I found your Substack thanks to Josh from Texas Impact. I’m on their Public School Defenders Committee and submitted written testimony to Cy-Fair ISD (my local district) in opposition to allowing unqualified “chaplains” in public schools. I also wrote a letter to the editor about that issue which was published in the Houston Chronicle.
My Substack (https://wendigordon.substack.com) is about mental health and I don’t address political or religious issues in it. However, as a freelance writer I often write articles about Texas politics and the fact that Christian nationalist beliefs and actions are clearly contradictory to everything Jesus taught and modeled in the Bible. Here’s a link to one of them: https://www.texasobserver.org/christian-nationalism-texas-pastors/
Josh encouraged me to connect with you here after I told him I left Twitter when Musk bought it. Perhaps we can collaborate somehow.
I like these sort of informative resources to help uplift these commonly challenged books, and would love to volunteer some of my time as a former English teacher to draft some of my own if possible.
Part of me worries that an exhaustive overview and analysis that uses critical thinking to explain why books like Perks and Flamer shouldn't be banned is the opposite of what our current school board members will accept.
If anything we have historically seen that ideas like "context" and "merit" do not matter in the eyes of those who find LGBTQ people as "obscene", or depictions of sexual trauma as "pornographic".
As thoughtful and exhaustive as these resources are, the other side gets to say "I arrest my case." Which in essence is what makes this whole subject disheartening.
Anyway, I love this effort and would love to help! (P.S. there is a typo in the Perks resource: the movie stars Emma Watson not Emma Stone 😀 )
Agh! Thanks for catching my Emma mistake. And I would love help! Is there a good email I can use to send a list of priority books? Also, thank you for subscribing.
And, yeah, I share your concern that some people are simply unpersuadable, and that those people are gaining representation on school boards and legislative bodies. I'm trying to pitch these at people in the middle, who genuinely haven't heard of/read these books. As Kelly Jensen put it in a post yesterday, "Even for the most open-minded people, seeing one (or all!) of the seven pages from Gender Queer that have made their way across social media can be shocking." That's less true if you understand aim of the book, the ages its intended for, and the role of those scenes in the book. But that part isn't getting out.
The origin story for this project is seeing how easily HB 900 sailed through committee and the Texas House and Senate. There were really only four (or so) Democrats who made forceful arguments against the bill, and more than that who voted for it. And no moderate Republicans resisted the bill or raised objections at all. I really think the other side barraging legislators with BookLooks passages was part of the reason. There was a sense of "How are you going to defend this?" with regard to some of the passages, and even people who would normally be opposed to censorship just didn't have the tools to answer that.
Anyway, I would love help, especially from a former English teacher!
I'm so glad you, Laney and Anne have formed the Texas Freedom to Read Project--I hope you'll write about that here, too. Just found it today. And thank you for all of the work you've done on this and continue to do.
Oh my gosh--I have been derelict! I thought everyone knew about the project and I didn't want to bore people. I will definitely do a post soon about the group!
I found your Substack thanks to Josh from Texas Impact. I’m on their Public School Defenders Committee and submitted written testimony to Cy-Fair ISD (my local district) in opposition to allowing unqualified “chaplains” in public schools. I also wrote a letter to the editor about that issue which was published in the Houston Chronicle.
My Substack (https://wendigordon.substack.com) is about mental health and I don’t address political or religious issues in it. However, as a freelance writer I often write articles about Texas politics and the fact that Christian nationalist beliefs and actions are clearly contradictory to everything Jesus taught and modeled in the Bible. Here’s a link to one of them: https://www.texasobserver.org/christian-nationalism-texas-pastors/
Josh encouraged me to connect with you here after I told him I left Twitter when Musk bought it. Perhaps we can collaborate somehow.
Thank you for reaching out! It's great to meet you and, yes, let's think about ways to collaborate!
I like these sort of informative resources to help uplift these commonly challenged books, and would love to volunteer some of my time as a former English teacher to draft some of my own if possible.
Part of me worries that an exhaustive overview and analysis that uses critical thinking to explain why books like Perks and Flamer shouldn't be banned is the opposite of what our current school board members will accept.
If anything we have historically seen that ideas like "context" and "merit" do not matter in the eyes of those who find LGBTQ people as "obscene", or depictions of sexual trauma as "pornographic".
As thoughtful and exhaustive as these resources are, the other side gets to say "I arrest my case." Which in essence is what makes this whole subject disheartening.
Anyway, I love this effort and would love to help! (P.S. there is a typo in the Perks resource: the movie stars Emma Watson not Emma Stone 😀 )
Agh! Thanks for catching my Emma mistake. And I would love help! Is there a good email I can use to send a list of priority books? Also, thank you for subscribing.
And, yeah, I share your concern that some people are simply unpersuadable, and that those people are gaining representation on school boards and legislative bodies. I'm trying to pitch these at people in the middle, who genuinely haven't heard of/read these books. As Kelly Jensen put it in a post yesterday, "Even for the most open-minded people, seeing one (or all!) of the seven pages from Gender Queer that have made their way across social media can be shocking." That's less true if you understand aim of the book, the ages its intended for, and the role of those scenes in the book. But that part isn't getting out.
The origin story for this project is seeing how easily HB 900 sailed through committee and the Texas House and Senate. There were really only four (or so) Democrats who made forceful arguments against the bill, and more than that who voted for it. And no moderate Republicans resisted the bill or raised objections at all. I really think the other side barraging legislators with BookLooks passages was part of the reason. There was a sense of "How are you going to defend this?" with regard to some of the passages, and even people who would normally be opposed to censorship just didn't have the tools to answer that.
Anyway, I would love help, especially from a former English teacher!
These are incredible resources. Thank you so much!
Thank you!
Excellent. Thank you!
And thank you, too!
I'm so glad you, Laney and Anne have formed the Texas Freedom to Read Project--I hope you'll write about that here, too. Just found it today. And thank you for all of the work you've done on this and continue to do.
Oh my gosh--I have been derelict! I thought everyone knew about the project and I didn't want to bore people. I will definitely do a post soon about the group!