A Nationwide Book Ban Bill Has Been Introduced in the House of Representatives

HR 7661 is an anti-trans bill, and its provisions include banning books aimed at people under 18 that “contain sexually oriented material.” This is the same vague language used in many states across the country to ban books from public schools and public libraries. The bill includes “lewd” and “lewd” dancing as prohibited topics or themes. No such book exists for young readers, but facts are not important to a regime seeking total and complete control.

The bill further defines “sexually oriented content” as: anything I brought up the topic of “gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” The latter is an intentionally harmful word used as a cudgel to hurt transgender people. Such a broad definition also ensures that this type of legislation can be applied to any situation that benefits the banner. It’s not far-fetched to see a bill like this used to completely ban all books by or about LGBTQ+ people under the guise of “sexual orientation.”

The law would apply to institutions using funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, but there is little question that it would be expanded to include all public libraries, not just public school libraries. We are already seeing this very thing play out across the country.

The Katy Independent School District in Texas has banned books about “gender fluidity” amid a ban on “sexually explicit content.” Just last month, a Texas school district outside Houston banned more than 140 LGBTQ+ books based on this policy. The Greenville Public Library (South Carolina) banned all books aimed at people under 18 that included “trans” themes or topics, but the ban was later replicated and expanded at the York County Library (also in South Carolina) to include books about “gender identity.” The Greenville library was sued by the state branch of the ACLU on behalf of several library users.

These local-level policies, along with state-level policies such as Iowa Senate File 496 and Idaho House Bill 710, both of which are under consideration after numerous lawsuits, provided a roadmap for proposed federal book ban legislation. It was only a matter of time, and the continued onslaught of anti-trans laws and rhetoric that skyrocketed under the Trump-Vance administration made this the perfect moment.

Discussions about gender are not sexualization. Providing students with books that represent the diversity of their experiences and introduce them to different ways of being people in the world is not sexualizing them. Such an interpretation says much more about adults and the perspectives they apply to a book than it does about the book or its intended audience.

The full text of HR 7661, including a list of co-sponsors, can be read here. At this time, the best way to make your voice heard on this hateful and discriminatory bill is to call your Representative and urge them to veto this bill at every opportunity. There are years’ worth of resources available on where and how all these bills are calculated and covered, as well as numerous ongoing lawsuits challenging similar bills and policies at the local and state level. Let your legislators know that you are monitoring them and their voting records, especially if you are on the list of bill sponsors.