EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Schools Secretly Remove LGBTQ Book Amid Explicit Images Controversy
Tyler O'Neil /
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Public schools in a Northern Virginia county have quietly removed a pro-LGBTQ book after parents criticized it for sexually explicit images, The Daily Signal has learned.
Fairfax County Public Schools in the Washington, D.C., suburbs confirmed in emails to parent Stacy Langton that school libraries across the county had removed the book “Queer: A Graphic History,” by Meg-John Barker.
“I’m surprised they did this quietly, without notifying me, the public, or the LGBTQ community,” Langton, a 55-year-old mother of two children at Fairfax High School, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “I assume it’s because it has become such a politically charged issue, that they did not want to hand me what looks like a victory—especially with only days to go before the presidential election!”
She suggested this news may impact the election, where former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, trails Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris by 5.8 points in the RealClearPolitics average.
Virginia became ground zero for the debate over parental rights in education during the 2021 gubernatorial election in the Old Dominion. Republican Glenn Youngkin prevailed over the Democratic nominee, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, after McAuliffe said, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions,” adding: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
“Virginia is in play for President Trump,” Langton told The Daily Signal. “We the parents have put up with three years of indoctrination of our children in the schools. The only person who is going to stop Queer Theory and Gender Ideology is Donald Trump, and parental anger in Virginia will help him win here on November 5th, just like Glenn Youngkin won in 2021.”
LGBTQ Book Removed
Langton had repeatedly condemned “Queer: A Graphic History” as sexually explicit in remarks at School Board meetings. She faulted the book for including a graphic illustration of the sexual practice known as “pegging,” which reverses the traditional male and female sexual roles.
She also faulted “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe for including similar sexual illustrations (including a fantasy of a sex act between an elderly man and a teenage boy).
Langton had filmed a video testimony for a School Board meeting on Oct. 24, mentioning “Queer: A Graphic History,” but the school district refused to include her video in the meeting. (Langton ended up testifying in person, anyway, but the school district’s refusal revealed the book’s removal.)
Christina Setlow, clerk of the Fairfax County School Board, sent Langton an email that afternoon citing “indecent and profane content” in her remarks. She clarified that the content related to “Queer: A Graphic History” and added that the book “is not a part of the [Fairfax County Public Schools] curriculum at any grade level and is not maintained in any FCPS library.”
Langton found the book’s absence from the libraries curious. She shared with The Daily Signal photos she took at Fairfax High School at the end of April 2023, in which “Queer: A Graphic History” appeared in a display encouraging students to “try an LGBT book!”
Langton suggested that FCPS avoided the usual process by which parents and others can challenge books in the public school libraries. Noël Klimenko, assistant superintendent of the school district’s Instructional Services Department, confirmed that the libraries followed a separate process, weeding out “Queer: A Graphic History” either at the end of the 2022-2023 school year or the 2023-2024 school year.
Klimenko added a longer explanation in a followup email. She claimed the book never faced a challenge, but said, “Librarians made the decision to weed “Queer: A Graphic History” from their collections due to outdated terminology that is no longer used in the LGBTQ+ community.”
“They determined that there are other books in their collections that provide accurate, up-to-date information on LGBTQ+ history that were superior sources of information on this topic,” she added.
“The illustrations in this book are no different than the illustrations in ‘Gender Queer,'” Langton told The Daily Signal. “They explicitly show X-rated and deviant sex acts. All books with this type of pornographic material MUST be removed from our schools. They are violating federal obscenity laws.”
Fairfax County Public Schools approved gender ideology lessons in June, endorsing a PBS video that tells kids that “there are people who are trans, or people who don’t have a gender.”
‘Gender Queer’ Controversy
Fairfax County Public Schools previously removed “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy,” a novel by Jonathan Evison, after they faced an official challenge. “Lawn Boy” includes long sections of a boy reminiscing about sexual experiences he had at 10 years old.
In November 2021, the school district announced that it had restored the books to libraries after two committees reviewed them. One committee found that “Lawn Boy” includes themes that “are affirming for students” with marginalized identities. “There is no pedophilia in the book,” the committee added. The other committee found that “Gender Queer” depicts “difficulties nonbinary and asexual individuals may face.” The committee concluded that “the book neither depicts, nor describes pedophilia.”
An FCPS spokesperson told Fox News in 2022 that the committee decided “the books did not depict pedophilia, nor contain pornography.”
Langton told The Daily Signal that she plans to file a new challenge to “Gender Queer” once the timeline for the previous challenge expires.
The school district did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment in response to Langton’s claims.