NC County Board Dissolves Library Panel Over Refusal to Ban Trans Book

A board of commissioners in North Carolina decided earlier this month to dissolve the entire library board of trustees in response to that board refusing to remove a single book featuring a transgender child character from the shelves.

The 3-2 decision by the Randolph County Board of Commissioners was based, in part, on the debunked concept of “social contagion” — the belief that children, after seeing acceptance of LGBTQ people (particularly transgender people), will somehow become “infected” with the idea and seek to change their identities.

The book in question, “Call Me Max,” features a character who says he wants to be called a name that better matches his gender identity — Max. Randolph County library system alleged the book was “planting” the idea of being trans into children’s minds.

In October, in response to a parent’s complaint about the book, the Randolph County Public Library’s Board of Trustees voted 5-2 against removing or relocating the book in its libraries, with some trustee members describing such an action as being a “slippery slope” toward censorship.

“We adhere to the rules for the disposition of materials,” one library trustee member, Betty Armfield, reportedly said at the commission meeting in December. “We have the responsibility to serve all sides of issues.”

Armfield added that it was “parents’ responsibility to choose what they believe are appropriate books for their children.”

The commissioners’ vote means that the commission itself will likely have to appoint new members to the library board of trustees. Critics condemned the decision as being extraordinary.

“It’s a pretty dramatic response to wanting to have diverse and inclusive books on shelves,” said Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America.

Kyle Lukoff, the author of “Call Me Max,” shared in a social media post his distress at the trustees being removed.

“A library’s entire board of trustees was fired and replaced because they refused to ban one of my books. It’s so terrible,” Lukoff said on Instagram. “I just feel so bad for the people who live in that community and love their library.”

Over the past several years, school and community libraries have seen an increase in right-wing attempts to ban books, particularly those with LGBTQ and/or nonwhite characters. Bans on such books make it difficult for kids to feel seen and included, experts say.

“When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part,” Rudine Sims Bishop, sociology professor emerita at Ohio State University, wrote in a paper earlier this year.

Zane McNeill, former news writer at Truthout and current health equity and civil rights fellow at Lawyers for Good Government, also panned the Rudolph County commission’s actions.

“From 2023 to 2024, 25 percent of banned books in the U.S. featured LGBTQ characters or themes,” McNeill said in a statement to Truthout. “Librarians and library boards nationwide pushed back, calling these bans what they are: censorship.”

McNeill added:

This response by the County Board of Commissioners to dissolve the Randolph County Public Library’s Board of Trustees…shows a blatant disregard for the expertise of librarians, the importance of telling diverse stories, and the First Amendment right to share and encounter ideas. At a time when authoritarianism gains power by casting trans people as the ‘Other,’ every local struggle — from libraries to courtrooms, universities, and state capitals — matters.