Georgia Librarian Fired After Displaying Book Featuring Transgender Child

A 15-year employee of a library in southern Georgia was fired from her position last month over her inclusion of a book featuring a transgender child in a display.

The display created by Pierce County Library Manager Lavonnia Moore was part of a statewide “color our world” summer reading program. Moore said that children contributed to the display, which featured media of varying colors.

“There were books, DVDs, games, and each and every one of them had at least a hint of a rainbow on it,” she said, speaking to The Georgia Recorder about her termination last week. “Because all the kids went to find rainbows. I was just happy that the kids knew where the books were. They even took the time to go into the card catalog to find books.”

One child asked Moore if she could include a book called “When Aidan Became a Brother,” by Kyle Lukoff, in the display. Moore said she was unfamiliar with the book, which features a transgender boy whose family is about to welcome another child.

“All I saw was Aidan becoming a big brother,” Moore said. “I saw a family with a kid wearing a rainbow sweater and the mom pregnant. It was a mixed family. I was like, ‘OK, sure, put it on the table.’”

The book’s inclusion in the display caught the attention of a far right religious organization called the Alliance for Faith and Family, which waged a social media campaign against Moore, calling on its followers to email the Three Rivers Library System and Pierce County elected officials demanding action against her. The group claimed the book was part of a “mental manipulation” to teach children “God made them incorrectly,” Georgia Public Broadcasting reported.

On June 18, Moore met with Three Rivers Library System Director Jeremy Snell, who told her he was firing her over the controversy.

Moore said she was “shocked” at the news of her termination.

“I broke down. In my mind, I was thinking to myself, ‘I was not going to tell a child no,'” she said.

“This was not about poor performance. It was about political pressure,” she told Georgia Public Broadcasting.

That the book included LGBTQ themes shouldn’t matter, she told other news outlets, noting:

The library is for everybody. You should be able to go into any library and feel welcome or at least find something that you will enjoy reading, doing or any resources.

Moore has started a GoFundMe page to help cover her living expenses and to mount a legal challenge to her termination. She has criticized the library system for firing her without hearing her side of the story.

“Instead of investigating, talking to me or my team, or exploring any kind of fair process, they used the ‘at-will’ clause in my contract to terminate me on the spot,” Moore wrote on her GoFundMe page. “No warning. No meeting. No due diligence. Just the words ‘poor decision making’ on a piece of paper after 15 years of service.”

The author of the book that led to Moore’s firing, Kyle Lukoff, has shared multiple links to news articles about her on his Bluesky account. He has also expressed his direct support for Moore, describing the library system’s actions as deeply unjust.

“Lavonnia Moore, the librarian fired for including one of my books on a display after a child requested it, sounds incredible,” Lukoff wrote in a post, “and what happened to her should be a crime.”