Fort Collins Coloradoan USA TODAY NETWORK

Most members of the Poudre School District Board.of Education have no plans to get involved in restricting the availability of materials from school libraries, despite the eyebrow-raising comments and illustrations brought before them at a recent meeting.

Stanley “Cain” Young, founder of the activist group Task Force Freedom No-Co, displayed two blown-up color illustrations from the graphic novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir” that he described as “pornographic” during public comment at the school board’s April 8 meeting. The book is about author Maia Kobabe’s gender-identity journey.

Multiple Coloradoan journalists read the book in its entirety for context In reading the book, Coloradoan staff found it includes visual representations of sex acts, the domain name of a pornography website, explicit language and other material many find offensive or inappropriate for children.

Young asked the school board to give parents the right to limit their students’ access to “Gender Queer: A Memoir” and other materials they might find objectionable.

What s ‘Gender Queer’ about and why is it controversial?

The book is written as an autobiography, documenting Kobabe’s upbringing, childhood experiences and path

toward’coming out to.family and friends and identifying as nonbinary and asexual.

The bohk is a graphic novel and is illustrated throughout with comic bookstyle illustrations. Those illustrations include sex acts that were either experienced by Kobabe or were the subject of some ofKobabe’s fantas.ies.

Kobabe’s personal use of pornography is also described in the book,including listing one pfKobabe’s favorite pornography websites.

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“Gender Queer: A Memoir” was No. 1 on the American Library Association’s list ofmost-often banned or challenged books nationally in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and No. 2 in 2024.

Schools across the nation are grappling with a rise in efforts to censor books. Many districts have taken action to censor certain books, and states including Iowa and Florida have passed legislation aimed at removing books that describe sex acts or sexual ccmduct.

In Colorado, a new law that is awaiting the governor’s signature would prevent the district from banning that book or any other from school libraries based solely on the content of LGBTQ+ themes. The governor had not signed the bill as of April 25.

Which PSD schools have ‘Gender Queer’?

Young told members of the PSD Board of Education that “Gender.Queer: A Memoir” was available at Preston Middle School but did not say where. Thattitle was available in the media centers of two PSD gchools –                                                               Boltz Middle School and Fort Collins High School –                                                                              a PSD spokesperson said. Teachers and counselors often have books in.their offices, classrooms and other work areas in addition to those.that .ire used for instruction and

supplemental curriculum. Those books are not directly tracked by the district but are subject to the same policies regarding selection and availability as library materials, PSD spokesperson John Cope said.

Young asked what the literary value of “Gender Queer: A Memoir” is and called its availability a violation of federal obscenity laws.

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Young, a former Fort Collins resident now living in Windsor, has made similar claims about the availability of “Gender Queer: A Memoir” and other books in school libraries in other Northern Colorado school districts in recent years, including Thompson, Windsor-Severance and Greeley-Evans, according to published reports and his organization’s website.

What is PSD’s policy on the availability of books in schools?

Young’s comments at the April 8 meeting prompted the seven members of the PSD school board to review their district’s policies and procedures relating to the selection and availability of materials in school libraries or media centers. Six of the seven board members the Coloradoan contacted –    President Kristen Draper, Jim Brokish, Conor Duffy, Kevin Havelda, Carolyn Reed and Jessica Zamora –  said they supported those policies and did not believe they needed to be immediately revised. The seventh board member, Scott Schoenbauer, said he would support a review and possible revisions.

PSD’s criteria for selecting library materials, Cope wrote April 11 in an emailed response to the Coloradoan, is outlined in District Policy IJL. Cope said that criteria includes:

• “Supporting the curriculum and students’ information literacy.
• “Promoting imagination, creativity, and inquiry.
• “Encouraging the development of personal values and critical thinking.
• “Offering enjoyment during leisure time.”

“Library materials are chosen by trained library professionals and educators with attention to age appropriateness, literacy and educational value, and alignment with PSD’s instructional goals,” Cope wrote. “The selection process applies across all school levels –      elementary, middle, and high school.”

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The policy notes that media collections may include controversial subjects and says, “If the language and/or occurrence of sex or violence are necessary for and development of a plot in fiction or for accurate reporting in nonfiction, such media may be acquired provided the treatment or inclusion is not purposefully or sensationally exploited.”

Principals are responsible for approving materials used at their schools but may delegate selection to staff, Cope wrote in an April 25 email response to a follow-up question.

What do school board members think of the policies?

“Having reviewed the district’s policies and procedures, I think they are perfectly adequate to address these kinds of complaints,” Havelda told the Coloradoan. “I actually believe that this is a solution looking for a problem.”

Brokish said PSD’s policies for the selection and availability of books and other materials in its media centers was “appropriate,” Reed said they were “reasonable,” and both Duffy and Zamora said they were “comfortable” with them.

Draper, the school board president and manager of Poudre Libraries’ Old Town Library, said, “I’m comfortable with what we have in place. I think it’s working well.”

Schoenbauer emphasized that, “I’m not for book banning in any way.”

But, Schoenbauer said he believes the school board should “have another look” at the policies and procedures for the selection and availability of library materials, noting that none have been updated since 2009. He would like to see more transparency and an opportunity for input from parents and guardians, possibly through the existing District Advisory Board that includes a representative from each PSD school.

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“I’m not an expert, so I do respect the experts we have in our district and media centers who do this work,” Schoenbauer said. “I think we need to take a common-sense look at things, tone down the national rhetoric that gets everyone all fired up and come up with something we can all agree on. There’s a lot of different viewpoints, and I think they all have merit.”

One possibility, he said, is adopting an opt-out or opt-in approach similar to the district’s policy that requires signed parental permission slips before showing PG-13 or R-rated videos with “curricular objectives” in classrooms.

PSD’s policies on videos are based on the Motion Picture Association of America ratings and limit what content can be shown to students without parental consent based on their age and grade levels. This is the breakdown, from District Policy IJL:

• “Without a curricular objective, no PG-13 videos shall be shown to students under 13 or R-rated videos to students under 17.
• “No R-rated videos shall be shown to elementary or middle school students. • “If PG-13 videos are shown to students under 13 or R-rated videos are shown to high school students under 17 to enhance the teaching of a curricular objective, signed permission slips shall be received from the parents/guardians prior to showing the video.
• “No NC-17 or X-rated videos will be shown.”

Zamora said district policies and procedures should be reviewed and revised on a regular basis, “to ensure they align with our values” but didn’t feel the need to prioritize those pertaining to the selection and availability of library materials in response to the concerns raised by Young.

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Some district policies, including District Ends, Executive Limitations, Board-Superintendent Relationship, include schedules for regular review, Cope wrote. Others, including those that cover the selection and availability of books and other materials not connected to instructional curriculum, are only reviewed “based on need or request.”                                                                                                                  •

What recourse do parents have if they object to a book?

The current policy includes a process for formally challenging the availability of instructional or library materials, Cope wrote.

In response to a Coloradoan request, Cope said PSD has only received two formal complaints at the district level involving instructional or library materials at schools in the past five years. One was filed by an individual the district did not name in 2023, involving “Gender Queer: A Memoir” and 15 other books that were available at multiple PSD middle and high schools. The other was filed by “l family” in 2022 over a single book,

“Everything, Everything,” that was available at six middle schools; Timnath and Wellington middle-high schools; and three high schools. No formal complaints have been received about library materials available at district elementary schools.

PSD did not provide the reasons given for the complaints that were filed. Plot summaries from Amazon and the ALA suggest that many of the books include material that could be considered sexually explicit or sexually violent or feature LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

None of the challenged books were removed, Cope wrote, and the district

does not maintain any lists of titles that would require parental consent to check out or view or lists of students who must receive parental consent to view or check out any materials from district media centers. The library management system that allows users to view books students have checked out from school libraries can be accessed by parents or guardians, using a student’s ID and password, Cope wrote.

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“There haven’t been a lot of concerns, at least that have been brought to my attention,” said Reed, a school board member since 2015. “I would say maybe a handful.”

When concerns are raised, Cope said, a “structured process defined in District Policy KEC,” is followed.

“Complaints are reviewed by a team of educators, which may include media specialists and school administrators, with support from the District Media and Technology Support Center,” Cope wrote.

Schoenbauer said he is aware of several complaints that he learned about while serving on the District Advisory Board and now on the school board that never made it to the formal level. He would like to see the process for raising an objection to controversial material and addressing the concern clarified and simplified.

Each of the 16 books that were challenged in the 2023 complaint were available at PSD middle and high schools, with all but one available at multiple schools, according to the records shared by Cope.

Beyond “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” five of the other titles involved in the 2023 PSD complaint were on separate lists of the most-often banned or challenged books compiled annually by the ALA and in 2024 by PEN America.

What book titles have prompted complaints in PSD?

Here’s a list of books available in PSD school libraries in the past five years that were listed in the two formal complaints that were received:

• “A Court of Mist and Fury”by Sarah J. Mass
• “Almost Perfect” by Brian Katcher Advertisement
• “Everything, Everything” by Nicola Yoon
• “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Foer
• “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe
• “Grl2Girl” by Julie Ann Peters
• “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Piccoult

• “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon
• ” Sloppy Firsts” by Megan McCafferty
• “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” by Sherman Alexie
• “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
• “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy
• “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
• “The Truth About Alice” by Jennifer Mathieu
• “This One Summer” by Mariko Tamaki • “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins
• “Unravel Me” by Taherah Mafi Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan. com , x.com/KellyLyell, threads.net/ KellyLyell and facebook.com/Kelly-Lyell.news.