A former teacher from Michigan recently found herself targeted by the anti-LGBTQ+ social media account Libs of TikTok, managed by Chaya Raichik, after she posted about banned books.
The ordeal started September 15, when Elizabeth Hatline, who quit her teaching position with DeWitt public schools to care for her twin toddlers in May after working for the district for more than a decade, shared a reel on Instagram featuring 19 books banned across different regions in the United States over the past year. Many of these books explored LGBTQ+ themes.
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Hatline told The Advocate that she intended to present these books as a message of awareness and choice.
“These are beautiful stories of identity and homes and families and belonging. If you want to read them, great,” she said.
At first, she said the feedback she got was great, but after Libs of TikTok reposted her video, it ignited a flame of discord that rapidly spread across social media platforms.
The post from Libs of TikTok read: “First grade teacher at @DeWitt_Panthers encourages teachers to read ‘banned books.’ Some of the books she promotes include teaching kids that they can be born in the wrong body, that they can be trans, pronoun books, and books that encourage discussions on gender identity. This is what they’re teaching your young kids in schools. If you oppose teaching 6-year-olds that they can be trans, they will call you a far right Nazi extremist book banner.”
As Hatline dissected the sequence of events, she recounted the initial confusion that evolved into a stark reality. “I started getting tags on Instagram that were not very kind...Then I realized that they had reposted it, and they had written my full name and tagged school.”
She continued, “These people were obviously not on my side. They were saying really horrendous, terrible, terrible things,” she shared.
The abuse extended beyond online name-calling, spiraling into a realm where safety became a concern.
Hatline said the school district where she previously worked received countless messages on social media, emails, and phone calls complaining about her being a “pedophile” and a “groomer.”
The ensuing chaos necessitated a law enforcement intervention within a day of Libs of TikTok posting about it. Hatline mentioned, “…there was a police officer at every single school on Tuesday morning.”
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She pointed out the irony of the situation, “…they act like you can’t read these books to kids because we’re going to protect them, and then you threaten to blow up my school.”
The ordeal, albeit harrowing, isn't going to stop her advocacy for diversity and inclusion, Hatline said.
They want to silence me and hundreds of other teachers that they have targeted, and we just, we cannot let [Libs of TikTok], that group of people win,” she explained.
“Everyone should get the right. I would never tell a parent that this book is right for your family because not every book is right for every family," Hatline said. "But you have to give these people and these kids the opportunity and the choice.”
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