The top librarian in Rutherford County, Tennessee, was fired this week for refusing to move over 130 books with LGBTQ+ themes to the system’s adult section, capping months of tumult that made the suburban county the latest frontline in a national debate over access to books about queer and transgender people.
The county board near Nashville voted 8-3 to fire library director Luanne James in a spirited meeting Monday in which supporters and detractors of James spoke on her stance to applause and jeers.
“All I’m going to say is that I stand by my decision,” James said at the board meeting before her firing. “I will not change my mind.”
Much of the audience at the board meeting broke into cheers and applause after her statement. Chants of “shame” were heard as board members voted to fire James.
James did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Tatiana Silvas, the communications director for the Rutherford County Library Alliance, a community advocacy group, said the group was disappointed by the decision and that it defied popular support for James and the books she was defending.
“I think they should be incredibly ashamed of themselves,” Silvas said of the library board.
Rutherford County Library Board chair Cody York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The books flagged by the library board included children’s comics with transgender characters and books about trans activists, according to a list obtained by The Washington Post. Books were also flagged for containing “partially unclothed” people, “female empowerment discussions,” “social-justice concepts” and a “gay couple” among other topics, according to the list.
Some books were flagged for other reasons, including containing a “graphic depiction of lynching” and “discussion of book bans and censorship.”
Books moved to the adult section of the Rutherford County Library System are inaccessible to children under age 18 without their parents’ written permission, according to Silvas.
Battles over access to children’s books with LGBTQ+ themes have played out through library boards across the country as the Trump administration pushes a rollback of trans rights that has fanned conservative opposition to some books. A North Carolina county dissolved its library board in December after the board voted to keep a picture book about a transgender boy in the children’s section. In May, five Michigan librarians quit after a dispute with their conservative library board.
The debate flared in Tennessee in September when Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) sent a letter to state library directors ordering them to comply with President Donald Trump’s January executive order barring federal funds from being used to promote “gender ideology.” A month later, Hargett ordered some libraries to review their children’s books for age-appropriateness.
In December, James invoked whistleblower protections and alleged that York, the board chair, had directed her to remove certain books and disclose the information of library users, according to board meeting records. York denied the allegations.
The Rutherford County Library Board voted in late March to relocate a list of flagged books, including books with LGBTQ+ themes, from children’s and teen’s sections to the adult section following a content review, according to the news site the Advocate. York said all the items that would be reclassified “promoted gender confusion” and would be dangerous for children, according to a board meeting recording.
James refused to carry out the move and wrote in an email to the board that its decision was a violation of the First Amendment and a “clear act of viewpoint discrimination,” according to the Advocate.
Rutherford County residents who’d been following the standoff gathered for a charged library board meeting on Monday ahead of a vote on James’s termination. The majority of the speakers who gave public comment during the hour-long meeting spoke in support of James, arguing that the board’s decision to reclassify LGBTQ+ themed books was discriminatory and calling James “an example of courage and integrity.”
“I would go to war for you,” one person said of James.
One commenter supporting the library board called James “evil” and said reclassifying the books was needed to “protect children.”
James was escorted out of the room by sheriff’s deputies after the vote, WZTV Nashville reported.
Kasey Meehan, the Freedom to Read director at free-expression advocacy group PEN America, said James “really stood very principled for intellectual freedom, for ensuring young people have the right to see themselves, for ensuring access to LGBT+ books.”
“[It’s] truly emblematic of both how censorship battles are showing up across the country in public schools and public libraries,” she added. “And also how people are risking jobs and their own financial security to hold the line.”
Silvas, of the Rutherford County Library Alliance, said James was overwhelmed but grateful for the support she’d received.
“Her words to the public are: ‘Thank your librarians, get your library card, go to the library,’” Silvas said. “And her words for other librarians [are] ‘Be strong, you’re not alone.’”
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