Silenced for Speaking Up: When Opposing Explicit Materials for Children Triggers Free Speech Restrictions in New Jersey

When the topic is children having access to s[*]xually explicit or otherwise inappropriate materials in school and public libraries, free speech in New Jersey is frequently restricted. Boards cut off parents reading from the books themselves, deny public comment, end livestreams, and even silence fellow elected board members. The pattern is consistent and documented.

Two recent examples illustrate the problem clearly.

In Freehold, the Public Library Board of Trustees held a special meeting on August 5, 2026. The agenda focused on personnel matters involving Library Director Kathy Mulholland after an independent investigation into workplace concerns. Those concerns included the director’s stance allowing patrons to view p[*]rnography on public computers, including in view of others and children. Despite a motion from Freehold Borough Mayor Kevin A. Kane (Democrat) to allow public comment, the board voted against it. Attendees were left to protest as they left the room. I stated, “So much for free public speech in a public library,” and received audible support from others present. A board member claimed the board values free speech; the reply was that a vote against public comment demonstrated otherwise.¹

The library’s own Code of Conduct reinforces the problem. Adopted March 26, 2024, it lists among prohibited behaviors: “Obvious consumption or sharing of obscene content in the library.” By limiting the ban to obvious consumption, the policy implies that non-obvious (discreet) viewing or sharing of obscene material is permitted. This is consistent with reports that the director treated the viewing of p[*]rnography on public computers as acceptable so long as it was not blatant. A policy that effectively allows obscenity inside a public library—including potentially in the presence of children—is the opposite of protecting minors.²

In Bridgewater-Raritan, elected Board of Education member Jeremy Li has repeatedly been shut down when he attempts to place inappropriate library materials or parental notification measures on the public record. Video from a recent meeting shows Li speaking about prohibiting visual or explicit written descriptions in elementary and middle school libraries. The superintendent and board president walked out. The public stream was then ended. Li has described earlier instances in which a recess was called and his microphone cut mid-speech while he advocated for a parental notification amendment that would allow parents to prevent their own children from checking out s[*]xually explicit books. The amendment did not remove any books; it sought to put parents “back in the driver’s seat.”³

These are not isolated incidents of “decorum.”

Elected Officials Silenced

Jeremy Li’s experience is particularly significant because he is an elected official exercising oversight. The board is supposed to oversee the superintendent, not the reverse. When discussion of library materials is terminated by walkouts and by ending the public record, the public is denied the very transparency school boards are required to provide.

Parents and Citizens Silenced

In Wayne Township in October 2021, parent Pamela Macek stood at the podium during public comment and began reading passages from Gender Queer: A Memoir, a book available in the high school library that contains explicit illustrations and text. Within approximately 14 seconds, Board President Catherine Kazan interrupted her, stating it was inappropriate with young people present and that she should “verbalize [her] complaint without reading the book.” Macek continued. Her microphone was cut. She kept speaking without it. The president called for police assistance and threatened to clear the room.⁴

The Freehold denial of public comment follows the same logic: the substance of the complaint (children’s exposure to p[*]rnography on library computers) is treated as grounds to restrict speech about it.

Even Discussing an Ethics Complaint Is Restricted

In North Hunterdon-Voorhees, I filed an ethics complaint in October 2024 concerning the board’s handling of school library materials. When I attempted to discuss the status of my own complaint at subsequent meetings, I was shut down—first by the board attorney, later by the board president—over speculative concerns about confidentiality or potential defamatory statements. A prior speaker who criticized the same complaint was allowed to speak. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reviewed the record and sent a letter to the board. FIRE described the selective enforcement as viewpoint discrimination and unconstitutional. The letter asked the board to rescind any policy or practice that prohibits referencing ethics complaints and to allow commenters to discuss relevant district matters.⁵

Why This Pattern Exists

The consistent silencing of parents, citizens, and even elected board members who object to s[*]xually explicit materials for children is not random. It follows directly from American Library Association policy.

In its official interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights titled “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” the ALA states that “all people, of all ages, should have equal and equitable access to all library resources and services.” It explicitly declares that policies preventing minors from accessing the same resources and services as adults violate the Library Bill of Rights. Article V of that document provides that a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” The ALA interpretation treats any restriction based solely on age, apparent maturity, or educational level as a violation of that principle.⁶

Under this framework, efforts to keep inappropriate materials away from children are reframed as age discrimination. Libraries are instructed not to act in loco parentis; only parents may restrict their own children’s access. The practical result is that public and school library boards, trained and guided by ALA standards, treat parental concerns about explicit content as an attack on intellectual freedom rather than a legitimate request for age-appropriate standards. When citizens or board members challenge that orthodoxy, the institutional response is often to shut down the discussion itself.

How to Fix This

The silencing of parents, citizens, and elected board members is a downstream effect of a single upstream decision: the adoption of American Library Association policy as if it were binding law.

It is not.

The Library Bill of Rights and its interpretations—including the one that treats age-based restrictions as discrimination—are internal documents of a private trade association. They have no force of law. No statute requires any public library or school library in New Jersey (or anywhere else) to follow them. Boards that claim they are “powerless” to keep inappropriate material away from children are not powerless. They have simply chosen to subordinate local authority to ALA guidance.

The remedy is straightforward:

1. Remove all ALA policy from library and school board policies. 

Delete the Library Bill of Rights, every interpretation of it, and any language that incorporates ALA standards on intellectual freedom, access for minors, or collection development. These documents function as the camel’s nose under the tent, pictured top right. Once adopted, they are used to argue that any effort to protect children is censorship or age discrimination.

2. Return to local law, community standards, and common sense.

Public libraries and school libraries operate under state statutes, local ordinances, and the authority of elected or appointed boards. Those boards have both the legal power and the responsibility to set age-appropriate standards, require parental consent where appropriate, filter content, and remove materials that violate community standards or applicable law (including New Jersey’s obscenity statutes regarding minors, like N.J.S. 2C:34-3).

3. Assert that authority clearly.

Boards should adopt policies that explicitly state they are not bound by ALA guidance and that decisions about materials available to children will be guided by local community standards, parental rights, and the best interests of minors—not by a private organization’s ideological framework.

Libraries are not required to treat a 10-year-old the same as a 40-year-old. They never were. The claim that they must do so comes from ALA policy, not from the US Constitution nor New Jersey law. When boards delete that policy and reclaim their own authority, the institutional pressure to silence parents and dissenting board members loses its foundation.

The power has always been local. It simply has to be exercised.

———

Endnotes

1. Freehold Public Library Board of Trustees special meeting, August 5, 2026. Contemporaneous reporting and video documentation of the vote against public comment; Shore News Network, “Head Librarian Who Allowed P[*]rn Use on Computers Faces Uncertain Future in Freehold,” August 6, 2026; contemporaneous posts from attendees including the author.

Freehold Public Library Board voted NO to public comment about the director allowing p**n to be viewed in the facility

One guy said so much for free public speech, I shouted out about it too, the people should be able to speak! https://t.co/c6NMhO9K0j pic.twitter.com/dEshlY3T6E

— Wake Up NJ 🇺🇸 New Jersey (@wakeupnj) August 6, 2026

2. Freehold Public Library, Library Code of Conduct, adopted March 26, 2024, p. 3. Available via the library’s Services page: https://freeholdpubliclibrary.org/services.php (Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-UeGKjZIV35sAhQEs9h4UOaMYW7C0QGh/view). The policy prohibits only “Obvious consumption or sharing of obscene content in the library.”

3. Video of Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education meeting showing walkouts and the stream being ended while Jeremy Li addressed library materials; Jeremy Li public statements and Facebook posts describing earlier microphone cuts and recesses during discussion of a parental notification amendment for s[*]xually explicit books (2025–2026).  Start at 1:37:36 and go to 1:45:32.

4. ProPublica, “The Conservative Transformation of the Wayne Township School Board,” June 29, 2023 (detailing the October 2021 meeting); TapInto Wayne and local coverage of the October 7, 2021 Board of Education meeting, including video of the interruption and microphone cut while Pamela Macek read from Gender Queer.

5. Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), “New Jersey school board shuts down speaker for discussing his own ethics complaint,” June 18, 2026. The article documents the selective restriction on discussion of my October 2024 ethics complaint regarding North Hunterdon-Voorhees Board handling of school library materials and FIRE’s formal letter to the board.

6. American Library Association, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/minors (accessed August 2026). The interpretation states that policies preventing minors from accessing the same resources as adults violate the Library Bill of Rights and that any restriction based solely on age violates Article V.

—

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Has Public Education Become a PSYOP??

Has Public Education Become a PSYOP??

In the 1938 play Gas Light, a husband dims the lamps while insisting nothing has changed, driving his wife to question her sanity. Over the past several years, a scaled-up version of this tactic, called “gaslighting” has unfolded systemically in America's public schools and libraries.

Systemic gaslighting is widely recognized as a form of psychological warfare (also known as psychological operations or PSYOPS). Definitions and examples appear consistently in psychology, sociology, military doctrine, and historical analysis. The aim to of a PSYOP is to distort perceptions of reality, induce self-doubt, demoralize targets, and achieve nearly unbreakable control or dominance without using physical force.

Systemic and organized gaslighting is demonstrated by activity scaled beyond individuals to institutions including schools and libraries, media in any form, governments on all levels, and corporations. It involves coordinated repetitive manipulation, characterizing valid concerns as abnormal or denying observable patterns, and the rewriting of shared history, events and reality —to make groups question their collective sanity, memories, perceptions and/or even lived experiences. This creates a "surreal" environment where the intended powerful narrative becomes the only one allowed.

So what's the allowed narrative? 

Thousands of books available to children give subtle hints or come right out and say that children may not be the sex they think they are. 

"But having a penis isn't what makes you a boy. Having a vulva isn't what makes you a girl." (p. 71 Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg)

"Maybe you're called a boy but you know you're a girl. You know how girls are treated and what they do. That's how you want to be treated and what you want to do."(p. 84 Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg)

"Maybe you're called a girl but you know you're a boy. You know how boys are treated and what they do. That's how you want to be treated and what you want to do" (p. 84 Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg)

That's 662 pages of gender confusion in one children's book in thousands of public libraries. 

                                    Why would any children's

              book have 662 pages? 

(Editor's Note) Not sure why the downloaded version shows this page count, but the hardback version page count is 160 pages, pointed out by a reader. 

Same question applies...why would any children's book have 160 pages? Does anyone believe a first grader will read 160 pages to themselves? 

Social Transitioning of Children Did Not Occur in a Vacuum

Public schools became primary vectors for the systemic gaslighting. Over 1,000 U.S. districts—educating millions of children—have adopted policies allowing or requiring staff to socially transition students (new names, pronouns, bathrooms, clothing, access to therapists) without parental notification. In California and New York, frameworks explicitly state students control their "transition" at school, even against family wishes. Teachers act as de facto therapists offering affirmation, often hiding "gender support plans" in separate files kept secret from parents. The public school curriculum and library materials flooded the children with content regarding sexual orientation, gender ideology, promotion of early sexualization, sexually explicit descriptions and illustrations, and separation form parents and families.  WorldCat (the world's largest library catalog, covering thousands of U.S. libraries) shows thousands of titles with subject headings like "Transgender people," "Gender identity," "Transgenderism," or related terms. Thousands of those books are available in public libraries available to children, and in school libraries where parents cannot see what the child is reading or able to view.

Schools justified secrecy by claiming parents might be unsupportive, equating normal caution with abuse. This inverts reality: concerned parents exercising basic oversight become the villains, while institutions insert themselves as the child's true guardians.

Add in Critical Race Theory, Anti-Capitalist Ideology, and Social Activism and stir with Gender Ideology. 

This mirrors classic psychological warfare.

The children suffered, but the PSYOP raged on 

Has the PSYOP had any impact? Decide for yourself...

The numbers reveal an unprecedented social contagion. Across the United States, diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children ages 6–17 nearly tripled from 2017 to 2021, totaling more than 121,000 cases in that period alone. Referrals to gender clinics exploded—sometimes 500% or more in a few years—with a sharp shift toward adolescent females, many with comorbidities like autism, trauma, or mental health issues. Earlier years had far lower rates.

The most comprehensive and widely cited source is the 2022 Reuters/Komodo Health analysis of claims covering ~40 million pediatric patients annually (from a broader pool of ~330 million patients):

• 
  2017: 15,172 new Gender Dysphoria diagnoses
• 2018: ~18,321 (approximate, part of steady rise)
• 2019: ~21,375
• 2020: 24,847
• 2021: 42,167 (70% increase from 2020)

Cumulative 2017–2021: At least 121,882 unique minors newly diagnosed. These are undercounts, as they exclude out-of-pocket care, uninsured cases, or undiagnosed individuals

Oddly enough, the DSM-V reclassified “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria” in 2013. Why change a diagnostic category for a disorder that affected less than 0.014% of boys (roughly 5-14 per 100,000) and less than 0.003% (roughly 2-3 per 100,000) of girls at that time? (Bright Path, April 27, 2025 ed.) The incidence was a clinical rarity, and yet the DSM IV required revision for this particular diagnosis.

Did this all start in 2013?

What kind of coordinated effort would it take to see a 70% increase in one year?

These statistics are not representative of a organic cultural evolution.

It's not just the diagnosis, it's the SURGERIES...

2019–2023 (5 years) — Do No Harm Database (most recent detailed claims-based analysis): 5,747 unique minors underwent gender-affirming surgeries. This includes ~4,160 breast removals (mastectomies) and hundreds of genital procedures (e.g., ~660 phalloplasties reported in some summaries). Total gender-related interventions (surgeries + hormones/blockers): 13,994 minors.

2016–2020 (4–5 years) — JAMA Network Open study (national hospital data): 3,678 gender-affirming surgeries for ages 12–18.

~3,215 chest/breast procedures (vast majority).

~405 genital surgeries. Overall US gender-affirming surgeries (all ages) rose sharply in this period.

2019–2021 (3 years) — Reuters/Komodo Health insurance claims: At least 776 mastectomies on ages 13–17 with prior gender dysphoria diagnosis. 56 genital surgeries in the same group.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

This coordinated psychological operation (PSYOP) is aimed at reshaping young minds on gender and sexuality while undermining parental authority and biological reality with a consequential breakdown of society as a whole. 

"Only boys and girls? What about the rest of us?"

(Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg) 

This book, and thousands of others like it that promote gender confusion are In the Children's Section of thousands of public libraries and schools. 

WHAT EXACTLY DID IT TAKE TO TALK THOUSANDS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN INTO GENDER DESTRUCTION SURGERY WITH 

NO RESEARCH TO BACK IT UP? 

Doctors who deliver babies 

might not know what they are 

looking at and can't tell the

difference between boys and girls.

(Sex is a Funny Word

by Cory Silverberg) If even the doctor can be 

confused, then it's surely ok for children to wonder.    

Mechanisms of the PSYOP

First, narrative engineering and term redefinition. 

"Gender-affirming care" sounds compassionate but often means puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries with weak or no evidence/research to support the outcomes. According to a U.S. Health and Human Services Report in 2025, comprehensive peer-reviewed analysis found significant long-term risks for impact on bone density, fertility, sexual function, and cognitive development and "very weak evidence of benefit" for puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries in minors. Despite the lack of research into the long term effects of this unprecedented care model for minors, considerable resources in health care and education were devoted to promoting the ideology and interventions, using                         children as the pawns on the chessboard. 

Destruction of gender is redefined as affirmation. 

The second mechanism of a PSYOP is pathologizing resistance. 

Pathologizing is the "practice of viewing or characterizing normal human behaviors, emotions, or variations as medically or psychologically abnormal, disordered, or diseased." 

Parents who dare to object face smears, job threats, legal action, accusations of harming their children with their "oppressive" views, and are publicly blamed as group for youth suicide rates—despite evidence that social transition and medicalization do not clearly reduce long-term mental health risks and may exacerbate them via medical complications or regret. This is a prime example of systemic organized gaslighting pushed by media and organizations that promote the PSYOP in our public schools and libraries. 

Observable explicit material in children's sections becomes "diversity." 

According to PEN America (organization that tracks book challenges) any challenge to a book is a "book ban." "PEN America has documented nearly 23,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, a number without precedent. Learn more about the dangerous mix of activist groups and vague legislation has led to this wave of censorship in our latest report. " 

The PEN report states "This right – the right to discover – is being taken from students under the guise of their “protection.” Over the past four years, a misleading campaign to “protect children” alongside advocacy for “parental rights” has been weaponized to diminish students’ First Amendment rights in schools, sow distrust in librarians and educators, and diminish the ability of authors and illustrators to connect with their intended audiences. In this upside down world, any rights of young people as students are somehow subservient to the absolute rights of their parents." 

This is good time to revisit the definitions of gaslighting. 

The American Library Association(ALA) also tracks "book challenges," labeling parental requests to review or relocate explicit titles as "bans" or "censorship". In 2025, ALA reported thousands of challenges, with a large share involving gender/sexuality books. According to the ALA, along with the schools and libraries that subscribe to the organization’s policies, parents expressing concern about sexually explicit materials, including trans ideology, being given to their minor children without parents knowledge or  permission, are not exercising oversight; they are “banning books” or “promoting censorship" while violating children’s “Freedom to Read” whatever the library wants to give them, at any age the school or library chooses, regardless of parental objection.

Questioning rapid-onset gender dysphoria of ROGD (linked to social media and peer influence) or the reversal of decades of sex-based child development knowledge makes one a "Transphobe." 

  

GenSpect.org

The third mechanism of a PSYOP is exploiting authority and repetition. 

Schools, backed by federal guidance in prior administrations, unions, and activist medical groups (The American Medical Association, The American School Counselor Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics) normalize the idea that children as young as preschool can "know" their gender identity contradicts biology, and that parents do not have to be informed by the school. Curricula was developed to teach sex as a spectrum, "chest binders" as harmless, the virtue signal of inclusion, and resolution of gender dysphoria as rare—contrary to historical data where most childhood dysphoria resolved on it's own by age 18.  Repetition via activities, books, clothes, make-up, video games, clubs, events, parades, entertainment, media, movies, cable TV, streaming apps, music, and social media apps creates the "pseudo-reality." 

Thousands of public school classrooms have symbols of LGBTQIA+ ideology visible to students of all ages

ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

If everyone affirms, your child's confusion must surely be innate identity, not social influence or underlying mental issues, and certainly not "confusion." 

This is warfare, not merely manipulation

Intent and scale cannot be ignored.  

Individual gaslighting seeks personal control. Systemic versions are organized campaigns (e.g., coordinated messaging, institutional policies, or elite-driven narratives) designed for much broader impact: silencing dissent, maintaining false hierarchies, or shaping public behavior over a generation. This matches PSYOPS doctrine exactly.

Classic PSYOP objectives

Psychological warfare mechanisms rely on repetition to normalize falsehoods until they feel true, or until reality is questionable (boys can be girls by identifying as female, children get to choose any of 42 genders, day in-day out in classrooms, special events, parades, constant displays) promoted authority (institutions/media heralded as the "trusted" source and parents hearing “Trust the experts” 24 hours a day).

The goal is dependency on the gaslighter’s intentionally altered version of reality. As a predictable consequence of the plan, confused children turn to affirming adults at school. Parents, gas-lit into self-doubt are caused to hesitate ("Am I harming my child by questioning any of this?" and “Would you rather have a dead son than a living daughter?”).

The institution becomes the top of the false hierarchy installed by the PSYOP and parents become the outsiders having to fight straight up a sheer cliff to restore their children and their parental rights.

Now a PSYOP has Control In the Real World

We all face daily organized gaslighting in state-level disinformation, political propaganda, corporate cover-ups, cultural institutions redefining norms until there no longer are any. Terms including grammar standards are altered at will, including pronouns, and new words like “Cis” and “misgendered.” The ALA framing parents as “censors” and all library reviews as "book bans" is an dual example of redefining terms and pathologizing resistance with intention to gaslight parents on a systemic level. 

The ALA claim that anyone is banning books or committing censorship with regards to children's access is an more deeply misleading layer of systemic gaslighting and contributes to the PSYOP. There's no truly banned books in the United States. Any book can be ordered at any time, no adult has restricted access to any materials. Moving a book about blow jobs and anal sex out of the children's section and into the adult section is not banning the book, nor is it censorship, according to Ginsberg v. New York (1968). 

That's gaslighting on a whole new level

It all erodes collective trust in evidence, senses, or community standards--classic demoralization warfare.

In public education, this PSYOP manifests through deliberate, repeated efforts by schools, libraries, teachers' unions, medical organizations, and aligned media to promote gender confusion—particularly among impressionable children—while framing resistance as irrational, uncaring, or harmful. The ALA keeps a “hate map” on it’s website to redirect parents away from any resource that might support them in questioning the achieved new reality.

The Kansas State Library Handbook refers to anyone, including parents, as "censors" if they are challenging the placement of a obscene book where children can get to it, and proclaims alignment with the ALA, when the previous 2017 edition referred to Kansas statues as the guidance for policies and compliance. 

The battlefield is the classroom, where perception itself is the prize and the kids are not coming home with trophies.

Public education and children’s libraries in America have functioned as primary medium for one of the most ambitious psychological operations in modern history, fitting every definition and historical comparison. Through coordinated curricula embedded through all levels of education, thousands of ideologically loaded books, calculated undermining of parent's rights, secret social transitions, political enforcement, and institutional gaslighting of both children and parents, an entire generation has been subjected to systematic confusion about biological reality, parental authority, and their own bodies. The inexplicable explosion in gender dysphoria diagnoses, irreversible medical interventions on minors with lifelong complications including sterility, and severed family bonds did not occur organically—it was engineered.

Legacy of a PSYOP

• Key Long-Term Changes:

  • Destruction of trust in schools, libraries, medical institutions, experts, and trusted adults who insisted “gender-affirming care” was settled science and that children were in danger if parents didn't affirm the PSYOP, with disastrously life altering consequences. 
  • Deepened Polarization and Division: PSYOPs thrive on “us vs. them” narratives. Once entrenched, these fractures persist through echo chambers, weakened social cohesion, and hardened ideological lines, making national reconciliation difficult. Families are fractured, communities are divided, and any questions are labeled “hate.”
  • Normalized New Norms and Policies: Operations that begin as messaging can successfully become “common sense” — even when later evidence contradicts it — embedding altered attitudes in policy, culture, education, public behavior and law—boys in girls’ sports and bathrooms, irreversible surgeries on healthy adolescents, and the rewriting of basic biology as “inclusion."
  • Psychological and Cultural Residue: Populations often experience lingering anxiety, moral injury, and a pervasive “psyop realism” — the belief that reality itself is manipulated. Generational effects are common with younger people, whether observers or victims,  carrying transformed worldviews shaped by the operation. Already evident among the American young: elevated mental health crises, physical and emotional regret, escalating suicide rates, de-transition stories and court cases now emerging, and a entire generation taught to distrust their own eyes, their parents, and their bodies.
  • Institutional blowback: Schools and libraries that weaponized “diversity” against biological reality now face plummeting public confidence, lawsuits, and parental exodus to homeschooling and private options. When a PSYOP ends, society rarely returns to its pre-operation state. These coordinated efforts to shape perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors through propaganda, media, disinformation, or targeted messaging leave deep, likely irreversible traces. 

No matter how hard fought the end, a concluded PSYOP does not simply fade away. It reshapes the information environment, incentives, and collective psychology in lasting ways. Recovery requires transparency, counter-narratives, scientific data and time — but once public trust is broken and new norms are installed, reversing the damage is very slow and uncertain. The greatest enduring risk in open societies is the normalization of psychological manipulation itself and a legacy of public doubt.

Just as the husband in Gas Light could not restore his wife’s sanity by simply turning the lamps back up, society cannot undo the damage by quietly shelving a few books or tweaking policies. The surreal environment created by this PSYOP—where parents are villains, doctors “can’t tell” the sex of a newborn, and children are manipulated to reject their own biology—has already reshaped lives and a generation’s understanding of reality.

The only path forward is relentless truth-telling: biological sex is real and binary, most childhood gender distress resolves naturally, and parents—not schools, not libraries, and not political powers—hold primary authority over their children’s upbringing. Public education must be reclaimed from ideological capture before another generation is sacrificed on the altar of this experiment.

Not only must the lamps be turned back on immediately- the entire house must be rebuilt- on reality, evidence, and unequivocal parental rights.

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Public Library Books Instructing Children How to Masturbate on the Shelf for Kindergartners

Request for Reconsideration Led to 

Relocation in Children's Section 

"Like other holes in the body, the anus

is usually very sensitive, which means it

can feel good to touch but can also hurt

if we are rough with it" (p. 63)

Sex is a Funny Word (Cory Silverberg) 

p. 64 shows "grown up" clitoris and vulva in 

a book in the Children's section

The process began with a standard reconsideration request under the Hays Public Library's Objections to Books or Materials Policy. I asked for a sexually explicit book to be placed in the Adult section or in a future Parenting section. The book, Sex is a Funny Word (Cory Silverberg) was on the shelf in the Young Adult section, accessible to 9 years old and up. 

After working through the reconsideration process, the request was denied. The Director then took action and moved it to Children's section of the library—exposing preschoolers and early elementary grade students browsing open shelves near computers and play areas to pages and pages of instructions and encouragement to masturbate, intended as sex education for children too young to read the text or understand the illustrations. 

I appealed the Director's denial to the Board of Directors per library policy. After nearly an hour in Executive session and a statement by the Board attorney, the Board Chair asked if anyone wanted to appeal the Director's decision to place this book in the Children's section. 

The silence was deafening

The board denied the appeal by sitting in total silence, some looking at the table and some staring straight ahead. .By doing so, the board assumed responsibility for the new placement of Sex is a Funny Word in the Children's section at the Hays Public Library. 

In the December meeting where I made my appeal to the Board, some members did speak up during discussion. One member asking "Why did we put this book in the Children's section?" The Director responded "That's where it is in some other libraries." The Mayor stated "How can we know which books are ok" and "maybe we need to get some professionals in here to help decide which books are ok?" In this meeting, total silence. 

The copyright page of the book shows that the title is for ages "7-10," however there is no objective criteria that the publisher is required to follow when making that determination. The library then relies on the publisher's designation to defend placement of the book, completely ignoring Community Standards as required by Kansas law (Read more about the Policy Shell Games here) and common sense when it comes to exposing children to mature themes. 

This was not neutral curation. The director had the option to maintain status quo by denying the request for reconsideration and leaving the book where it was. Instead, action was taken, Choosing the youngest patron section possible in total disregard for the book's content including graphic descriptions and illustrations of sexual organs, encouragement of masturbation, and presentation in a colorful illustrated format appealing to prurient curiosity for children. 

There's more....

It's Perfectly Normal is not normal in the Children's section

"It's Perfectly Normal" (Robie H. Harris, Michael Emberley) is also on the shelf in the Children's section at HPL, where little kids can go right from Dora The Explorer and books about dinosaurs to looking at these illustrations alongside text that is clearly written for much older readers. 

The text has much of the same verbiage as Sex is A Funny Word, but with even more detail and graphic descriptions of how "after a bit, a person's vagina becomes moist" and "after a bit, a person's penis becomes erect."                 

This book in the Children's section lists different kinds of intercourse, including vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse.  The intention of       these two titles is sex education, but the placement 

in a section where children who 

cannot read the material negates any educational value of the materials.

The industry standard for a child's book is 32 pages, in part because a parent has to read to the book to the child and the child's attention span is well researched and limited. "It's Perfectly Normal" has 128 pages, and Sex is a Funny Word has 157 pages. Books of this length are not typically provided for reading to a child, and both of these books are written to appeal to those above the age range for the Children's section.                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Hays Public Library is not the only library intentionally placing books like this in the Children's section. Libraries all across the State of Kansas are placing the books in the same area and fighting to keep them there.                

WHY?

What does Kansas law say?

Obscenity to Minors Under K.S.A. 21-6401

K.S.A. 21-6401 defines "obscene" via the three-prong Miller v. California test (1973).The test looks at the whole work (not just one part). It uses local community standards (not national ones) for the first two parts.  Kansas laws (like K.S.A. 21-6401 on promoting obscenity and K.S.A. 21-6402 on material harmful to minors) build directly on this Miller test to define and regulate obscene or harmful content, especially to kids.

Any material is "obscene" if all three prongs are met:

(A) The average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.

• Prurient interest = shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion (Roth v. United States, 1957; reaffirmed in Miller v. California, 1973)

What is the intention of these excerpts from Sex is a Funny Word?

• pg 25: "Sex is something people can do to feel good in their bodies"                               → Introduces sex primarily as a source of physical pleasure.
• pg 28: "Part of sex is feeling joy and pleasure."                                                                → Reinforces pleasure as central to sex.
• pg 46: "If I could be naked all the time I would"                                                                 → Normalizes desire for constant nudity.
• pg 48: "Some people love the feeling of being naked. When you are naked you can see and touch your body without clothes getting in the way."                                                  → Links nudity directly to unrestricted touching and visual pleasure.
• pg 60: "Some nipples are sensitive, and some are not. Nipples can feel very good to touch" (with illustrations labeled kids and grown-ups)                                                       → Explicitly states that touching nipples feels "very good."
• pg 61: "Like nipples, some people's breasts are sensitive and can feel good when they are touched" (illustrations of kids and grown-ups)                                                             → Extends pleasure claim to breasts, including children's bodies.
• pg 62: "Like other holes in the body, the anus is usually very sensitive, which means it can feel good to touch but can also hurt if we are rough with it" (illustrations)                  → Describes anal touching as potentially pleasurable, normalizes that touching may be "rough."
• pg 64: "The clitoris can be very sensitive, and touching it can feel warm and tingly" (illustrations of vulva/clitoris/vagina)                                                                                  → Describes clitoral stimulation as producing pleasurable sensations.
• pg 66: "Like the clitoris, the penis can be very sensitive, and touching it can feel warm and tingly" (illustrations of penises, some erect)                                                               → Describes penile stimulation as pleasurable, with visual depictions of erection.
• pg 107: "You may have discovered that touching some parts of your body, especially the middle parts, can make you feel warm and tingly. Grown-up call this kind of touch masturbation. Masturbation is when we touch ourselves, usually our middle parts, to get that warm and tingly feeling."                                                                                            → Explicitly defines and normalizes masturbation as a pleasurable self-touching activity.
• pg 108: "When you were younger, you may have discovered that it felt good to touch yourself. You may have done this even when you weren't alone."                                    → Suggests masturbation can occur in non-private (that means PUBLIC) settings and feels good.

In Summary for the 1st Prong (A)

Taken as a whole, the book Sex is a Funny Word repeatedly frames sexual body parts and self-touching as sources of pleasure ("feel good," "warm and tingly," "very good to touch"). Illustrations of children's and adults' genitals, nipples, breasts, and anus reinforce this focus. This emphasis on sexual pleasure could be found to appeal to prurient (shameful/morbid) interest in sex. Books intended for education do not typically focus on pleasure in this way.

B) the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance has patently offensive representations or descriptions of:

(i) Ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse or sodomy; or (ii) masturbation, excretory functions, sadomasochistic abuse or lewd exhibition of the genitals; and..

In Summary for the 2nd Prong (B)

• pg 60–66: Detailed descriptions and illustrations of touching nipples, breasts, anus, clitoris, and penis, with statements that these areas "can feel very good" or "warm and tingly" when touched.
• pg 107–108: Explicit definition and normalization of masturbation as touching "middle parts" to achieve pleasurable "warm and tingly" feelings, including the suggestion that children may have done this publicly when younger.
• Comic Book Style Illustrations: Labeled drawings of children's and adults' genitals (penis, vulva, clitoris), nipples, breasts, and anus—some showing erection or sensitivity focus.

The material contains patently offensive representations and descriptions of masturbation and lewd exhibition of the genitals (detailed illustrations and positive framing of touching private parts for pleasure). In Ellis County, Kansas, such explicit depictions and encouragement to masturbate in a book for very young children would likely be viewed as patently offensive. Publishers assume parental involvement or guidance during the reading or viewing of sexual education materials, which would require age-restricted check outs or placement in a Parenting section.

(C) taken as a whole, a reasonable person would find that the material or performance lacks serious literary, educational, artistic, political or scientific value;

(2) "material" means any tangible thing which is capable of being used or adapted to arouse interest, whether through the medium of reading, observation, sound or other manner;

In Summary for the 3rd Prong (C)

• The book is presented as educational (sex education, body positivity, boundaries), but the excerpts focus heavily on pleasure from touching genitals, masturbation, and nudity rather than purely biological or safety-focused information.
• For the target audience of the children's section, detailed pleasure-based discussions of masturbation and genital sensitivity lack serious educational value. These passages go beyond basic anatomy into explicit arousal descriptions.
• The illustrations of children's genitals and statements normalizing childhood masturbation ("when you were younger, you may have discovered...") could be seen as lacking serious value for very young children who could only be toddlers or Kindergartners in younger years.

The pleasure-centric focus on masturbation and genital touching, described using words like "clitoris" and "anus" could lead a reasonable person to find that—taken as a whole—the book lacks serious educational value for children especially when considering that some of age ranges viewing books in the children's section are not old enough to read the book at all, let alone be mature enough for the content. The prurient emphasis outweighs any redeeming value for preschoolers and early elementary ages.

Reckless = Disregard for Substantial Risk

K.S.A. 21-6401. 

Promoting obscenity; promoting obscenity to minors. (a) Promoting obscenity is recklessly: (1) Manufacturing, mailing, transmitting, publishing, distributing, presenting, exhibiting or advertising any obscene material or obscene device;

(2) possessing any obscene material or obscene device with intent to mail, transmit, publish, distribute, present, exhibit or advertise such material or device;

(3) offering or agreeing to manufacture, mail, transmit, publish, distribute, present, exhibit or advertise any obscene material or obscene device;

(b) Promoting obscenity to minors is promoting obscenity, as defined in subsection (a), where a recipient of the obscene material or obscene device or a member of the audience of an obscene performance is a child under the age of 18 years.

The statute requires only "recklessness"—disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the conduct will promote obscenity to minors. 

(e) Evidence that materials or devices were promoted to emphasize their prurient appeal shall be relevant in determining the question of the obscenity of such materials or devices. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that a person promoting obscene materials or obscene devices did so knowingly or recklessly if:

(1) The materials or devices were promoted to emphasize their prurient appeal;

The book's repeated emphasis on how touching genitals, nipples, breasts, anus, and masturbation produces pleasurable sensations ("feel good," "warm and tingly," "very good") constitutes promotion emphasizing prurient appeal.

With this action, the disregard for risk was obvious. The book was moved from a section for teenagers to a section for Elementary students and pre-school ages. By placing it in the Children's section rather than simply denying the reconsideration request and keeping it in Young Adult (reserving access for older minors while shielding younger ones), the Director showed knowing disregard for the substantial risk of escalated exposure to children by promoting the book to an audience even more likely to experience that prurient appeal defined in Kansas law.  The board's denial of appeal ratified this choice, showing collective disregard for the now increased risk of exposure to even younger children, including Pre-K. 

In Ellis County—in a conservative Kansas community—graphic depictions of sexual organs and masturbation in a children's book would offend prevailing standards.

"Educational" claims crumble for preschoolers: no serious value justifies exposing 4-year-olds to mature sexual concepts.

Legal Definitions in Multiple Statutes 

Support Consistent Interpretation 

During public statement, the library's attorney stated that K.S.A. 21-6402 (Harmful to Minors) does not apply to libraries, meaning that any criminal prosecution could not use that statute as a basis. That is correct, however a more protective and productive clarification would have included the overlap in definitions with K.S.A. 21-6401.  

The definitions in the Harmful to Minors statute (K.S.A. 21-6402) overlay heavily with the Promotion of Obscenity to Minors statute (K.S.A. 21-6401) and help interpret what counts as prohibited content under the broader, non-commercial latter statue that does apply to libraries. By disregarding the intention and spirit of the legal definitions included in K.S.A. 21-6402, the attorney may have missed an opportunity to educate the Board and Director, as well as the public, regarding the statute that shares those definitions and the policy requirements in following the law with regard to promoting obscenities to minors. 

K.S.A. 21-6402's definitions flow into K.S.A. 21-6401's analysis—helping establish that content like these books about masturbation and genital-pleasure sections could be "obscene" for younger ages in a non-commercial setting like a public library. That overlap strengthens any recklessness argument under 21-6401(b) and weakens the library's conditional defense if policies don't adequately restrict access.

The shared concepts are almost identical: prurient appeal, patently offensive sexual depictions (including masturbation and lewd exhibition of genitals), and lack of serious value. Material that are obscene under 21-6401 (full Miller test) will always qualify as "harmful to minors" under 21-6402's variable standard (inspired by Ginsberg v. New York).

Courts interpreting K.S.A. 21-6401 can look to 21-6402's definition as persuasive guidance for what Kansas considers "patently offensive" or lacking value to minors. The explicit pleasure-focused language and illustrations of sexual organs in the excerpts (e.g., masturbation defined as touching "middle parts" for "warm and tingly" feelings, genital sensitivity resulting in sexual pleasure, public masturbation) make it easier to argue that Sex is a Funny Word and It's Perfectly Normal meet K.S.A. 21-6401's stricter obscenity test when made accessible to young children.

No one has to prove it would harm small children to see these books

Kansas courts have never required "scientifically certain" proof of harm for such laws to apply, in line with Ginsberg v. New York, 1968.  A reasonable belief in risk suffices. Placing explicit material in the Elementary school section ignores that risk entirely and robs parents of any choice over what their children see at the public library.

The policies of the library make it very difficult for parents to exercise the responsibility they are entitled to, both in the Community and by law. 

The library policy states that children younger than 9 years old must have a parent or legal guardian present, but that means that a daycare provider can bring in 5 or 6 children under the age of 8 after school and it's not realistic that one adult can see what the children are seeing when excitedly browsing through books, expecting turtles flying space ships but seeing a drawing of erect penis instead. 

The Public Library policy is that all ages have access to all materials, because to do otherwise would be censorship, but that's not accurate

In Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a New York law which established the concept of "variable obscenity"—material can be regulated differently for children than for adults. The ruling affirmed the state's power to protect minors' welfare and support parental authority in child-rearing, without invading protected First Amendment expression for adults or minors in a way that amounts to censorship.

The Court held that the restriction was constitutionally permissible because it targeted only minors and did not interfere with adults' rights to obtain or distribute the material.

In short, the case stands for the idea that narrowly tailored limits on minors' access to sexually explicit (but not fully obscene-for-adults) material are not impermissible censorship—they serve compelling state interests in child protection. This reasoning has influenced later laws on "harmful to minors" materials, including in Kansas where the definitions of obscene materials in K.S.A. 21-6401 Promotion of Obscenity to Minors are cross-referenced with K.S.A. 21-6402 Harmful to Minors

Why are these books in the Children's section?

If a book is in a section where the children are too young to be educated by it, and it's not censorship to move it, why is it there?

Moving books with illustrations of sexual organs and descriptions of sexual activity to a parenting section would show the library's commitment to:

• Alignment with Parental Authority: The U.S. Supreme Court in Ginsberg v. New York (1968) affirmed that "parents' claim to authority in the rearing of their children is basic in our society" and that states (and by extension, public institutions) may enact reasonable measures to support parents in discharging that responsibility (390 U.S. at 639). The Court emphasized that while ideal supervision of children's reading is left to parents, "the knowledge that parental control or guidance cannot always be provided and society's transcendent interest in protecting the welfare of children justify reasonable regulation" (id. at 640). Variable standards for minors' access to sexually explicit materials are not censorship but a way to reinforce parental discretion.

• Practical Support for Existing Policy: Hays Public Library's Parent’s Guide and Service Policy already place responsibility for guiding children's exposure on parents/guardians. Moving the books to a Parenting section (Adult) would allow parents to be more responsible for what their children view in the library and prevent accidental access which opens the library up to scrutiny in application of obscenity standards by Kansas law. 

• Community Standards and Precedents: In Ellis County and similar Kansas communities, concerns about young children's unsupervised access to explicit illustrations (e.g., couples in sexual positions or pleasure-focused descriptions of genital touching) are common. Other libraries have successfully implemented similar relocations, restricted access, or parental-consent mechanisms for sensitive topics without violating intellectual freedom principles. Moving sex education books to a Parenting section maintains open access while addressing developmental appropriateness for children, consistent with expert guidance on delaying detailed sexual content.

• No Impact on Intellectual Freedom: The books would not be removed, restricted for adults/older patrons, or labeled as "banned." This respects the Library Bill of Rights while honoring the Court's view in Ginsberg that such targeted supports for parents are constitutional and beneficial.

If the books are supposed to be educational, then they must be kept in a Parenting section where parents can decide at what age their child is ready for that topic.   

                          

Parents should be able to trust the library, not have to fight to protect their kids from it. 

"Constitutional interpretation has consistently recognized that the parents' claim to authority in the rearing of their children is basic in our society, and the legislature could properly conclude that those primarily responsible for children's wellbeing are entitled to the support of laws designed to aid discharge of that responsibility." Ginsberg v. New York P. 390 U. S. 639.

These books would not be considered offensive in a Parenting section where parents could decide when their child is ready for this information and images or the promotion of masturbation and sexual activity. In the Children's section, they are highly offensive and without any educational value because of the misplacement with regard to ages served in that area. 

Parents don't have to prove to the Library Board of Directors that the materials are offensive. The Library Board has to prove to parents that the library can be trusted to protect parent's rights to decide when their child is exposed to sexual materials. 

Kansas libraries are taxpayer-funded public institutions. Parents entrust them to actively protect children's moral development. Parents expect to exercise their own rights to decide what sexual materials their children will see and when they will see them. 

It defies common sense that books written and illustrated the way that these books are would be purposely placed in view of young children under the guise of "education" when many of the kids in that age group can barely read, and others are not old enough to read yet at all. 

It's not about whether a court of law would determined if the materials fail the Miller test. It shouldn't come to that, and it wouldn't come to that if Community standards were respected or even considered at all. 

When boards and directors completely disregard the exposure of young children to sexual materials—especially after formal challenge—they don't potentially violate just the statute, but the trust of families and the community as a whole. 

Sources cited:

Objections to Books or Materials Policy

Obscenity to Minors Under K.S.A. 21-6401

K.S.A. 21-6402 (Harmful to Minors)

Roth v. United States, 1957

Miller v. California, 1973)

Ginsberg v. New York, 1968.

Ginsberg v. New York P. 390 U. S. 639.

Policy Shell Games Hides Parents' Rights

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