Through a Georgia Open Records Request, I received the minutes from the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library‘s (GCHRL) and the Columbia County Library‘s Boards of Directors meetings. The Columbia County Library is the largest branch within GCHRL, and it is the closest branch to my home. At the December 13, 2022 meeting, the Board of Directors of the Columbia County Library voted to remove It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity, written by Theresa Thorn and illustrated by Noah Grigni.
In all of the minutes, I couldn’t find any specific complaint about this book. I was able to acquire it through the Georgia PINES interlibrary loan process. Other Georgia public libraries have 35 copies of this book.
I’ve finished reading it, and I’m racking my brain to understand why my library’s board caved-in to the demands of the local Moms 4 Liberty/No Left Turn/Spanish Inquisition agitators.
There’s no sexual content in the book. No kissing, no hand-holding, no love letters.
There’s no medical interventions. No counseling, puberty blockers, hormone replacement or surgery.
There’s no dramatic, violent encounter in a public restroom.
There’s no giant transgender girl dribbling and elbowing her way through the midfield defenders and scoring 6 goals at the county recreation league soccer tournament.
They haven’t set up a kiosk at the local mall passing out fliers to minors urging them to distance themselves from their biological families and join a new, gender-fluid family.
There’s nothing sneaky about the book: the front cover says “gender identity.” You’d have to be a rather crappy parent to claim that you brought the book back from the library for your child without knowing it had something to do with transgender people.
The book’s text explains sexual identity, gender identity and gender expression in terms simple enough for this 54 year-old cisgender heterosexual male who only realized his gender and sexuality were privileges in the last 15 years.
After sleeping on this, I realized what makes people call for this book’s removal: Noah Grigni drew the children too happy! Look at the inside title page. One is playing a eukelele. One’s reading a book cross-legged on a stump. One’s blowing soap bubbles. Another is running or dancing. Other pictures of town show a relatively prosperous suburban setting with trees and birds and pedestrians and cars and buses and cyclists. The parents of these children hug them, and their cisgender siblings play with them.
Where are the burnt-out buildings and flesh-eating zombies which resulted from societal collapse after the acceptance of nonbinary people? Why aren’t the transgender children depicted as child prostitutes? Why aren’t there illustrations with overdosed trans children dying in dirty alleys with heroin needles in their arms? Where’s the line of minors at the Planned Parenthood clinic getting their hormone replacement pills at one end while a drug company representative drops off a bag of cash at the other?
Imagine a book with the same text but with ghastly illustrations. These adults proclaiming their horror at It Feels Good to Be Yourself would be demanding that the public elementary schools include this alternative version in the curriculum.
You may or may not believe every claim made under the rubric of “gender ideology” is true. But, in a society where in theory the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution remains law, public libraries should not be pulling It Feels Good to Be Yourself.
P.S. On March 8, 2023, the owner of The Book Tavern on Broad Street in Augusta, GA notified me that the store had copies on order. Get your copy from an independent book store which supports your community.
Aym Playing 