1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

Repeal any administrative rule or policy that requires public libraries to remove or restrict books featuring transgender people from youth sections. These policies don't evaluate books on their actual content. They treat transgender identity itself as inherently inappropriate for children, and that is not a shelving decision. It is a statement about whether transgender people belong in public life. Transgender people are a natural variant of human diversity. We are parents, teachers, neighbors, and siblings. A book about a transgender child going to school is no more sexual than a book about any other child going to school. Grouping these materials alongside content restricted for being sexually explicit or obscene fuels exactly the kind of misunderstanding that puts transgender people, especially young ones, at risk. That misunderstanding doesn't stay abstract. It becomes harassment, isolation, and violence. Age-appropriate classification should be based on what a book actually contains, not on whether a transgender person appears in it. Librarians should never be forced to make ideological decisions under threat of losing public funding. Fix this.