Mick Hartley

Yesterday we heard about Calderdale libraries in Yorkshire, where gender-critical books are hidden away lest they offend the LGBT community (well, the T community), or corrupt the young. I speculated that the problem was more widespread – and I wasn't wrong.

Libraries across the country are being advised to prevent LGBT people seeing “offensive” gender-critical books, the Telegraph can reveal.

Guidance shared as “best practice” among council-run public libraries suggests measures to be more inclusive, including hosting drag queen story hours and making toilets gender neutral, partly to relieve anxiety for women with “masculine” hairstyles.

Advice on handling “transphobic books” states that librarians should not promote works by gender-critical authors, while mitigating the “risk” that LGBT readers might encounter these “offensive” titles on shelves.

The guidance titled “Welcoming LGBTIQ+ users: advice for public library workers” also suggests that staff limit the number of gender-critical books they stock.

In a section of “transphobic” titles it states: “There have been a few titles published which claim to be ‘gender critical’ and argue for removal of trans rights.

“These authors and their work can be labelled transphobic, and the writers themselves Terfs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). We, along with many in the LGBTIQ+ community, find these books offensive.”

While no books are explicitly named, works such as Helen Joyce’s Trans and Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls are best-selling gender-critical titles, and Harry Potter author JK Rowling has been branded a “Terf” for her views on the trans debate.

While accepting that these books are legal and people may want to read them, the guidance for librarians states “we would recommend to be mindful of and not promote these books”, adding “think carefully about how many you want to buy, perhaps based solely on individual requests”.

The document claims that gender-critical titles are “lacking peer reviewed research”, advising: “Be especially careful to make sure you do not make mistakes such as putting them on LGBTIQ+ displays or sections where they might cause upset.

“You can interfile them in your general stock and those who want to seek out these titles can always do so via your catalogue without the risk of a LGBTIQ+ person coming across the book in a way that looks like it may be being endorsed.”

The guidance was produced in 2022 by an Islington “LGBTIQ+ library” called Book 28, founded by Southwark Council librarian Isadore Auerbach George, who drew up the advice with Lambeth librarian Colette Townend and academic Dr Elizabeth Chapman, whose doctoral thesis was on “provision of LGBT-related fiction to children and young people” in public libraries.

The guidance has been provided to staff working for local authorities, with Leicestershire, West Berkshire and Gateshead council making use of the advice.

The Book 28 advice is also shared on the websites of professional bodies the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland, and charity Libraries Connected, an organisation whose membership includes every library service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Advice suggests inclusive measures such as “adding a gender neutral toilet” or “gender neutralising a toilet” to “alleviate anxiety” for LGBT people, as well as “cisgender people who are gender nonconforming, like women who adopt more ‘masculine’ clothing and hairstyles”.

Guidance notes that “many children and young people are queer or will come to identify as queer”, and suggests events for young people including “drag queen/king storytimes”, for which there is a dedicated section with the Book 28 documentation.

It suggests that “at least a quarter” of stock for young adults could relate to LGBT issues, and contrary to the caution urged for gender-critical books, suggests that for LGBT volumes, libraries would benefit from “two copies of as many titles as possible”.

The triumph of the ideologues.

So the only "queer" books provided in these libraries will be those which promote the treatment of gay children by medical intervention, since they've been "born in the wrong body": in other words real conversion therapy, as opposed to the scare "conversion therapy" – ie talking and waiting – which the trans activists like to moan about.

It's outrageous.