Banning books in schools (4 Viewers)

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    Optimus Prime

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    Excellent article I thought deserved its own thread
    =========================

    On the surface, it would appear that book censors and censored authors like myself can agree on one thing: Books are powerful.

    Particularly books for children and teens.

    Why else would people like me spend so much time and energy writing them?

    Why else would censors spend so much time and energy trying to keep them out of kids’ hands?

    In a country where the average adult is reading fewer and fewer books, it’s a surprise to find Americans arguing so much about them.

    In this election year, parents and politicians — so many politicians — are jumping into the fray to say how powerful books can be.

    Granted, politicians often make what I do sound like witchcraft, but I take this as a compliment.

    I’ll admit, one of my first thoughts about the current wildfire of attempted censorship was: How quaint.

    Conservatives seemed to be dusting off their playbook from 1958, when the only way our stories could get to kids was through schools and libraries.

    While both are still crucial sanctuaries for readers, they’re hardly the only options. Plenty of booksellers supply titles that are taken off school shelves.

    And words can be very widely shared free of charge on social media and the rest of the internet. If you take my book off a shelf, you keep it away from that shelf, but you hardly keep it away from readers.

    As censorship wars have raged in so many communities, damaging the lives of countless teachers, librarians, parents and children, it’s begun to feel less and less quaint.

    This is not your father’s book censorship…..

    Here’s something I never thought I’d be nostalgic for: sincere censors. When my first novel, “Boy Meets Boy,” was published in 2003, it was immediately the subject of many challenges, some of which kept the book from ever getting on a shelf in the first place.

    At the time, a challenge usually meant one parent trying to get a book pulled from a school or a library, going through a formal process.

    I often reminded myself to try to find some sympathy for these parents; yes, they were wrong, and their desire to control what other people in the community got to read was wrong — but more often than not, the challenge was coming from fear of a changing world, a genuine (if incorrect) belief that being gay would lead kids straight to ruination and hell, and/or the misbegotten notion that if all the books that challenged the (homophobic, racist) status quo went away, then the status quo would remain intact.

    It was, in some ways, as personal to them as it was to those of us on the other side of the challenge.

    And nine times out of 10, the book would remain on the shelf.

    It’s not like that now. What I’ve come to believe, as I’ve talked to authors and librarians and teachers, is that attacks are less and less about the actual books.

    We’re being used as targets in a much larger proxy war.

    The goal of that war isn’t just to curtail intellectual freedom but to eviscerate the public education system in this country.

    Censors are scorching the earth, without care for how many kids get burned.

    Racism and homophobia are still very much present, but it’s also a power grab, a money grab. The goal for many is a for-profit, more authoritarian and much less diverse culture, one in which truth is whatever you’re told it is, your identity is determined by its acceptability and the past is a lie that the future is forced to emulate.

    The politicians who holler and post and draw up their lists of “harmful” books aren’t actually scared of our books.

    They are using our books to scare people.

     
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    I married my high school sweetheart, who is literally the only woman I’ve slept with. So I can’t really participate in your transgender fantasy hypotheticals.
    I knew that you would weasel out of answering as well as I knew my middle name.

    I've never met a heterosexual male who would answer "yes" to that question, in spite of claiming that "transwomen are real women."

    Nor should they. If they want to have sex with a person with a penis they are not heterosexual.
     
    I knew that you would weasel out of answering as well as I knew my middle name.

    I've never met a heterosexual male who would answer "yes" to that question, in spite of claiming that "transwomen are real women."

    Nor should they. If they want to have sex with a person with a penis they are not heterosexual.
    What does this have to do with the topic at hand?
     
    I knew that you would weasel out of answering as well as I knew my middle name.

    I've never met a heterosexual male who would answer "yes" to that question, in spite of claiming that "transwomen are real women."

    Nor should they. If they want to have sex with a person with a penis they are not heterosexual.

    Then what are they?
     
    What does this have to do with the topic at hand?
    Too late to play that card, sir! I was having a conversation with another poster when you jumped in here:

    1686588005728.png


    I don't mind you jumping in. I've enjoyed our conversation so far. We've talked about trans issues and you've participated fully. Too late for crocodile tears about the topic at hand.

    I get that you're married. So am I, very happily for more than three decades. But we won't go to heck, or have to sleep on the couch, if we speculate about a hypothesis of who we would or would not have sex with if we were not married. For me it is pretty easy:

    Salma Hayek: Yes
    Antonio Bandaras: No

    Lauren Boebert: Yes
    Rachel Levine: No

    Riley Gaines: Yes
    Lia Thomas: No

    St Pauli Girl Model: Yes
    Dylan Mulvaney: There isn't that much discount Bud Lite in the world, so NO.

    Because I've thought my beliefs through, I find it easy to answer questions about them.

    Then what are they?
    Great question. Usually the left is good for coming up with clever names for people with different sexual proclivities. They haven't come up with a name for men who like to have sex with women with penises. I suspect because they want to say or leave unspoken "well, they are heterosexual, because transwomen are just women like any other women, remember?"

    The most obvious first thought is "trans attracted," or "trans non-exclusionary," maybe. In introducing themselves, they might say "I like a girl with a something extra," or as an opening line, "let's sit down and talk about the first two things that pop up!"

    I don't judge them. To each his their own, is my philosophy.
     
    Was that an insult?

    I'm trying to figure out if you know what the word means.
    "You are stupid" is an insult.
    "You jumped to a stupid conclusion" is not an insult.

    I'm starting to believe that maybe your conclusion is the result of your condition.
     
    "You are stupid" is an insult.
    "You jumped to a stupid conclusion" is not an insult.

    I'm starting to believe that maybe your conclusion is the result of your condition.
    Ok, so you don't know, or pretend not to know what an insult is.

    Got it.
     
    I don't mind you jumping in. I've enjoyed our conversation so far. We've talked about trans issues and you've participated fully. Too late for crocodile tears about the topic at hand.

    I get that you're married. So am I, very happily for more than three decades. But we won't go to heck, or have to sleep on the couch, if we speculate about a hypothesis of who we would or would not have sex with if we were not married. For me it is pretty easy:

    Salma Hayek: Yes
    Antonio Bandaras: No

    Lauren Boebert: Yes
    Rachel Levine: No

    Riley Gaines: Yes
    Lia Thomas: No

    St Pauli Girl Model: Yes
    Dylan Mulvaney: There isn't that much discount Bud Lite in the world, so NO.

    Because I've thought my beliefs through, I find it easy to answer questions about them.
    But this diversion into who you or I would have sex with is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not transgender people pose a threat to women in restrooms.

    It’s a diversion to avoid admitting that your entire argument is a sham.

    I don’t think I’d want to have sex with someone with a penis. I’ve answered your question.

    Where does that take the conversation except back to the fact that the whole transgender bathroom issue is contrived?
     
    But this diversion into who you or I would have sex with is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not transgender people pose a threat to women in restrooms.

    It’s a diversion to avoid admitting that your entire argument is a sham.
    So, what are you claiming about my argument? That no women and girls have been raped by heterosexual men who dressed as women to get in their bathroom? That has happened many, many times in history. The difference is that dressing as a woman and going into the girls' room has been a crime, intended to prevent the more violent crime of rape. So there are many more cases of men being caught in women's rooms before they have a chance to assault anyone.

    My argument is why facilitate the violent crime by allowing men dressed as women in women's spaces? I'll provide examples of men and boys raping women having gained access by wearing women's clothes, if you insist. But I think it would be a stall on your part, because I think you know about them.

    What do you think this guy had in mind?



    Whatever it was, he did not get to do it, because Peru hasn't adopted this dress-as-a-woman-and-use-the-ladies-room policy.
    I don’t think I’d want to have sex with someone with a penis. I’ve answered your question.
    Thank you! Where do I go for my Dentist license, now?

    Of course you don't want to have sex with someone with a penis if you are a heterosexual male. Because, as a heterosexual male, you like women as sex partners.
    Where does that take the conversation except back to the fact that the whole transgender bathroom issue is contrived?
    It is not contrived. Plenty of women are uncomfortable with the idea of a man putting on a skirt and entering their bathrooms. That isn't contrived, it's factual.

    We are balancing one group of people's feelings and concerns against another group of people's feelings and concerns.

    On one side there is the very legitimate concerns that women have about men entering their bathrooms, and on the other side there is the very legitimate concerns that transwomen that they need someplace to go to the bathroom and that they will cause concern if they go into mens' rooms dressed as they prefer to dress and could be in danger if assault or rape.

    Now, I don't know if any transwoman has ever been required to go into a mens restroom and then been raped, but that does not mean that such a fear is not legitimate.

    My solution is the compromise that you resist: Individual bathrooms. The only objection that anyone could have to that is that they want people to be forced to forego their own concerns about safety so that transpeople don't feel that they are feared. It is a very controlling approach to an issue with a very simply solution.
     
    So, what are you claiming about my argument? That no women and girls have been raped by heterosexual men who dressed as women to get in their bathroom? That has happened many, many times in history. The difference is that dressing as a woman and going into the girls' room has been a crime, intended to prevent the more violent crime of rape. So there are many more cases of men being caught in women's rooms before they have a chance to assault anyone.

    My argument is why facilitate the violent crime by allowing men dressed as women in women's spaces? I'll provide examples of men and boys raping women having gained access by wearing women's clothes, if you insist. But I think it would be a stall on your part, because I think you know about them.

    What do you think this guy had in mind?



    Whatever it was, he did not get to do it, because Peru hasn't adopted this dress-as-a-woman-and-use-the-ladies-room policy.

    Thank you! Where do I go for my Dentist license, now?

    Of course you don't want to have sex with someone with a penis if you are a heterosexual male. Because, as a heterosexual male, you like women as sex partners.

    It is not contrived. Plenty of women are uncomfortable with the idea of a man putting on a skirt and entering their bathrooms. That isn't contrived, it's factual.

    We are balancing one group of people's feelings and concerns against another group of people's feelings and concerns.

    On one side there is the very legitimate concerns that women have about men entering their bathrooms, and on the other side there is the very legitimate concerns that transwomen that they need someplace to go to the bathroom and that they will cause concern if they go into mens' rooms dressed as they prefer to dress and could be in danger if assault or rape.

    Now, I don't know if any transwoman has ever been required to go into a mens restroom and then been raped, but that does not mean that such a fear is not legitimate.

    My solution is the compromise that you resist: Individual bathrooms. The only objection that anyone could have to that is that they want people to be forced to forego their own concerns about safety so that transpeople don't feel that they are feared. It is a very controlling approach to an issue with a very simply solution.

    All you’ve managed to do is prove me right - anyone going into the women’s restroom to assault someone is, in fact, a heterosexual male.

    There is no legal basis to discriminate against every single trans woman in the entire country because a heterosexual male might be hiding in a bathroom stall in one restroom out of a hundred million across the country.

    This is America, and we don’t limit people’s freedoms based on the statistically insignificant actions of an entirely different subset of people.
     
    All you’ve managed to is prove me right - anyone going into the women’s restroom to assault someone is, in fact, a heterosexual male.
    Yes, so let's not let them.
    There is no legal basis to discriminate against every single trans woman in the entire country because a heterosexual male might be hiding in a bathroom stall in one restroom out of a hundred million across the country.

    This is America, and we don’t limit people’s freedoms based on the statistically insignificant actions of an entirely different subset of people.
    We can take common sense safety precautions. Your willingness to sacrifice the safety of women and girls is appalling.
     
    Yes, so let's not let them.

    We can take common sense safety precautions.
    Ripping out every public restroom in the entire country to install individual bathrooms, to the tune of literal billions of dollars, is your idea of common sense? To stop an issue that doesn’t exist? That’s common sense?

    Common sense is admitting this really isn’t a problem and you’ve been played by right-wing media.

    Your willingness to sacrifice the safety of women and girls is appalling.
    I am all for doing more to protect women in ways that would actually be effective, and for limiting the actions of the people who are actually causing the problem.

    Women being attacked in the restroom by either trans women or heterosexual males pretending to be trans women is a statistically insignificant issue. Most women are sexually assaulted by someone they know, and not in a public restroom.

    How about some suggestions for that?
     
    Exactly.

    So, I didn't need to read something like "Lot's daughter took Lot's Salamander into her mouth and sucked it until it was fully erect so that she could put it into her tight virgin vagina."
    Ok? Same mental image anyway...
    Well, then you and Inigo enjoy agreeing with each other. I'll celebrate a world in which we are still allowed to disagree.
    Well, it's Inigo, me, and every well established English dictionary.
    Tribal cannot be a racial slur. While "tribe" can describe a particular ethnic/racial group, it can describe any and all ethnic/racial groups.
    Yes, which makes his mocking of the inferior tribal people very ironic, as was my point.
    You can speak condescendingly about any group of people, but that doesn't make "tribe" a racial slur. You can speak condescendingly about, say, the Irish, but "Irish" is not a racial slur.
     
    What do you think this guy had in mind?


    For the record, he was taking pictures. Got caught as he was leaving. Also worth noting, the school, Rosa de America de Huanacayo, is a girls' school. So he disguised himself as a student not to get into the bathroom, but the school itself.
     
    For the record, he was taking pictures. Got caught as he was leaving. Also worth noting, the school, Rosa de America de Huanacayo, is a girls' school. So he disguised himself as a student not to get into the bathroom, but the school itself.
    Noted!

    Not sure how that affects the point I made, but it's now in the record.
     
    Ripping out every public restroom in the entire country to install individual bathrooms, to the tune of literal billions of dollars, is your idea of common sense? To stop an issue that doesn’t exist? That’s common sense?
    "Ripping out." Drama much? We need to start spending more money on physical safety, because the societal limits that provided protection before are quickly being dispensed with.
    Common sense is admitting this really isn’t a problem and you’ve been played by right-wing media.

    I am all for doing more to protect women in ways that would actually be effective, and for limiting the actions of the people who are actually causing the problem.
    That sounds like the societal limits I was talking about. What are your ideas? I agree that if we can do it another way, it's best not to spend the money to make bathrooms individual.

    Tell me your ideas.
    Women being attacked in the restroom by either trans women or heterosexual males pretending to be trans women is a statistically insignificant issue.
    What are the exact figures you are basing that on?
    Most women are sexually assaulted by someone they know, and not in a public restroom.
    How about some suggestions for that?
    Put men (or women) in prison for long sentences the first time they assault a woman, or any violent crime. But that one especially. Don't let them have several bites at a the apple, or let the assaulted woman say she won't press charges because she fears he will be out on bail the next day.

    Have secure women's shelters, where women can be safe until their assailants are dealt with effectively. Transwomen need shelters also, just not the same as the ones for biological females, that would defeat the purpose.
     
    If you're honestly that sensitive, LA - LA,
    What do you mean by "that sensitive?" I get the impression that you're trying to belittle me, but since "sensitive" has 5 different dictionary meanings and even more different meanings in common usage, please tell me specifically what you mean when you say "I'm that sensitive."

    My impression is that you mean I'm emotionally fragile and I easily get my feelings hurt. If that's what you mean, then you don't need to worry, nothing you've said, or ever will say, hurts my feelings.

    I didn't call out your snark and the general disrespect and contempt you show others, because I'm "that sensitive." I called it out, because I make an active effort to treat everyone with respect, even people who disagree with me, so I expect the same in return from everyone to everyone.

    However, no amount of disrespect will ever keep me from being where I want to be, when I want to be there, and saying what I want to say when I'm there. To me it seems like you are either trying to provoke me or drive me away. If that's your goal, then you're wasting your words, time and energy, because you will never get either reaction from me.
    I don't think our conversations will be very productive.
    Our conversations can only be as productive as we both allow them to be. I'm fully confident that the way I interact with you and others is conducive to a productive conversation.
    Not to worry, most your your questions and points have already been answered.

    Post 88 answers your question about how my opt out/opt in idea would work.
    Your post 88 doesn't answer any of the specific logistical questions that I asked.
    It is very similar to the opt in/opt out for kids images being used in media and would require very little additional time or resources.
    Having parent opt/in on every book they check out involves a lot more logistical resources and considerations. On the use of kids images, that's a one shot thing. Doing that for every title for every kid is significantly different just for the simple reason that the transactional work load will be orders of magnitude more. There are other significant logistical differences, that's just the obvious one.
    Libraries cannot be "inclusive of all people," there are too many people and too many books.
    Yes they can be inclusive of all people. They don't have to have one unique book for every person. But they can easily have at least one inclusive book each for people of every skin color, ethnic group, religion, sexual and gender orientation, class and any other way that people group and classify people.

    That is an easily doable task, as long as exclusive and intolerant people don't try to block it from happening. Which is exactly where we find ourselves.
    They must be and are selective. One of the tools they use to select books is the Alex Award. In the case of "Lawn Boy" that system led to an inappropriate book being selected. A simply "Oops! Fixed that," would have saved a lot of back and forth.
    Why do you get to decide for everyone that they made a mistake in their selection? Why do you get to decide for all parents and children what books they can have access to?

    Why do you get to insist that an expansive and expensive database be created and maintained, so that you don't have to worry about what books your children might have access too?

    You're opt in/out idea seems like a massive nanny state endeavor that shifts individual parental responsibilities onto everyone else. My parents had no problem making sure I didn't check out books they didn't want me to read and they did that on their own. They didn't need the government to do it for them.

    I'm sure many, many more books have "heterosexual content" than "homosexual content."
    On that, we agree.
    I'm not concerned that "Lawn Boy" has homosexual characters, I'm concerned about how explicit it is. If the narrator in that book were female and she remembered fondly how the man she is having coffee with is the boy whose penis she fondled and sucked in fourth grade, I wouldn't be any less concerned. I wouldn't want my young daughter reading that and thinking that this is the way to make friends. I sure would not want my young son reading that and thinking that this should be his expectation of girls.
    Have you instructed your young daughter and young son not to read books like that? Have they disobeyed your parental instructions and read books like that? Has anyone forced them to read books like that?
    No, people should not avoid books because other people want to ban them.
    On that, we agree.
    It isn't about banning
    It is absolutely about banning books from school libraries. Even the people getting books banned, honestly and openly admit to that.
    "Lawn Boy" is available on Amazon, which makes it far from banned, but rather available to anyone with a gift card all over the world, with no age check or parental control. Not putting it on the middle school library shelf =/= "banning."
    Whether or not a book is available somewhere else is irrelevent as to whether or not a books is banned somewhere else. Keeping a book out of any place is banning that book in that place. Keeping any book off of middle school library shelves is absolutely = to banning books from Middle Schools. That's a logical and irrefutable fact based on the common definition of banning.

    For instance, guns are banned on airplanes. The fact that guns are allowed in other places, does not negate the fact that guns are banned on airplanes.
     
    Your post 88 doesn't answer any of the specific logistical questions that I asked.
    The answers to those very specific questions would be different for each district and each library.
    Having parent opt/in on every book they check out involves a lot more logistical resources and considerations. On the use of kids images, that's a one shot thing. Doing that for every title for every kid is significantly different just for the simple reason that the transactional work load will be orders of magnitude more. There are other significant logistical differences, that's just the obvious one.
    You're assuming that ever parent will opt in to the requirement that they approve every book that their kid checks out. I have a slight advantage of having worked in an elementary school and a middle school for fifteen years now, and most of them will not want to bother. Those that do self identify as the kind of parent who would complain about a book their kid checked out at the library. This stops them in their tracks. Both sides win.

    I believe that what what you really object to is parents having control over their kids reading. If I'm wrong about that, then tell me what system you believe should be in place so that parents control their kids' reading? Don't just say, "well NOT _____________!" Tell me what would work.
    Yes they can be inclusive of all people. They don't have to have one unique book for every person. But they can easily have at least one inclusive book each for people of every skin color, ethnic group, religion, sexual and gender orientation, class and any other way that people group and classify people.

    That is an easily doable task, as long as exclusive and intolerant people don't try to block it from happening. Which is exactly where we find ourselves.
    Really? There are libraries in which all of the books about people of color have been removed? Or is it that some of the books written by 21st century authors are concerning to some parents and they've questioned them?
    Why do you get to decide for everyone that they made a mistake in their selection? Why do you get to decide for all parents and children what books they can have access to?
    I don't. My plan makes that an individual choice, which would include an option NOT to choose, but to let the librarian choose.
    Why do you get to insist that an expansive and expensive database be created and maintained, so that you don't have to worry about what books your children might have access too?
    Because they are my children.
    You're opt in/out idea seems like a massive nanny state endeavor that shifts individual parental responsibilities onto everyone else. My parents had no problem making sure I didn't check out books they didn't want me to read and they did that on their own. They didn't need the government to do it for them.
    Kudos to your parents.
    On that, we agree.

    Have you instructed your young daughter and young son not to read books like that? Have they disobeyed your parental instructions and read books like that? Has anyone forced them to read books like that?
    I never objected to any books that my kids read. You have built this image of me in your mind as some kind of anti-book person. I'm pro-parental rights. Just as a man can support abortion rights, knowing he will never have one, I can support parental rights that I would not have used myself.
    On that, we agree.

    It is absolutely about banning books from school libraries. Even the people getting books banned, honestly and openly admit to that.

    Whether or not a book is available somewhere else is irrelevent as to whether or not a books is banned somewhere else. Keeping a book out of any place is banning that book in that place. Keeping any book off of middle school library shelves is absolutely = to banning books from Middle Schools. That's a logical and irrefutable fact based on the common definition of banning.
    Then they should stop calling them "banned books" and call them "Books banned from a small number of libraries." Or more correctly, "books that a small number of libraries choose not to shelve." Or even more correctly, "books some people objected to sometime, somewhere" because that is the requirement to be on the list of banned books.
    For instance, guns are banned on airplanes. The fact that guns are allowed in other places, does not negate the fact that guns are banned on airplanes.
    As they should be. There is a time and a place for everything. Airplanes are not the place for guns. School libraries are not the place for explicit descriptions and illustrations of oral sex, gay or straight. If a school district truly feels that it is vital to have such books available to kids, parents should know.

    They need to know for two reasons:

    1) So they know what kind of books their kids have access to.
    2) So they know what kind of people have access to their kids.
     

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