Trans books banned in children's library sections

[BeeSouriante]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6257p2vry3o

Including kids books that just acknowledge the existence of trans people.

Obviously, this is a local Reform council, but would you call for a ban of books about trans people across the board?

which effectively means that they are not banned - most libraries will allow books from anywhere on a child’s ticket - I was reading dickens / Tolkien / Wodehouse / Sayers / etc. before I was 10 - no issue borrowing books from the adult section…

In Kent Libraries, adult books (fiction and non-fiction) can't be issued on child tickets.

I remember "Grandpa's Pride" being aimed at children. It showed Grandpa going to Pride in his BDSM gear, not going shopping with his husband. So some children's books are not suitable for children. Trans books are trying to normalise lies/delusions.

I would expect not different from the BBC. Apart from their obvious pro-transideology/anti-women propaganda, they are another organisation acting unlawfully on single sex spaces.

Plot thickens

www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/04/reform-councillors-boast-about-removing-trans-ideological-books-from-childrens-library-sections-falls-flat

And stay out of the trans widows support threads. They are not for you

What's your position on 'mein kampf' in school libraries?

'Kent county council have confirmed that children are not and will not be exposed to adult transgender literature in our libraries.

“Staff at the county’s 99 libraries have been asked to ensure that books are always stocked in age-appropriate categories and that no adult literature makes its way into areas specifically aimed at children, or where children will be selecting books, such as the public welcome displays.

“It follows feedback from a resident who spotted a transgender book aimed at adults in a public display at the entrance of one library in Kent. The book has since been relocated to a section that is unlikely to be visited by children.”'

Good, good. Storm in a T cup, then.

I cannot believe this has to be said…
🤯

is it against the Mumsnet rules for people to link this thread every time @BeeSouriante pops up on a post and say Bee is someone who was so angry that it’s not allowed to expose kids to adult materials in libraries that they started a whole thread on it?

Best let stonewall know then

www.stonewall.org.uk/resources/list-lgbtq-terms

Andy Train, chair of the Hull and LGBT+ Forum, helps organise Hull Pride events and gave his reaction to the book.
He said: "I was surprised to see this illustration. I think the illustrator [of the book] was given carte blanche. It's a bit stereotypical. An illustration showing a family waving a trans flag, for example, may have been a better choice.
"People are free, within the realms of the law, to dress how they want at Pride event.
"Some people do attend Pride events wearing that kind of clothing but that tends to be abroad. The weather here rarely lends itself to dressing in a revealing way."

Children's libraries and children's sections have always been policed. I was a big Enid Blyton fan but my local library didn't think they were "suitable literature for children" so they just didn't have them.

I also agree with keeping certain books out of displays.

Children are people, people who are exploring their surroundings. It is up to parents to police what is suitable for their individual child. A library that displays books not suitable for children is over stepping that mark.

Children learn about the world around them in child terms. We tell small children not to talk to strangers, even if they do give you sweets and tell you they have some puppies.

We do not go in to gory details of what has happened to some children who have been abducted, assaulted, tortured and killed.

Children don't need that message, they need, "Don't talk to or go with strangers".

So there seems to be debate around what has actually happened.

But isn't it perplexing that a local council matter from a Reform councillor over books in a local library somehow makes national BBC news? And that BBC have got lots of comments from T+LGB groups moaning about it?

The BBC can pretend they're impartial, but what they choose to and choose not to cover is important.

The BBC haven’t been impartial for some time.

I think the problem is the way that gender ideology is pushed in these books. I remember reading 'Frog and Toad' stories to my DC - Frog and Toad live together, they are male. It did not push being gay, merely gently gave a picture of a gay couple living happily and having adventures.

Books which show same sex parents do much the same.
The problem with books about trans is that they tend to centre on children being trans, with glitter and rainbows for little boys - and this is disturbing. They're not describing a relationship in the same way the 'Frog and Toad' books did (or 'The Wind in the Willows' for that matter!), they are advocating for a belief system and not in a wholesome way quite often (it's not Bill's New Frock, by any means!).
One factor I do remember as a girl/teenager was how distanced I felt when reading e.g. the scene in LOTR where Merry, Pippin and Aragorn are sharing a pipe and chatting about their adventures; it is so clearly a male friendship group that a) entirely excludes females (despite Aragorn being in love with Arwen) and b) could not be replicated in female friendships at the time (at least to me - I had few friends) and could not include females, either (the feeling I got was that the man who wrote the scene could not imagine women being in such a same sex group doing these things - the few women in the book never interact, in fact). Tolkein was a man of his time and a RC convert, so his views were polarized, I suppose, but LOTR has this effect of excluding women. I often felt the same reading books about boys' adventures - Sorry, derailing! There is a thread on this elsewhere in Books, I think.

Same here i remember asking why they were banned and I was told it was because of the character George in the famous five books, so i asked if they had any of her other books.but no when they banned an author they banned all their books. So because some Twitter had a bee in their bonnet about a character who was a tomboy i couldn't even get her bedtime stories to read to the girl I babysat 😡
Atleast I found out why my mum bought me so many of her books and I bought all the rest (even the ones I hadn't wanted as a child). My dd loved them and now wants them for her dc as the bloody library still has Enid Blyton on the banned list 40 years on 🤣🤣🤣.
The above is an example of censorship moving an adult book out of the children's section is not

It’s not a ‘blanket ban’ as I’m sure you know. The books are aimed at adults…so they have been relocated to the adult part of the library. No book burning to see here 👌🏻

Love it when there's a hyperbolic OP about "book banning" that's followed by countless posts calmly explaining that libraries have always curated / ensured that children's books are age approproiate.
Why is it that trans advocates are always so insistent on breaking down accepted safeguarding measures for children? This really needs some sort of investigation.

No investigation necessary. The motivation of PIE-adjacent TRAs who want to break down child/adult boundaries is clear.

I don’t think children should be taught that they can change sex because they can’t. Tips for anorexics would never be allowed so I think this is a good thing. We need to protect children from misinformation.

Exactly. Queer theory.

Ig benefits two sets of people
The hardcore TRA types who get to talk about book banning etc etc
The reform types who get to portray themselves as removing harmful/pornographic material from children's libraries.

In reality, as you say, libraries have always curated the children's section. Not allowing inappropriate material there is par for the course. So the reform councils message to Kent libraries didn't really do anything except get them yet more publicity. And generate more outrage. Which in turn helps the TRA types trying to persuade vulnerable children the world is out to get them.

Where I live there is a Labour council and the leader is forever making statements to the local press about something he's apparently done. It doesn't make the national news.

The mix of Reform and trans rights means that the BBC report on it like a major national issue.

I think it was because she was racist. It was always the ' queer foreigners' who were the baddies. ( Queer meaning peculiar/dodgy at that time) Not anything to do with George

You'd have thunk wouldn't you.

But that is exactly what force teaming LGB with TQIA+++ does. It deliberately places kink in the same sphere as LGB