State library board bans books that mention trans people from children's & teen sectionshttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/11/state-library-board-bans-books-that-mention-trans-people-from-childrens-teen-sections/ 🔗John Russell (21 Nov 2025)
The Alabama Public Library Service Board of Directors has banned materials that discuss "transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders" from the children's and young adult sections of the state's public libraries.
As the Alabama Reflector reports, the change is more expansive than what was originally proposed by board member Amy Minton earlier this year. Minton's proposal would have banned positive depictions of "gender ideology" and "transgender procedures," but board chairman John Wahl argued that material critical of trans people should be banned from children's sections of the library as well.
"I don't think that was ever the intent that we should be allowing negative content and not positive content," Wahl, who also serves as the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, said, according to the Reflector.
According to the AP, Minton said that public comments the board had heard indicated that "this is what the majority of people in Alabama want," a claim refuted by Jim Vickery at a recent board meeting.
"Most of the people of Alabama have not asked for this latest library-fixated assault on the LGBTQ community because it's their children and children of friends and relatives you're attacking with this misguided proposal before you," Vickery said.
Advocacy groups, including Read Freely Alabama, PEN America, Every Library, and the Alabama Transgender Rights Action Coalition, blasted the board's decision in a joint statement. The amended language, they said, is overbroad and will result in all books featuring trans representation being moved to Alabama libraries' adult sections, regardless of their age relevance. The groups described the term "gender ideology," which is not defined in the administrative code, as "a vague, undefined term often used as an anti-LGBTQ+ dogwhistle."
