Oppose Nationwide Book Ban Bills

Rather than prosecuting people involved in child sex trafficking, congressional Republicans are trying to pass a national book ban by turning the blame against teachers, librarians, and LGBTQ+ people. H.R. 7661 and S. 4925 are companion bills titled “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” that block funding for schools or programs that provide access to “sexually oriented material” to people under the age of 18; effectively, a national book ban.

While the legislation specifies “sexually oriented material” as “nude adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious dancing,” it also groups in tangential issues of gender, specifically “gender dysphoria or transgenderism”, highlighting the primary target of these bills. Books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes—particularly stories featuring transgender/genderqueer characters and/or people of color—have been disproportionately targeted in recent calls for book bans, the majority of which have come not from parents or individual readers, but from organized, well-funded groups with strong ties to conservative politics. Though H.R. 7661/S.4925 makes a few exceptions for certain “classic” works of art and literature, they are confined to pieces catalogued in four already contentious lists, two of which come from a homeschooling company focused on teaching “a Biblical worldview”. Critics have argued that “the legislation would use the tools of access to materials as a form of discrimination on those children, those families, that are not majority population,” noting how the legislation “isn’t fundamentally about protecting kids. It’s about giving politicians broad authority to restrict whose stories are allowed on our shelves.”

The Stop the Sexualization of Children Act is a clear continuation of the Trump administration’s blatant attacks on transgender and other LGBTQ+ people, but many fear that its vague language would also allow Republicans to attack other materials and ban them beyond schools and libraries. Access to literature, art, and information is a human right, and there is no place for book bans or governmental censorship in a free and democratic society.

Tell your representatives to oppose H.R. 7661/S. 4925 and any attempts to censor Americans.