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A North Carolina library board was dissolved after members refused to pull a book about a trans boy from the collection.
“It’s a pretty dramatic response to wanting to have diverse and inclusive books on shelves,” PEN America’s Kasey Meehan said.
A county government in central North Carolina has dissolved its entire public library board after trustees voted to keep a children’s picture book about a transgender character on library shelves, turning a local book challenge into one of the most severe reprisals yet in the national campaign against LGBTQ-inclusive materials.
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The Randolph County Board of Commissioners voted 3–2 last week to dismiss all members of the county library board, weeks after trustees declined to move or remove Call Me Max, a picture book about a transgender boy who asks his teacher to use his chosen name. The decision followed a public hearing that drew nearly 200 residents and revealed a community split almost evenly between those calling for the board’s removal and those urging commissioners to respect the library’s review process.
Library staff and trustees had reviewed the complaint earlier this fall and, in October, voted to keep the book in the children’s section, concluding it complied with the county’s collection policies, local CBS affiliate WFMY reported. Commissioners nonetheless moved to dissolve the nine-member board outright — a step allowed under North Carolina law but rarely taken.
Free-expression advocates said the action represents a dramatic escalation in the political response to book challenges. Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, told The Washington Post that Randolph County’s decision is among the harshest penalties she has seen imposed over a single title.
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“It’s a pretty dramatic response to wanting to have diverse and inclusive books on shelves,” Meehan said.
Opponents of the book claimed the dispute was a matter of child protection. Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the conservative North Carolina Values Coalition, which urged supporters to attend the commission meeting, argued that Call Me Max teaches children that their parents may be “wrong” about their gender.
The book has been banned by several school districts and was prominently invoked by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 while promoting his so-called “don’t say gay” legislation restricting classroom discussions of gender identity, a law later challenged in court.
To critics, the Randolph County episode demonstrates how procedural safeguards are increasingly overridden when LGBTQ+ inclusion is at stake. Kyle Lukoff, the book’s author, who is a trans man, said the case is especially troubling because the library followed its own policies and was still punished.
Related: Alabama state libraries may ban books that 'positively depicts' transgender subjects
“Policies can be helpful, but this is ultimately a question of power,” Lukoff told The Post. “If there are people in power who believe trans people don’t belong in their communities or the world at large, they will twist those policies to make it a reality.”
Randolph County, home to about 150,000 people, voted nearly four to one for President Donald Trump. Commissioners have not announced when or how they plan to reconstitute the library board.
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