\u201cWe’ve never had anything like this happen,\u201d Lesley said. \u201cI was caught off guard completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
WATCH | U.S. book ban advocacy makes its way to Canada:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760149869_401_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The shadow war on Canadian libraries over 2SLGBTQ+ books<\/p>\n
As Canada sees growing challenges to books about sex ed, gender identity and gay themes, CBC\u2019s The Fifth Estate uncovers how activists have declared a shadow war on local libraries.<\/p>\n
The titles objected to in Gillette included This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson, How Do You Make a Baby by Anna Fiske, Doing It by Hannah Witton, Sex is a Funny Word by Corey Silverberg, and Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy by Andrew P. Smiler.<\/p>\n
Complainants objected to the sexual nature of the books, many of which were aimed at teenage readers and appeared in the library\u2019s young adult section.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Lesley says it\u2019s no coincidence that many of the challenged titles feature 2SLBTQ+ content.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obvious to me that there was an anti-LGBTQ mindset,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese community members spoke at public meetings about their feelings and so it was easy to understand where they were coming from and how they didn’t think these books should be accessed by youth because of the LGBTQ content.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lesley\u2019s job is to work with the public, not against them, so she took an education-driven approach to the controversy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to do educational things for the community to help them understand how public libraries work, how we have materials in our library for the entire community, how this kind of material is important to certain members of our community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the ALA gave Lesley its John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award, which honours \u201cpersonal courage in defense of freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n
The award was a balm at a time when she was facing a barrage of negativity, she says, including allegations she was peddling child pornography.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been a key factor in helping me to keep going,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like I was going forward with something that people really cared about and that they appreciated that I’d taken a stand.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in 2023, Lesley was fired.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The books in question, she says, have been quietly moved to the adult section of the library, and the outcry has largely fizzled.<\/p>\n
Libraries have become a battleground<\/p>\n
Lesley\u2019s firing came amid a backdrop of similar battles all over the U.S., and in Canada, too.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the ALA recorded 9,021 book challenges in the U.S., up from 233 in 2015, and its third largest number on record since 1990. That number dipped to 5,813 in 2024.<\/p>\n
The ALA says the majority, 72 per cent, of demands to censor or limit books in school or public libraries came from organized movements.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most common justifications for censorship provided by complainants were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and covering topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice,\u201d the ALA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Books](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760149869_304_default.jpg\")
A Little Free Library in Houston, Texas, in 2023, designed to look like a prison, invites residents to take books that the library says have been challenged by schools across the state. (Callaghan O’Hare\/Reuters)<\/p>\n
Rathod Mohamedbhai, the Denver-based law firm that brought forward Lesley\u2019s case, has supported fired library employees elsewhere in recent years, including the case of a Texas teacher who was fired<\/a> for reading her class passages from a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary.<\/p>\n Similar battles have played out in Canadian towns and schools.<\/a><\/p>\n In February, CBC\u2019s The Fifth Estate<\/a> analyzed more than a dozen hours of video footage, book challenge data, social media activity and secret recordings related to book challenges. It traced the book ban movement in Canada to a web of influence in the United States, where it says a right-wing, anti-2SLGBTQ+ campaign has led to laws that threaten libraries in Republican states.<\/p>\n Most recently, Alberta\u2019s United Conservative Party government banned \u201csexually explicit\u201d books from school libraries this summer<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The move prompted Edmonton Public Schools to assemble a list of 226 books to remove from shelves and classrooms, including well-known works such as The Handmaid’s Tale, The Color Purple, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.<\/p>\n After public backlash, the province paused the new restrictions<\/a>, then issued revised directives to pull books containing explicit images of sexual acts<\/a>, but not written descriptions of the same.<\/p>\n Lesley says she fought to keep challenged books on the shelves because she believes in a citizen\u2019s right to read, and a parent\u2019s right to decide what\u2019s appropriate for their own children, without limiting access for other people\u2019s kids.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s not the job of somebody who disagrees with the books to try to limit access to the kids who need the books,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her lawyer, Iris Halpern, says she hopes her client\u2019s settlement has a wider impact.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope at least that it sends a message to other library districts, other states, other counties, that the First Amendment is alive and strong and that our values against discrimination also remain alive and strong,\u201d Halpern said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are public entities. They\u2019re government officials. They need to keep in mind their constitutional obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISTEN | Full interview with former Wyoming librarian Terri Lesley: As It Happens6:28Librarian fired after refusing to censor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-73006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}