Read Freely, authors sue APLS over rule barring transgender youth books in libraries

Read Freely Alabama and a trio of authors are challenging a new rule by the Alabama Public Library Service that prohibits Alabama libraries from acquiring books that contain any reference to transgender individuals.

The challenge, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, is being brought by authors Kit Rosewater, Page Powars, and Phoenix—all of whom have written books that Alabama libraries will not acquire because of the new rule—and Read Freely Alabama, the primary nonprofit that has been fighting the APLS policy in the state. They are being represented by Democracy Forward.

“The APLS Board's own subjective judgments about what is appropriate should not determine what materials all Alabamians can access,” said Angie Hayden, co-founder and Director of Public Relations for Read Freely Alabama. “That is not protecting children or parental rights. It is imposing government decisions on private family matters. Read Freely Alabama is joining this lawsuit because intellectual freedom is a right, not a privilege granted at the discretion of political appointees.”

The APLS board passed the new rule last year under the leadership of chairman John Wahl, who led the Alabama Republican Party at the time and tomorrow could be elected as the state's next lieutenant governor. It took effect on October. 1, although libraries can still receive full state funding by coming into compliance by June 2o27.

The policy dictates that books are “inappropriate for children and youth” if they contain “any materials regarding transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders.” Under the rule, libraries cannot acquire new material advertised for consumers under the age of 18 if the material matches this description, and if a library already keeps such materials in its collection, the materials must be moved to the adult section. If a library acquires such material, or fails to move previously acquired materials to the adult section, it becomes ineligible for state funding. 

“Instead of helping libraries provide books and services to the people of Alabama, APLS has begun compelling libraries to remove and exclude books from their shelves,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “We are honored to continue our work with authors and passionate readers to oppose unconstitutional censorship, and we are eager to defeat this unlawful attempt to undermine the right of Alabama parents and families to make decisions about what their children read.”

The lawsuit claims the rule violates the First Amendment on its face while also being vague and overbroad. The plaintiffs say the rule also financially harms authors. Each of the three authors who are plaintiffs in the case have books that have been requested by readers at Alabama libraries, but which could not be acquired by the libraries because of the threat presented by the censorship rule. All three of the books - Buried Feelings by Kit Rosewater, But I Hate Him by Page Powars, and The Hidden Continent by Phoenix McDonald - are advertised to readers under 18 years old, and by arbitrarily denying readers the ability to access the books, the rule hurts the sales of authors’ books. 

“The freedom to read is an American constitutional right, protected by the First Amendment. Buried Feelings was made a national Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and should be available to all readers and distributed equitably throughout public library systems,” Rosewater said. “But because the book features a transgender love interest, APLS has censured the title and prevented it from being in circulation. Families in Alabama deserve to decide what books their own children have access to, and imposing the personally-held beliefs of a few onto the masses of the public is not how a democracy works.” 

“But I Hate Him is not a book about being transgender. It is a sweet romance that happens to feature a transgender character whose identity is neither central nor extensively explored,” Powars said. “Yet this character's mere existence is enough to provoke APLS's condemnation, despite the book being requested by a patron, resulting in lost revenue for me, my representation, and my publisher. Transgender people are a minute fraction of the population, which raises the question: As Alabamians currently struggle with rising living costs, why is an agency tasked with providing free public resources fixated on this instead?”

“The Hidden Continent is the third book in a trilogy called The Talent Continuum. It is a story about friendship, love, and overcoming doubt for a disabled boy. All three books in the trilogy include representation of different types of disabilities, and diverse racial identities, as well as LGBTQ identities. To narrow it down to a single trans character when deciding to deny access to these books is to declare that visibility of all marginalized identities is something that should be inaccessible for those who deserve to see themselves represented in media,” McDonald said. “Excluding The Hidden Continent affects the readership for the entire trilogy, which will have an impact on me financially, as well. Libraries and other institutions will be less likely to carry any of the books without the third copy of the trilogy.”