Promotion of gender themes in children's publishing and therefore in books in schools

Thank you Op. It's insidious how some of the most unsuitable people in the world to influence children are being ushered into schools / libraries via the publishing industry.
It needs to stop.

There is an earlier discussion about this, I think, if you're interested:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5543489-5543489-seen-in-publishing-report-on-childrens-books

I went to the library to pick up some summer reading for DD13 - she's quite an advanced reader, so I tend to look in the Teen and Teen Plus sections of the library. We are very liberal and generally allow her to read anything she wants to read.

I could not find more than one or two books (which tended to be thriller types - fine but hardly literary fiction) that did not have an LGBTQIA++ theme. I am all for lesbian and gay literature - and absolutely fine for children to read about people questioning their identity and life choices, but the library's choices were just so noticeably overwhelmingly focused on these issues.

I actually checked I wasn't in the LGBT area by mistake. It is absolutely astonishing.

At least one Mumsnetter contributed to the SEEN in Publishing report....

It is genuinely astonishing to see how pervasive it is, until you try discussing it with someone (let's say, in your family) who has had no idea of what's been going on. It's just "reality" to them. It's "normal." What is impossible for them to believe is that 15 years ago, none of this ideology existed, and these books would never have been published.

And they don't want to believe, they don't want to see it, so they decide that you are the problem!

I have no problem with books from certain points of view being published, but they should be balanced with books from differing points of view as well, which is what has not happened. And I think some of these books for younger children are actually harmful.

Thank goodness the tide is turning, but it's going to be a long time before those books are seen for what they are: activist tracts.

It's particularly worrying when schools and local authorities stock books directly against UK law safeguarding children, with themes the courts have decided are emotional abuse eg of children of transpeople like 'She's My dad'. It is a safeguarding breach and also breaks the legal requirements protecting kids in school from political/ gender coercion, and children of transpeople from emotional abuse and child cruelty.

The UK Supreme court previously ruled it is emotional abuse to lie to children their mum is their dad, or vice versa, the Gender Recognition Act specifically bans this and confirms if someone is both trans and a parent, they are either a mother if they gave birth, or a dad if they provided sperm , whatever their gender beliefs or GRC status. They can't lie to kids. yet so often it's ignored.

The ECHR recently ruled to confirm telling the truth about who a mother/ father is protects the human rights of children of transpeople- and this takes precededence over the trans fantasies of transparents. The link to the ECHR ruling is https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/news/challenge-to-registration-of-transgender-man-as-mother-declared-inadmissible/
and the Children of Transitioners groups wrote about these issues here:

https://childrenoftransitioners.org/paperwork/
childrenoftransitioners.org/six-children/

Don't apologize! The more spotlights on this, the better! I just thought there might be further discussion there, to add to this one. The search facility on MN never picks up what you want when you want!

I don't have a problem that (the majority of these) books exist. The more books the better! Though of course I do agree that books that tell children they can magically change sex and nobody will ever know are misleading and harmful.

It's just the proportion of LGBT books vs non-LGBT books is totally not representative of the population at large. Yes, I want my daughters to read about LGBT (one of them enjoyed Heartstopper for example - fabulous). But I don't ONLY want them to read about this.

They're not into fantasy and werewolves and there's only so many thrillers I'm willing to feed them before they start thinking everyone's a murderer... so where are the books about an average teenager dealing with issues? Like Lottie Brooks for a more grown-up generation, or more Hunger Games for example.

What I'm not sure about is whether it's the library who's selecting these books, or whether that's just what the publishers are churning out.

Yes that ruling is really important - and already trans activists and their lawyers are moaning they want the law changed to remove the protections for children!

The trans lobby has had £££££ of pounds to push this stuff on kids, including from the gov, schools and local authorities, and schools have stayed quiet and allowed trans activists to lie and coerce children about it. When you consider some of the children will be survivors of CSA , it's just vile people in positions of leadership have let dodgy adults tell them they are hateful if they correctly acknowledge someone's sex (even the CPS who is supposed to prosecute male sex offenders said this in withdrawn schools guidance a few years ago!!).

It's both.

The publishers are asking for and choosing to publish those books. Canny authors are therefore writing them.

Most libraries don't really do a lot of research and such around that kind of collection development. They just get what the publishers tell them is current and popular and up and coming. Often through an intermediary company that chooses the books for them, especially popular fiction.

Also however, many libraries are actively trying to tick certain boxes in their collection. They may have been told to do this by their board or the governing bodies, or they have just decided to put a lot of energy into certain social justice topics, because the politics of public library workers are pretty narrow.

As a result they add in as many books as they can, in every category, that ticks the boxes. This is why you get, for example, board books like "Anti-racism Baby" (A is for Activist) which no actual babies are interested in.

The report is damning. A complete loss of any idea of safeguarding for one thing, and promoting elective surgery on girls for another.

@Secretsquirrelshh I don't want to excuse what you encountered at your library but I wonder if you'd walked into one that was going overboard on 'Pride month' (June in the UK), or if it had just finished and they hadn't bothered to do new promotion for something else. I find Pride Month, and lots of other virtue signalling months, awful and an embarrassment. I actively dodge librarians wearing rainbow lanyards. Organisations don't seem to realise that plenty of LGB people themselves may actively be put off by the rainbow-edged pride-ification of the world and the sooner the TQIA+ alphabet soup is dropped from LGB the better.

I agree a bit about Heartstopper being wonderful, but only in part - the straightforward LGB bit. However, the stories have been used to promote trans propaganda and that taints things for me. The books seem to be a bit less pro-trans than the TV series and the latest Netflix film but I think it is the trans content that will date them all.

So much already seems dated eg a boy transferring to a girls' school in year 10/11(?), participating in girls sports, sharing a room with girls on a school Paris trip, and in the latest film, having taken puberty blockers to name but a few.

There's a recent thread on the new film here if you haven't seen it: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5555824-heartstopper-forever-film-tra-propaganda-people-dont-want-me-using-public-bathrooms-government-is-taking-away-my-rights

Thanks for this. It wasn’t a Pride display. That was elsewhere. Next time I go to the library I’ll choose 6 YA books at random and share some pictures.

All that and a Pride display as well! I hadn't realised.🙁