"

After its decision to review those books, the library system faced accusations of censorship from employees and local advocates.

The committee formally completed that review at its meeting on Monday, but it took no action to ban any of the books. Instead, the committee focused on making changes to the board's broader collections policy.

Committee debate focuses on limiting transgender themes

Most of Monday's discussion centered around the policy's limitations on materials with transgender themes.

Joe Poore, vice chair of the board of trustees but not a voting member of the materials committee, expressed concerns about the proposals vague language, asking if it would disproportionately target the LGBTQ+ community.

Other board members expressed similar concerns about vague language, prompting committee chair Elizabeth Collins to include a further definition that gender transition ideologies are "anything that affirms that a person's gender is other than that person's biological sex."

Marcia Moston, a materials committee member, spoke in favor of the proposed changes. She called access to children's books with transgender themes "life threatening for our youth."

Members of the public are not allowed to speak at library committee meetings, but attendees still expressed their outrage at Moston's remarks by rising from their seats and waving posters in support of access to books with LGBTQ+ themes.

Tommy Hughes, a committee member, along with Kenneth Baxter and Brian Aufmuth, both board members who are not on the committee, all raised the point that librarians are already trained to ensure that content in each collection is age appropriate.

Later in the meeting, Aufmuth said the proposed policy changes were seeking to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. His comment was met with snaps, claps and muffled support from the audience.

Poore said he fears the board could be overstepping its role with this policy. He said parents should be responsible for what their children read in the library, and the board should "empower and encourage that responsibility."

After more than an hour of debate, the committee voted unanimously to advance its juvenile policy changes to the full board. One committee member, Tommy Hughes, abstained from voting on the young adult policy changes, but it still passed with four votes.

The full board of trustees will meet at noon on Monday, March 27, at Hughes Main Library to vote on the proposed policy changes.

− Tim Carlin covers county government, growth and development for The Greenville News. Follow him on Twitter @timcarlin_, and get in touch with him at TCarlin@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Greenville Library System advances restricting transgender themes