In the debate over library content for the past two years, part of the argument has been over phrasing.
When anti-censorship groups like Read Freely Alabama have thrown out the term “book banners,” the other side has often bristled and claimed their intent is solely to move books out of sections for minors and into the adult section.
APR has obtained screenshots of recent Facebook comments from Clean Up Alabama founder and director Hannah Rees that clarify her intent to see all library books dealing with “gender ideology” removed completely from libraries.
“I get frustrated when people say move the books also,” Rees commented on a post she made in the “Faith Family Freedom Coalition of Baldwin County” Facebook group. “We need to stick with remove and not back down no matter how much pressure and how many times we are called book banners. That is water off the back and the nicest thing I’ve been called.”
Rees made the comment in response to Stephanie Williams, the woman primarily responsible for challenging books at the Foley Public Library in 2023. Williams said in the comment that “our side has compromised by arguing we just want you to move it. I don’t agree.”
The main post from Rees shared a far-right website article detailing the most recent meeting of the Alabama Public Library Service board meeting, including APLS board member Amy Minton’s introduction of a document that would define all materials promoting gender ideology as “inappropriate” under APLS code.
That document cites an executive order from President Donald Trump declaring that no federal funding should be used to promote gender ideology, among other federal and state laws.
“But also I think Amy is saying that … any book that specifically violates Trump’s EOs must be removed from the library altogether,” Rees commented. “If it cannot be promoted in the military or anywhere in the government (which is all adults) then it should not be promoted in our libraries. He did not mean children, he meant everyone.”
Some supporters of removing books from the library, whether under the pretense that they are sexually explicit or because they include LGBTQ+ content, say that it is still not “banning books” because citizens can still purchase the books elsewhere. Rees made a similar statement in the Facebook group thread.
“The most important key in this is it should not be purchased with our tax dollars period,” Rees said. “If a parent wants to expose their kid to WOKE and trans ideology they can do it on their own DIME.”
Rees pushed that APLS needs to define inappropriate because “leftist librarians” have struggled even to move “sexually explicit” materials, much less “trans stuff.”
“The slightly more understandable confusion has been what inappropriate is,” Rees wrote in a comment. “We conservatives knew the line clearly on this, but our leftist librarians refused to say that anything that wasn’t straight porn was inappropriate. So this will not only help understand the policy as it is currently written concerning inappropriate but it takes it a step further on the trans stuff. It is saying get it out of the library, full stop.”
