GOP leader: Fort Worth’s reading challenge celebrates LGBTQ Pride. Here’s what library says
Tarrant County Republican Party Chair Bo French took to social media over the weekend to accuse Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker of “pushing radical transgender ideology.”
His post included a screenshot of the Beanstack App, which hosts the Mayoral Reading Challenge, showing a message encouraging users to check their local libraries for books by LGBTQ+ authors.
French wrote on X that the image was sent to a 6-year-old, and was reminiscent of the 2023 Reading Challenge, which included activities to celebrate Pride Month.
Parker pushed the Fort Worth Library to remove the Pride-related activities from the 2023 challenge. She argued that determining the appropriate age to talk to children about human sexuality is a deeply personal issue, and one that should be left to parents rather than the mayor.
While many conservatives celebrated Parker for removing Pride related activities from the 2023 reading challenge, French’s social media post accused Parker of backsliding and said she had sold out conservatives through her apparent support of the LBGTQ+ community.
However, representatives for the Fort Worth Library, which runs the Mayor’s Reading Challenge, noted the 2024 iteration tracks only the amount of time someone spends reading and does not include activity based challenges.
The page encouraging people to read books by LGBTQ+ authors came from the Beanstack app, and not from the Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge, said library spokesperson Theresa Davis.
Asked in an email for a response to the library’s assertion, French sent a pair of screenshots showing the logo of the summer reading challenge and the one he posted to X.
“Literacy is foundational in a thriving community,” Parker said in a May press release promoting the summer reading challenge. She cited statistics about summer learning loss while arguing about the importance of encouraging young Fort Worth residents to read.
In an emailed statement Monday, Parker reiterated that the goal of the summer reading challenge is to encourage families to read together.
“Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished,” she said.
While the app has been a valuable resource, Parker said it has overcomplicated what should have been a simple reading challenge focused on tracking the number of reading minutes.
“I am extremely disheartened that this is having the opposite effect of what I was very emphatic about achieving through the Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge — encouraging reading at a time when childhood literacy is a crisis in our nation,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office noted several residents have reached out about the Beanstack app encouraging children to read books by LGBTQ+ authors, and each has gotten a response explaining the situation.
Other than his post on social media, French has not reached out to the Mayor’s office, the spokesperson said.
French did not immediately respond to an email from the Star-Telegram seeking to confirm whether he’d reached out to the Mayor’s office.
This story was originally published July 8, 2024 at 3:45 PM.
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