A northern Virginia school district has removed a pro-LGBTQ+ book after a parent criticized it for sexually explicit images, but without notifying the public or the parent who had flagged it as inappropriate.
Fairfax County Public Schools in the Washington, D.C., suburbs confirmed in emails to parent Stacy Langton that school libraries across the county had removed the book “Queer: A Graphic History,” by Meg-John Barker, according to The Daily Caller.
“I’m surprised they did this quietly, without notifying me, the public, or the LGBTQ community,” Langton, a 55-year-old mother of two children at Fairfax High School, told The Daily Signal in a statement.
“This illustrates perfectly why we cannot trust government schools, which try to hide their radical sexual and political agendas from parents,” says Sheri Few, founder and president of United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE).
“When this is happening despite clear direction from a conservative, pro-parent governor like Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, imagine how bad it is in states where liberals run the show. Parents need to get their kids out of government schools, and the taxpaying public needs to demand that these schools stop corrupting innocent children.”
Virginia became ground zero for the debate over parental rights in education during the 2021 gubernatorial election. A Christian teacher was suspended for refusing to use false pronouns. Meanwhile, a skirt-wearing boy who raped a girl in a restroom was quietly placed at another school, where he assaulted a second girl. When the father of the first girl tried to speak at a school board meeting, he was wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and arrested.
This fueled a parents’ revolt that helped vault Republican Glenn Youngkin to victory. He beat the Democratic nominee, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who had said, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions,” adding, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Langton had repeatedly condemned “Queer: A Graphic History” as sexually explicit in remarks at school board meetings. She said the book included a graphic illustration of the sexual practice known as “pegging,” which reverses the traditional male and female sexual roles.
She also faulted “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe for including similar sexual illustrations (including a fantasy of a sex act between an elderly man and a teenage boy), the Daily Caller reported.
A clerk of the Fairfax County School Board sent Langton an email citing “indecent and profane content” in her remarks to the school board. The clerk clarified that the cited content was related to “Queer: A Graphic History” and added that the book “is not a part of the [Fairfax County Public Schools] curriculum at any grade level and is not maintained in any FCPS library.”
Langton said she found the book’s absence from school libraries curious. She shared with The Daily Signal photos she took at Fairfax High School at the end of April 2023, in which “Queer: A Graphic History” appeared in a display encouraging students to “try an LGBT book!”
Fairfax County Public Schools previously removed “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy,” a novel by Jonathan Evison, after they faced an official challenge. “Lawn Boy” includes long sections of a boy reminiscing about sexual experiences he had at ten years old.
In November 2021, the school district announced that it had restored the books to libraries after two committees reviewed them.
“You have to wonder how much more it will take for parents to realize that these schools are out of control and operating under a depraved worldview that they are foisting on kids,” Few says. “Pull your kids out — now!”
– United States Parents Involved in Education
For more information on United States Parents Involved in Education, visit www.uspie.org or follow USPIE on Facebook or X.