The Board that looks after Alabama public libraries voted on Thursday to remove books that deal with the subjects of 'being transgender' from the teen and children’s sections in all public libraries in the State.
The books would be transferred and housed in the adult sections following the vote.
The move comes under the backdrop of the ongoing national fight, for and against content in public libraries that has focused on themes involving LGBTQ+ and characters that portray the lives of transgender individuals.
The Alabama Public Library Service Board of Directors finally approved the rule that materials which elaborate on transgender procedures, gender ideology or the concept of more than two biological genders as 'inappropriate' for kids and youth library sections.
The language is also being added to existing rules that youth sections in the libraries must be free from sexually explicit materials and from content deemed as 'inappropriate'.
"Board Chairman John Wahl expressed that the recent move is a major step towards putting parents back in control of what their children are exposed to," Associated Press highlighted.
Meanwhile, Opponents on Thursday called the action a censorship attempt and targeted at the erasure of trans people.
Associated Press quoted Reynolds, a transgender person, as saying that books are the best way for the public to learn about people who are 'different' from them. A heated public hearing took place last month regarding the vote, as the decision affects more than 200 local libraries.
Notably, the vote took place on Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance that honours the memory of the transgender people who lost their lives in anti-transgender violence.
In 1999, transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith initiated Transgender Day of Remembrance as a vigil to honour Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people who were killed in violence since Rita Hester’s death.
It later turned into a marked tradition to observe November 20 as the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance in the US.
