Keller ISD removes book from library after parent concerns about graphic sexual imagery
The Keller school district has removed a book on gender identity from one if its high school libraries following social media posts from parents concerned about the book’s graphic images.
Kathy May, who said she has four children attending Keller schools, voiced her concerns about the book in a tweet Tuesday after she said she saw the posts on a Facebook group.
“Welcome to Keller ISD,” she wrote in the tweet. “Yes, a Texas School. Where legitimate visual porn, a felony offense, is in one of our libraries. They were quick to find the book and pulled it from a students hands, realizing the severity of distributing porn.”
In a corresponding thread, May said there was a “problem” and that the district has “leftist teachers, librarians and counselors” who push this type of material, along with critical race theory and social emotional learning.
“This book was brought into Keller ISD, please help us make parents aware of the danger of the cultural changes our society is making, when people say they’re going after our kids, you need to listen, because they are,” she wrote in another tweet that tagged Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, among others.
The book, a graphic novel-style memoir called “Gender Queer: a Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, has been removed from the high school library, a spokesperson for the Keller school district wrote in a statement Friday. The book is about “what it means and how to think about” gender identity, according to GoodReads.
The statement didn’t specify the high school, and the spokesperson didn’t immediately clarify after an inquiry from the Star-Telegram.
On Monday, Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican from Fort Worth who also sits as a chair for the House General Investigating Committee, sent an inquiry to officials at the Texas Education Agency and an unspecified number of school districts requesting information on books with subjects that include racism and sexuality.
When May first saw the images in the Facebook post, she said she was “disgusted” and “disappointed.”
“I moved here from California to get away from this,” May said Friday. “It just, it was appalling.”
The book also caught the attention of Republican House representative Jeff Cason of Bedford, who called on the state’s attorney general to investigate the book and others like it. He said in a statement that the book may be “criminal for its representation of minors participating in sexual activity.”
May said she and others who have raised concerns about certain books said it wasn’t that they wanted to ban books, but that they didn’t want them readily available in schools. She said the books should instead be available at public libraries where children could check them out with parents’ permission.
In an op-ed published Friday in the Washington Post, Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, tackled the recent ciriticism on eir book. In addition to Texas, Kobabe wrote the book had been challenged in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio and Washington.
In a section detailing the length of time it took Kobabe to come out fully, e wrote that one of the only places e had access to information about transgender people was through books.
“Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are,” Kobabe wrote in the op-ed. “Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health.”
The statement from the Keller school district said it was aware of a social media post about the book containing “inappropriate images.” The spokesperson wrote that the book didn’t make clear in its description it had “graphic illustrations.”
“Illustrations of this sort should never be available in the school environment,” the spokesperson wrote in the email. “Ensuring our curricular materials are appropriate for students is a priority for Keller ISD. We are changing the process we use to review and approve books and related materials to prevent future incidents.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 5:02 PM.
