This week read about a man who advocated banning LGBT books being charged with molestation in Missouri, and Mississippi passing an anti-trans bill.
Man Who Advocated for Removal of LGBT Books Charged With Molestation
The nationwide conservative call to ban books relating to sexuality and gender has made headlines for months. One advocate of the movement was arrested for child molestation and furnishing pornographic material to a minor.
Ryan Utterback, 29, joined many other parents at a school board meeting and argued that LGBT memoirs such as “Fun House” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” are not appropriate for kids. Utterback argued that books describing “sexual acts” should not be available to school-aged children, the Hill reports.
The library pulled two books but eventually returned them to the shelves after receiving heavy backlash.
Utterback has been accused of molesting a child under the age of 12 back in 2020 and allegedly began showing pornographic material to a child when they were just 4 years old.
The author of “All Boys Aren’t Blue” spoke out on social media.
“A man who said ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ was pornographic and inappropriate for his kids at a school board meeting has been charged with sexually abusing kids and giving porn to a minor,” George Johnson wrote. “Our books TEACH and give resources to kids about predators like him.”
Human Rights Campaign Condemns Anti-trans Bill
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The Mississippi House passed HB 1099, also known as the “Real You Act,” and will be voted on by the Senate.
The Human Rights Campaign released a statement on Feb. 4 condemning the bill. The legislation would ban people who are incarcerated from petitioning the court to legally change their gender or their name while serving their sentence.
The way that the bill was originally introduced would have banned all trans youth in the state from changing their legal gender marker. The bill as it stands now, the HRC says, is still an attack on transgender individuals.
“By advancing the ‘Real You Act,’ representatives have again made Mississippi an innovator in anti-transgender discrimination,” said Rob Hill, Mississippi State Director, Project One America. “This legislation is being pushed by anti-equality forces in the statehouse and not addressing any actual problem.”
The bill follows the recommendations of a policy paper written in 2015 by the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group. The paper recommends that legislatures bar trans individuals from obtaining legal identification that coincides with their gender identity.
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