FIRE warns HB 1119 will increase Florida school book banning

These hateful Christian bigots think any mention or media showing that LGBTQ+ people exist is pornography.  It isn’t and makes a mockery of protecting kids from real porn.  But they use these words and equate any mention or sign of LGBTQ+ with porn to make it seem as harmful and dangerous as showing hardcore rape porn to children.  See the quote below.  Their goal is again to wipe any mention of the LGBTQ+ from society and public view.  They learned from Putin who used the same protect the children tactic.  Think of this if this bill passes how do they justify the Bible in libraries and schools?  But these people want a straight cis white male dominated society where they get to force their church doctrines on the public.  However these same people scream parental rights or religous freedoom if you ask them to give others respect and equality.  They want to oppress everyone else but any attempt to get them to give the same respect they demand for their ideas to others who have different beliefs is persecuting them.  Hugs

On the full House floor, sponsor Rep. Doug Bankson called HB 1119 a “commonsense policy that answers a simple question: Should pornography be available to minors in our schools?”


 

FIRE warns HB 1119 will increase Florida school book banning

Gabrielle RussonFebruary 23, 2026

‘Our focus right now is on making legislators aware of the bill’s constitutional problems.’

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is urging the Senate to kill a bill passed by the House that First Amendment advocates fear will increase book banning in Florida schools.

“Library book removals can raise serious First Amendment issues,” FIRE’s Public Advocacy Director Aaron Terr wrote in a letter last week to Senate President Ben Albritton. “The bill creates a powerful incentive for individuals to object to any book they dislike or consider inappropriate, knowing it will be immediately pulled from circulation for all readers.”

The House passed HB 1119 via a 84-28 vote following a partisan debate. An identical Senate bill (SB 1692) has not moved in the upper chamber since it was filed last month.

HB 1119 would block schools from considering the literary, artistic, political or scientific value of books if the material is deemed otherwise harmful for minors.

On the full House floor, sponsor Rep. Doug Bankson called HB 1119 a “commonsense policy that answers a simple question: Should pornography be available to minors in our schools?”

“The answer is an emphatic no,” he told lawmakers.

Bankson and other Republicans argued some inappropriate books still exist on the shelves because of a loophole from the application of the Miller Test, which is a Supreme Court decision dealing with adult material.

The Apopka Republican filed similar legislation last year that advanced in the House but died in the Senate.

FIRE argues that HB 1119 goes too far.

“To be clear, not every book is appropriate for every student,” the Philadelphia-based First Amendment advocacy nonprofit wrote in the letter.

“Again, FIRE recognizes that school districts have a responsibility to assess whether library materials are appropriate for students of different ages. But any such assessment must be carefully crafted to ensure that students are not broadly denied the opportunity to read age-appropriate works that speak to their particular interests.”

The bill wouldn’t allow school officials to take into account the full content of the book or if the work has serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors of any age since it doesn’t consider grade levels, FIRE said.

“These elements of the Miller test are critical to preventing censorship of literature, art, medical textbooks, history texts, and other speech that depicts or alludes to sex simply because someone finds them offensive,” FIRE said.

“In other words, older students’ access cannot be restricted based on what may be unsuitable for younger children. But HB 1119 disregards this commonsense principle. It requires districts to ‘discontinue use of the material’ if they determine it is ‘harmful to minors,’ without regard to age or grade level.”

Florida passed a 2023 law that allows people to challenge book titles they find offensive for young people in schools. 

“Under the current statute, Florida school districts have removed hundreds of books from libraries, including titles that are by no stretch of the imagination ‘pornography’ and come nowhere close to the legal definition of obscenity,” FIRE said in the letter.

“The Florida Department of Education’s own report shows that during the last school year, literary classics and widely acclaimed modern works — including ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ ‘The Human Stain,’ ‘The Kite Runner,’ and ‘Life of Pi’ — were removed even from libraries serving students in grades 9-12. If enacted, HB 1119 will only accelerate this trend and further narrow the range of ideas on school library shelves.”

When asked by Florida Politics whether FIRE would sue if the Legislature passes the bill, the organization did not answer.

“Our focus right now is on making legislators aware of the bill’s constitutional problems,” FIRE spokesman Jack Whitten said. “That’s a decision that would require internal discussion and depend on various factors.”


Gabrielle Russon

Gabrielle Russon is an award-winning journalist based in Orlando. She covered the business of theme parks for the Orlando Sentinel. Her previous newspaper stops include the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Toledo Blade, Kalamazoo Gazette and Elkhart Truth as well as an internship covering the nation’s capital for the Chicago Tribune. For fun, she runs marathons. She gets her training from chasing a toddler around. Contact her at gabriellerusson@gmail.com or on Twitter @GabrielleRusson .

A Quick Women’s History Month Post

My Ears are Burning

they were already a little floppy

Nancy Beiman

This review appeared on Facebook yesterday. I do not know Mr. Highson, but I read his columns.

My blushes, Watson.

Mr. Highson posts the cover of the first edition of Animated Performance on the Facebook post. The second edition, an essentially ‘new’ book, is available from Bloomsbury Press.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/animated-performance-9781501376672/

It’s nice of him to speak of me during Women’s History Month. Now let’s hear about the other female animators. One of my students, Ami Thompson, appears on the first page of this site. There are many others.

https://greatwomenanimators.com/

Animation really does let you ‘play’ any character; your sex, age, ethnic group do not matter. It allows you to act without anyone staring at you; there are many introverts in this profession!

that’s all for today, folks.

A Couple Of The Bloggess’s Substacks

Leave room for yourself

Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)

Dear friend,

This week I’ve been struggling a little with the fact that I can’t do all of the things that I want to. My book comes out next week (you’re in it!) and I feel so excited and lucky but also terrified and filled with dread. I worry people won’t like it…that no one will show up to the book tour…that I’m failing my publisher because I can’t do some of the things that most authors would jump at because I just don’t have the energy or mental strength to say yes to everything without making myself sick. I even felt a little bad about drawing this week when I probably should be doing author stuff.

But then I reminded myself that I need this quiet drawing time (is it considered “quiet” when I’m doing it while binging Dexter? I say yes.) to keep myself sane and to replenish my energy and to remind myself that I am more than just my work, and that it’s okay to not work yourself to exhaustion even if it’s for something you love.

I suspect we all struggle with this. Perhaps as parents or partners or in our career…the urge to try to be more than our bodies and minds allow, but not being able to because you are…human. It’s so easy to put ourselves last when it’s for something else that you care about.

“There is a fine line between beautiful and suffocating. Don’t forget to leave room for yourself.”

So this is a reminder from me to you to make time for yourself if you can. To rest. To create. To refill your cup. There is so much beauty in what we do for others, for our work and for our passions…but there is also a necessary beauty in what we do for ourselves…a beauty we often forget.

Sending love (and quiet moments of calm repose even when watching serial killer shows)

~me


From the road

Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)

This morning I was in New York filming the Today Show where I managed to talk about explosive diarrhea, fears of my foot falling off, apologized for using my hands too much, sat on them, promptly pulled my hands back out bc I can’t talk without them and then made all the anchors put pencils in their mouths…all within about 4 minutes. By this afternoon I was in Amish country in Pennsylvania where I met some very nice “fancy Amish” people (this is a real thing) and did not pet a horse even though I really wanted to. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be in Lancaster for my first tour stop and signing even though technically my book doesn’t officially come out until Tuesday. Then it’s back to NYC, and then a stop in New Hampshire for another reading and signing and then I get to go home for a week to rest for the next round. I’m feeling tired, happy, lucky, scared, excited, embarrassed…all of the things. Oh, and did I mention my first book got banned from a Texas high school after a senate bill deemed it obscene and profane? It’s been a busy week. I would link to everything but I can’t figure out how to do this with my phone

I should have written all this before I left but i was overwhelmed with packing all the wrong things and so instead I’m writing this tonight, on the eve of my first new book event in over half a decade, to distract myself from the fear and from the incredibly loud but very happy drunken wedding taking place two rooms down from mine. It feels like you’re here, in a weird way. I know that’s strange, but it’s comforting.

I’ve drawn in planes and cars and green rooms to keep my hands and mind busy but it’s a jerky mess so instead I’m sharing a drawing from my new book, because it seems fitting while I’m traveling so much in spite of the fact that I never know where I am. It’s an adventure, after all, if I look at it with the right kind of eyes.

I super crazy love you,

Jenny

Republican National Purity Dream | David Bier | TMR

This person Same is interviewing is from the Cato Institute.  Sam and David talk about the bigotry and attempt to purify the country of non-white people.  tRump and his racist administration claim to want to remove 100 million from the US.   There is no where near that number of undocumented people in the country.  That number is almost 1/3 of the US population.  Undocumented immigrants were estimated at 14 million in 2023 at the highest.  So where are the rest of these people coming from?  Legal documented immigrants and non-white citizens born in the US.  That is why they are rounding up brown people who immigrated here legally and why they are trying so hard to end birth right citizenship.  The goal has become clear and it is scary to me.  To cement the white majority for as long as possible and stop the slow decline of the white majority / rize of minority demographics.   Stephen Miller and the other racists in tRump administration want an apartheid state like the former South African one was.  They want no rights for non-whites.  They want no non-whites in positions of authority. The administration is going after businesses and higher education for not prioritizing whites over any other group.  They feel no white male is less qualified than any non-white.  If a non-white person scored 95 and the white person scored 75, these racists feel the white person is still more qualified because of their skin color.  The racists feel the only DEI that should be allowed is the promotion of white males over everyone else. Hugs

Boise To Face $2000/Day Fine For Flying Pride Flag

The game plan is clear and was used to accomplish the genocide of the LGBTQ+ from society in Russia.  Attack the most vulnerable and smallest members of the LGBTQ+ trans people in the name of saving the most vulnerable, who are the little children espcailly little girls  / daughters.  Every study proves that the ones in real danger or under threat are not the kids but the trans people.   Then use the momentum and rising bigotry to remove all rights and equality from the rest of the LGBQ+ based on the same lies.  End goal is to create a straight cis country where the Christian white male is making the country safe / regressive enough for their bigoted view of Jesus to feel comfortable enough to return and pat them on their heads.  Hugs

Boise To Face $2000/Day Fine For Flying Pride Flag

The Idaho Capital Sun reports:

The Idaho Senate has widely passed a bill that would fine local and state governments for flying flags that aren’t on the Legislature’s pre-approved list.

The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Ted Hill, an Eagle Republican, has said House Bill 561 is meant to target the city of Boise for flying an LGBTQ+ pride flag. Boise’s City Council voted to declare the pride flag and the organ donor flag as official flags, in an apparent move to work around the Legislature’s flag ban law passed last year.

The bill would add a $2,000 daily fine, per offending flag, to the flag ban law from last year, which lacked an enforcement process. The bill widely passed the House earlier this month. But since the Senate amended the bill, it must return to the House before it would go to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration.

Read the full article.

Rep. Ted Hill [photo] appeared here yesterday for his successful bill that criminalizes using the “wrong” bathroom. Violating that law would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison. A second offense within five years would be a felony, carrying up to a five-year prison sentence.

Hill appeared here in 2024 for his successful bill banning teachers from referring to students with their preferred pronouns.

Earlier this month, the Idaho House passed a resolution to petition the US Supreme Court on overturning Obergefell.

In February, the Idaho House advanced a bill to overturn all local LGBTQ rights ordinances statewide. Thirteen Idaho cities and counties, including Boise and its home county, have such laws on the books.

https://youtu.be/3C_llxJ0OqI?si=A7t4tKDIu6LFAdys

Idaho Legislature passes bill to criminalize trans people using preferred bathrooms

Project 2025 was very clear.  The goal is to remove all representation of LGBTQ+ people from society.  Pride flags are determined to be political incitement and agitation; media representation and books with even an LGBTQ+ character are called sexualizing children while the same with straight kids is not, and letting a child express how they deeply feel inside by letting them change their hairstyle and clothing is called child abuse while doing the discredited / harmful conversion therapy to force a person of any age to be straight and cis is considered to be healthy for the child. Lies  are spread constantly about puberty blockers by people who misrepresent what these medical studies show or only claim in fake medical studies that have no peer reviewed status by medical personnel in that field of study. The goal is to do what Russia, Hungary, and several other highly religious authoritarian countries have done, which is to wipe the existence of anything not straight and not cis from being. I  don’t know if this is due to their being highly religious and wanting to force everyone in the country to live by their church doctrines or if they just are straight / cis so they don’t think if they don’t feel it that it can’t be true.  I ran into that decades ago as a gay man with straight people claiming everyone was straight because they were and that was normal, but some people choose to be weird deviants and have bad types of sex.  But if you ask them when they chose to be straight they think it is a stupid question as they never chose; they just were.  Clips below.  Hugs

“They go in the bathroom they’re supposed to, they upset people. If they go in the one that they now look like, they’re breaking the law, which could include pretty severe penalties” Guthrie told senators. “ … We seem to be really focused on this space and ignoring the fact that there are people that are just like us, human beings, just like us. What are they supposed to do?”

‘Do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked?’ trans man testifies

The bill builds on a wave of anti-LGTBQ+ bills that the Legislature and the governor have approved in recent years. 

This week, the Legislature sent the governor a bill to fine the city of Boise for flying an LGBTQ+ pride flag, despite a state law last year banning the display on government property. The Senate is also one of the last stops for a bill that would require school officials and health professionals to out transgender minors to their parents, or face lawsuits.

“Over the last several years, legislators have gone from refusing to protect us to actively targeting us,” Nikson Mathews, who serves as chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus, said at a news conference in February.

“Every single day when I’m out in public, I have to decide: Do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked,” Mathews told lawmakers. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2026/03/27/idaho-legislature-passes-bill-to-criminalize-trans-people-using-preferred-bathrooms/

Bill — which would make Idaho one of few states with criminal trans bathroom bans — heads to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration

By:March 27, 20263:19 pm
A bathroom sign as seen on March 16, 2026, at the State Capitol Building in Boise

 A bathroom sign as seen on March 16, 2026, at the State Capitol Building in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)

The Idaho Legislature widely approved a bill that would criminalize “willfully” entering public and government bathrooms and changing rooms designated for another sex.

The bill — which heads to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration — would effectively block transgender people from using their preferred public bathrooms in Idaho, expanding on the state’s transgender bathroom ban in public schools.

House Bill 752 would create criminal misdemeanor and felony charges for people who “knowingly and willfully” enter a bathroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex, with some exceptions. The bill would apply in government-owned buildings and places of public accommodations, like private businesses. 

A first offense would carry a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison. A second offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Only three states — Utah, Florida and Kansas —  have criminal bans on trans people using bathrooms that align with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. 

In a statement, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates — Idaho called the bill “the most extreme anti-transgender bathroom ban in the nation.”

One Republican opposed the bill in the Senate

In the Idaho Senate, the bill passed on a near-party line 28-7 vote Friday, with all six Democrats opposing. One Republican, Sen. Jim Guthrie, from McCammon, broke with Republicans support of the bill. 

He called legislation like it “harmful.”

“They go in the bathroom they’re supposed to, they upset people. If they go in the one that they now look like, they’re breaking the law, which could include pretty severe penalties” Guthrie told senators. “ … We seem to be really focused on this space and ignoring the fact that there are people that are just like us, human beings, just like us. What are they supposed to do?”

Idaho Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d'Alene,
Idaho Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d’Alene, walks through the halls at the State Capitol building on Jan. 9, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)

Bill sponsor Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d’Alene, told senators that the bill protects “common sense realities.”

“The Legislature has a fundamental duty to protect the bodily privacy and safety of Idaho citizens,” Toews said. “House Bill 752 provides a clear, proactive tool to secure sex-separated private spaces in our state, while accommodating common-sense realities.”

Once the bill is transmitted to Little, he has five days to decide on it. He has three options: sign it into law, veto it, or allow it to become law without his signature. 

In the House, the bill passed on a 54-15 vote earlier this month, with six Republicans joining the House’s nine Democrats in opposition.

 

‘Do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked?’ trans man testifies

The bill builds on a wave of anti-LGTBQ+ bills that the Legislature and the governor have approved in recent years. 

In 2020, Idaho became the first state to ban transgender girls and women from competing in sports of their preferred gender. In 2023, state lawmakers made it a felony for doctors to provide gender-affirming health care to transgender youth. In 2024, lawmakers expanded the ban to apply to taxpayer funds and government property, which forbids Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care. 

This week, the Legislature sent the governor a bill to fine the city of Boise for flying an LGBTQ+ pride flag, despite a state law last year banning the display on government property. The Senate is also one of the last stops for a bill that would require school officials and health professionals to out transgender minors to their parents, or face lawsuits.

And for more than a decade, efforts to add anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people to state law have failed. 

“Over the last several years, legislators have gone from refusing to protect us to actively targeting us,” Nikson Mathews, who serves as chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus, said at a news conference in February.

Mathews, a trans man with a beard, told a House committee earlier this year that the bathroom bill would force him to use the women’s restroom. 

“Every single day when I’m out in public, I have to decide: Do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked,” Mathews told lawmakers. 

A 2025 study by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute found “no evidence of increased harms to people who are not transgender when transgender people are allowed to use restrooms and other gendered facilities according to their identity.” But when trans people are refused access to facilities that align with their gender, the study found that trans people report verbal harassment and physical assault. 

 

Bill is about discrimination, Democratic senator says

Sen. Ron Taylor, a Democrat from Hailey, said the bill is about discrimination. He said constituents told him that they’d move out of Idaho if it passed — because it would throw their transgender children in jail.

Idaho state Sen. Ron Taylor, D-Hailey,
Idaho state Sen. Ron Taylor, D-Hailey, enters the House of Representatives chamber for the governor’s State of the State Address on Jan. 12, 2026, at the State Capitol in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)

“Now maybe that’s what some of us want, is to chase a population that’s marginalized out of Idaho,” Taylor said. “But that’s not Idaho. Idaho was founded by a population that was marginalized.”

Sen. Brian Lenney, a Republican from Nampa, said the bill is about keeping women and girls safe from having men in their spaces. 

“Trans women aren’t women,” said Sen. Joshua Kohl, a Republican from Twin Falls. “They’re men. And they need to be treated as such.”

Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle
Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, listens to proceedings during the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee meeting on Jan. 13, 2026, at the State Capitol Building in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)

Sen. Jim Woodward, a Republican from Sagle in North Idaho, said the bill is largely borne out of an event where he said a man was found in a women’s locker room in a YMCA in Sandpoint. He said he’d vote for the bill, but he had some reservations.

“What comes next and how much further do we venture inside of a private building?” Woodward said. “I don’t support the punitive measures in this bill, but the policy does reflect the sentiment of my community, and so for that reason, I will support it. It is the best for the most.”

Sen. Melissa Wintrow, a Boise Democrat, said she saw people crying after a recent committee hearing on the bill.

“They were crying because they just didn’t feel as if they were human. That a simple little thing they had to do, like go to the bathroom, would have to be in a law,” Wintrow said. 

 

Idaho Fraternal Order of Police opposed the bill

The bill was opposed by some law enforcement groups and several transgender Idahoans. 

The bill outlines several exceptions, including to give medical assistance, law enforcement assistance, and if someone “is in dire need of urinating or defecating and such facility is the only facility reasonably available at the time of the person’s use.”

The Idaho Fraternal Order of Police flagged that exception as concerning.

“Officers responding to a complaint would be placed in the difficult position of determining an individual’s biological sex in order to enforce the statute,” Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell wrote. “In many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate.”


Kyle Pfannenstiel
Kyle Pfannenstiel

Kyle Pfannenstiel is a reporter for the Idaho Capital Sun, covering health care and state politics. He previously reported for the Post Register/Report for America, Idaho Education News and the Idaho Press. Kyle is a military brat who calls Idaho home. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from University of Idaho.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

MORE FROM AUTHOR

The Roads to Mattis, Iran, Trump, and Hormuz.

A Couple of Fun Bits

I understand about the pastry boxes; they are pretty stupid. Lewis Black expresses someone’s feelings as Lewis Black does.


Have a fun dog video!


Oh, yeah! Another email buried but that I wanted to post here last week. My accomplished niece is a writer, and this is her webpage for her fiction books, Swaimwrites.com . She’s got one about to be released called “Reven,” which is, as her site says, “A steampunk retelling of Peter Pan about the lengths we’ll go to escape the past.” I’m excited to read it, not only because I’m her auntie, but because it looks like it’ll be perfect for these times!📖📚

Banned Books

Site logo imageThe Bloggess

Read on blog or Reader

Today they banned my book. It was not the first. It won’t be the last. Here’s what I want you to know

.By thebloggess on March 25, 2026
This is not what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about how I’m about to go on book tour for my new book in a few days. Instead I am writing about the fact that I was just informed that my first book Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was banned from the high school library of a nearby town I love and visit often.

Honestly, I’m not that upset about my book being banned. I’ve had so many letters from young people who felt they’d been helped by my books but it does have some profanity and so I can understand the reasoning even if I disagree with it. What I am upset about is the stories about how New Braunfels ISD has pulled more that 1,500 books from their school library shelves after the Texas’ Republican-backed book banning law (senate bill 13) passed. The bill ordered all public school libraries to review books for “profane” and “indecent” content and I guess Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was deemed too dangerous for high schoolers.

Weirdly, my book was not on the original list of the 1,500 books triggered for review on March 13 but a week ago it was added to the New Braunfels ISD website as being removed for being “non-compliant”. (I’ve been called worse.) I guess 1,500 books weren’t enough. But then, it’s never enough for book banners.This is going to happen more and more. It used to be a rarer thing…almost a badge of courage to have a book banned. Now? It’s everywhere…this war against books and ideas and people. Reading is how you fall in love with people different from you, and how you develop compassion for them…because if you love them, you want to protect them. But there are some people who don’t want you to love others. They need you to fear them.

Books save lives. They have saved mine. Books are safety nets for so many of us, and right now those nets are being cut.The list of banned books is incredible in length and includes so many that I adore. Equally upsetting is the fact that so many classics that shaped me have been pulled from the shelves and placed into restricted sections where they can only be accessed by students enrolled in Advanced Placement Literature, because God forbid a normal high school student would want to read the works of dangerous writers like *checks the list* Jane Austen and Emily Brontë (whose name they misspelled).

Sometimes it feels like we’re living in A Brave New World (restricted) and that the book burning of Fahrenheit 451 (restricted) is closer than ever, with no Sense and Sensibility (restricted) about what this will cost. It feels like we’re going through The Crucible (restricted) and are caught in a Catch-22 (restricted) where we can’t convince people how terrible it is to ban books because they either don’t know the power of books or they absolutely know it and fear it. It’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (banned) how book banners go out on some kind of A Discovery of Witches (banned) and fight against Acceptance (banned) and of diversity, while we are losing All The Beauty in the World (banned). America is a Beautiful Country (banned) in so many ways, but we will lose so much of that beauty if we don’t make Changes (banned) to cherish and embrace and grow what makes us Educated (banned) and compassionate. The diversity of voices is necessary…it is a reflection of who we are and who we want to be. A plethora of ideas and voices and experiences…This Is What America Looks Like (banned). We can’t just pretend that Everything’s Fine (banned) and that this is just an overreaction of Anxious People (banned). Do you think this is what the founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton (banned) envisioned? I’m going to stop here because I’m sure you can see that this dumb paragraph is WAY TOO EASY TO WRITE because there are so many books they have issues with and you probably get the picture already but y’all….Jane Eyre? The Color Purple? The Odyssey? Crime and Punishment?? THIS IS WHAT WE’RE SAVING TEENAGERS FROM?

So what can you do? You can buy books that are being targeted, especially those written by the LGBTQ+ authors or authors of color because they are being targeted the most. Supporting those authors tells publishing to keep producing those books because they are needed. Publishers will lose money if libraries become afraid to purchase books and so we need to make sure that they know the audience is there and greedy for diverse voices. Get a library card and start checking out those books and more, to prove to the government that libraries need funding and that people care about reading. Read to your children. Read in front of your children. Talk online about the books that you love so that your passion ignites others. If you’re a parent you can get involved with your school to make sure this doesn’t happen in your school and you can protest it if it happens. You can vote out the people who seem to be obsessed with freedom, but mainly when it’s their freedom to take away yours and your children’s. You can run against school board members who are book banners and show up at the meetings. You can keep updated by following organizations like PEN AMERICA, or the Texas Freedom to Read Project or Authors Against Book Bans.

*deep breath*

This is probably filled with typos and is not really the sort of thing that I should be writing the day before I leave to start my book tour but it’s important. When books and thoughts and people are suppressed, we all lose. Keep fighting the good fight, friends. It’s worth it.


Comment

Tracking Anti-Trans Bills | Erin Reed | TMR