The Alabama Public Library Service (APLS) Board held a public hearing Tuesday on a new proposed rule that would ensure books on radical gender ideology are only available in the adult sections of public libraries in the Yellowhammer State.
The meeting was held the APLS board’s Montgomery headquarters.
“The goal of this amendment is to ensure our libraries remain safe, family-friendly spaces for families across the state of Alabama,” APLS Chairman John Wahl said in a written statement after the hearing.
“The APLS Board is committed to keeping our libraries focused on education and encouraging reading, while respecting parental rights and protecting children from sexual content.”
While currently there is a rule in place to prevent sexually explicit books in the children sections, the APLS board wants to close a loophole in the code that still allows books on transgenderism.
The proposed new rule put in place a ban on “any material that promotes, encourages, or positively depicts transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders shall be considered inappropriate for children and youth.”
During the hearing Tuesday, scores of Alabama residents on both sides of the issue had a change to comment to the board, including Angie Hayden who is the cofounder of organization Read Freely Alabama.
“It’s gross government overreach,” Hayden argued.
“It’s blatantly discriminatory, and it is unnecessary. Parents already have and always have had the right to supervise what their children read and in a way that does not require open discrimination and violation of others constitutional rights to do so. There is nothing inherently sexually explicit or inappropriate about transgender or non binary people.”
While several speakers opposed the change, other parents and Alabama residents spoke positively about the proposal.
“I am a de-transitioner,” Ted Holly said at the hearing. “I’ve done it all. I went down as far down that road as you can go, won’t go in there. But anyway, the point is, if I can have my fellow de-transitioners here, we have a different attitude. But I want to point out that the idea of transitioning is not true. I. Gender is assigned at birth. You cannot change it. You can change the way you look, but you can’t change who you are. So with that, children are innocent and they’re impressionable, and you know, we can feed them truth, or we can feed them inconsistent stories.”
After the meeting, Wahl announced the conclusion of the public comments period, and said most of the comments supported the new rule.
“The response from the people of Alabama has been overwhelming,” Wahl said.
“The goal of this amendment is to ensure our libraries remain safe, family-friendly spaces for families across the state of Alabama. The APLS Board is committed to keeping our libraries focused on education and encouraging reading, while respecting parental rights and protecting children from sexual content. Sexuality is a deeply personal issue, and parents should never have to worry about their children stumbling across explicit content in our library’s youth sections. It’s time to put parents back in control of what their children are exposed to.”
During the public comment period, APLS received a significant number of responses. Of the 8,478 comments submitted, 6,781 were in support of the proposed amendment, while 1,697 opposed it (79.98% to 20.01%).
“This is about defending truth and the innocence of children,” Wahl continued.
“Across the nation, gender ideology has been used to confuse young people and replace science with radical activism. Alabama is taking a stand for biological reality, for parents, and for children’s right to grow up free from social agendas in their libraries.”
The APLS Board will review the public input and consider final wording and passage of the amendment at its next regularly scheduled meeting.
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee.
