Texas Superintendent Removes Books Covering LGBTQ Issues from School Libraries
In early January of 2022, one Texas school district superintendent truly dedicated himself to the anti-LGBTQ movement sweeping across American state legislatures, directing librarians in the district to permanently remove roughly 130 books from their shelves — over 75 percent of which contained LGBTQ characters or themes.Granbury Independent School District Superintendent Jeremy Glenn gave the order during a confidential meeting with district librarians held on January 10.A recording of the meeting obtained by NBC News, ProPublica, and The Texas Tribune revealed the contents of the meeting and the reasoning behind his directive.
Glenn, following in line with the arguments many Texas officials have made when banning books, told the librarians he didn’t want kids “reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries,” whether the book was “about homosexuality or heterosexuality.”His comments in the meeting went much further — and were much more explicitly hateful — than that argument.
He emphasized to the librarians that the community, the school board members, and the district were all “very, very conservative” and that should the librarians hold differing political views, that “they better hide it.”Glenn continued, “And I’m going to take it a step further with you.
Specifically, what we’re getting at, let’s call it what it is, and I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this. It’s the transgender, LGBTQ and the sex — sexuality — in books.
