Library policy under scrutiny in Kalona book ban debate

KALONA — Roughly 50 community members crowded into the Kalona Public Library’s meeting room Tuesday night, spectating a 2-hour work session of the library’s board of trustees. The library continues to juggle several requests that it remove the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, from its collection.

The board tentatively plans to make a decision on whether to remove the book at its next meeting the night of May 9. That choice may hinge on whether decision-makers adopt new policies to govern removal requests during the same meeting.

Board Member Jim Miller said the situation was delicate, with one group saying the library feels unsafe having the book on shelves, and another saying its exclusion would make them feel unwelcome.

“Whatever way we go, there’s going to be people that’s not going to like our decision,” Miller said. “It’s a lose-lose, it’s a Catch-22 for us.”

Neither side alone in its convictions

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Local debates on Kobabe’s work resemble a much larger, nationwide culture war. “Gender Queer” is currently the most banned book in the United States, according to the American Library Association, with politically charged debates over its content playing out in state houses, library board meetings and schools across the country.

The book details a story of self-discovery by the author, who identifies as neither male nor female, and is not heterosexual. It is the only Kalona Public Library book with a subject heading of “Gender-nonconforming people,” and one of four books in the library’s collection with a subject heading that contains the word, “Asexual,” according to a catalog search.

An increasingly vocal group of people have sent emails, made public comments, and submitted formal requests for reconsideration to the Kalona library, asking that “Gender Queer“ be taken off the shelves. Those advocates argue that at least six illustrations of nudity or sex acts in the graphic novel-style memoir constitute pornography, and allege that it is geared toward children, despite its placement in the adult non-fiction section.

“Because it is in a cartoon format with graphic imagery, that’s where it’s a problem,” said patron Andrew Lundstrom, who wants the book removed. “I think it should be a problem for the library to have something like that … It’s a teenager performing sexual acts, isn’t that child pornography? I almost fell out of my chair when I saw it.”

A subgroup of those critics claim the author’s transition away from conventional gender identity may cause younger readers to do the same, something they say would contradict Christian values and cause mental health problems.

“As a pastor with a number of young families at our church, I feel a duty to the next generation to protect them from the messages of self-doubt and questioning the way that God created them,” wrote the first request for reconsideration form submitted to the library. “I want to help build a community where our kids are safe and loved, and just the way God made them. Books like ‘Gender Queer’ put our kids at risk.”

Advocates said parental controls over their own children’s content were unsatisfactory, and that only the book’s removal would keep it away from minors during library visits.

While Gender Queer is hardly the library’s only work with depictions of sex, Library patron Shane Schwartz said he took issue with the use of images to do so.

“If the bible had illustrations like this, I would not want my kid to pick it up,” he said. “I should be able to go to the library and say, ‘Go pick out three books,’ without having to worry that (my kid) is going to see something and then … get fixated on it. And then there’s questions in his mind that have no appropriate explanation for years.”

A smaller, but still outspoken group of library users say the book has an essential place in the library’s collection, and vehemently oppose efforts to ban it from the collection.

Many of those patrons argue that the taxpayer-funded city library would effectively censor Kobabe’s memoir by omitting it from the collection. While community members could ostensibly find the book elsewhere post-removal, its ban from the Kalona Public Library would make doing so more time-consuming, and likely more expensive.

“I am deeply disturbed that members of the community, including and especially a Christian pastor, believe they should be able to dictate what books are available in a public library, and what others can and cannot read,” wrote one patron in an email to the library on April 17, one of several written messages provided to The Union with identifying information removed in response to a public record request.

“As the grandfather of a teenage, transgendered grandson and a friend to numerous fine, upstanding LGBTQ individuals, I think it’s a shame the Kalona Public Library doesn’t have more LGTBQ-positive books for people to explore and check out,” that email continued. “People have a right to decide what they want to look at or read; they do not have the right to dictate what others see and read.”

Another email said the book’s controversy was no reason to ban it, and suggested that those who disagreed with its contents simply avoid reading it.

“As citizens of a democratic society, we have the right and the privilege to decide for ourselves what books are appropriate for ourselves and our children,” it said. “This ban would set a dangerous precedent ... under the guise of protecting our children from content that there is no reason for them to access in the first place.”

Decision relies on policy, but clarity needed

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While most board members said they were not offended by Kobabe’s work, they said their decision would be based on library policy, rather than their personal opinions. That policy, however, focuses almost exclusively on how to go about adding new books, not how to consider their removal.

Iowa code defines “obscene material” as depictions of things likes violence and sex which are “patently offensive,” but only if “the material, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, scientific, political or artistic value.”

The language echoes that of the so-called Miller Test, a Supreme Court definition of obscenity reached in the 1973 case Miller vs. California. The criteria are notoriously hard to apply outside of a courtroom, a fact that may complicate the library’s efforts to set content standards.

Library Director Trevor Sherping said it would be nearly impossible to reach consensus on such standards for the board in Kalona. He gave an anecdote about a parent who once informally asked the library to remove all Marvel movies from the catalog, on the charge that they were pornographic.

“People come in and say it’s obscene, and they think because they think it’s obscene, it is,” he said. “I have to remind them that, no matter what you think about it, unless it’s like, legally obscene, it’s just a huge sliding scale … It’s hard for people because this may be the first time that they’ve considered, ‘What do you do with a book that you don’t agree with?’”

Those calling for the book’s removal, however, said it didn’t need to be so complicated.

“There’s a big difference between a scientific, or medical picture of nudity and a sexual picture of nudity,” said one person who wanted the book removed. “For me, I would like to see a policy that says, ‘Sexually explicit images of nudity, or of sexual acts — which are in that book — shouldn’t be permitted,’ … It’s also the larger community, like, I don’t want anyone’s child to see that.”

In any case, library officials said they needed to be cautious of what they called “soft censorship,” in which barriers would reduce a work’s circulation, even if it wasn’t removed outright.

That concern may rule out middle-ground resolutions like keeping the book in a locked case before checkout, or behind the counter where it would be available only upon request.

“It might be embarrassing for somebody to come up and ask the librarian for a specific book, but they might want that book,” Board Member Shirlene Seale said. “The other thing I was thinking was, at what point do you know when to stop putting things behind the counter? Because there … are quite a few books that are out there that are maybe not what I would want to read.”

Some library board members said they’d be comfortable adding books that critique transgender and nonbinary-centered gender theories to the library collection, but were far more hesitant about removing a book for its ideas.

Trustee board Vice President Kyle Askling said he wanted the library to serve as a marketplace of ideas.

“My concern is removing that viewpoint, because I actually learned something from that book,” he said. “I didn’t understand what it meant to be asexual. And it totally made me aware of it … I at least know where they’re coming from because of it.”

The library’s collection policy has content guidelines for its fiction collection, saying the institution should explicitly avoid works that are “merely sensational, morbid, or erotic.” It has no such stipulations in its adult non-fiction policy, however.

That doctrine leaves book removal criteria unclear, but decision-makers said they may reform it to tackle the issue at hand. The requests for reconsideration of “Gender Queer” are the first on record asking for a book’s outright removal from the Kalona library, putting the calls for action in uncharted waters.

“I personally think there needs to be a little bit more (guidance,)” Library Trustee Board President Frank Slabaugh said. “And I want to walk a fine line, because I don’t want to provide something so restrictive, but I personally believe there needs to be a little bit more there.”

Critics of the book said they had the same concern, arguing that an unenforceable removal policy made formal requests for reconsideration little more than a symbolic protest.

“They all agreed that there’s some content that’s too obscene for the library to have, and then they revealed that there’s no policy on what obscenity is,” Jordan Linscheid, a Kalona resident, said. “There’s either a problem of severe ignorance, or incompetence, or severe disingenuousness on the part of at least some members of the board.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com