Blaine County School District libraries offer many pornographic and pro-gender transition books to children as young as elementary school.
The IFF’s Center for American Education obtained public records from the Blaine County School District’s (BCSD) library database, known as Destiny Discover, which reveal that the school libraries across the district offer disturbing and sexually explicit material to kids.
The problem begins in BCSD’s elementary school. The Bellevue Elementary School library offers the pornographic book “It’s Perfectly Normal: A Book About Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health” by Robie H. Harris to kids. The book includes instructions on how to masturbate, perform anal sex, and get an abortion. The book has graphic depictions of both male and female children masturbating. It shows entirely nude illustrations of two men having sex and naked children in a variety of situations including looking at themselves in the mirror. The book includes a section on birth control and abortion. It also teaches children about sexual orientation. The book is not part of an official curriculum at Bellevue Elementary School but could be in and out of the classroom as teachers have immediate access to it, and it is provided in the library for children to read.
Children as young as 11 in middle schools are also subjected to alarming material. Wood River Middle School offers many books about sexuality and transgenderism to students, including “This Is Our Rainbow: 16 Stories of Her, Him, Them, and Us,” “Felix Ever After,” “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out,” and “Growing Up Trans: In Our Own Words.” Written by Susan Kuklin, the book “Beyond Magenta” includes disturbing passages such as a description of a child as “sexually mature” who “hated being a kid.”
"I was sexually mature. What I mean by sexually mature is that I knew about sex. From six and up, I used to kiss other guys in my neighborhood, make out with them, and perform oral sex on them. I liked it. I used to love oral. And I touched their you-know-whats. We were really young, but that's what we did... Guys used to hit on me – perverts – pedophiles. I'd see guys giving me a look, and it kinda creeped me out. They would touch themselves, saying, 'Come here, sweetie.' I ran away... By then I hated being a kid, I had a grown-up's mind and thought I was an adult."
Another passage appears to describe an eight-year-old having sex while he was away from home.
"This was probably one of the best places I have ever been to. The things I did there I probably never would have done had I stayed with my grandmother, to tell you the truth... Two staff members always went with us. One was Kathy, the recreation person, and the other was Franklin... Because we all liked Kathy, anyone who Kathy liked, we liked. They were really good to us. No abuse. No abuse at all. There was sex – what I would call curiosity sex. We were experimenting, isn't that what a kid does at that age?"
“Beyond Magenta” is also available as an e-book at Wood River High School.
Wood River High School offers the graphic book “Flamer.” Written by Mike Curato, the book contains pornographic and disturbing content. The book includes a scene of abuse where a boy is told to “bust a load” in a bottle. “If you don’t, you have to DRINK IT,” the character says. The book also includes male on male oral sex and a boy watching pornography.
The high school also offers “All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto” wherein author George M. Johnson tells his abuser, “There you stood in front of me fully erect and said, ‘taste it.’” Johnson adds that “you began humping me – back and forth, back and forth – never penetrating me, though.”
Later in Johnson’s memoir, he describes his sexual exploits during college while noting his perception of how his fraternity brothers understood a sexual encounter that left him in so much pain he needed Tylenol. “I had earned another gay badge of honor like it was the Boy Scouts or something,” he says, before adding he was “in pain for nearly three weeks following that encounter.”
That particular encounter was recounted in the following way: “He got on top and slowly inserted himself into me. It was the worst pain I think I ever felt in my life … He began his stroking motion. Eventually, I felt a mix of pleasure with pain.”
Another encounter describes attempting to enhance his performance by acting like a porn star:
This is just a sample of the many pornographic and pro-gender transition selections available to children in BCSD and across Idaho, as demonstrated by our recent report.
The Superintendent of BCSD, Jim Foudy, declined to comment on this issue.
Earlier this year, Gov. Brad Little vetoed legislation that could have stopped school employees from making harmful material, like these books, available to minors.
Known as the Children’s School and Library Protection Act, the legislation would have allowed minors who obtained harmful materials in violation of the law, or their parents or legal guardians, to bring a civil lawsuit if school or library personnel distributed the materials or if the school or library “failed to take reasonable steps to restrict access to material harmful to minors.” In defining content that’s harmful to minors, it includes depictions of masturbation, sexual excitement, sexual conduct more generally, and nudity, among other things.
The legislature is likely to take up the issue again next year.
The public should be deeply concerned about why any school librarian would think this graphic content was appropriate for school-aged children. The recent victory in Kootenai County of electing conservative trustees in the local library district suggests taxpayers and families are finally waking up to the corruption of both local and school libraries. Citizens who care should follow Kootenai County’s lead to take back library districts and also local school boards.
