Legislative panel pursues bills to regulate Wyoming library books with sexual material

TORRINGTON—A Wyoming legislative committee decided Tuesday to draft bills to police books in libraries, taking steps down a constitutionally fraught path out of concern that literature dealing with sexuality and gender identity can corrupt minors.

Lawmakers are reviewing the content of library books, which has become a national crusade by religious conservatives, as activists and lawmakers around the state pore over material available in young adult and teen sections of libraries, hunting for sexual content.

They have focused specifically on books exploring LGBTQ+ issues that are written for young people, though some books dealing with issues like drug use are also under the microscope. 

In Torrington, the Joint Judiciary Committee voted nearly unanimously to draft bills that would remove books containing sexually explicit materials from the children’s sections of libraries, and also police minors’ access to library materials accessible online. 

The first and more consequential bill draft, as proposed by Casper Republican Rep. Jayme Lien, would list out specific sexual acts and rule any literature depicting them as sexually explicit material. It would also fine libraries $50,000 if the institution allows minors to gain access to such books, and allow citizens to bring civil actions against libraries they believe are violating the rules.

Some lawmakers on the committee said they were voting for the bill draft to carry the policy discussion forward, but would likely later oppose the penalties in the legislation. The Wyoming Library Association is chiefly concerned about penalties for libraries or librarians.

Any penalties for librarians are also a concern of the Wyoming Education Association, that group’s lobbyist Tate Mullen told the committee. His organization, which represents the state’s professional educators, worries that any step toward penalizing librarians could hurt efforts to attract and retain teachers and school staff for Wyoming.

Rep. Ann Lucas, a freshman lawmaker endorsed by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, has led the charge to involve the Legislature in the selection and placement of books in public libraries. At Tuesday’s meeting, the Cheyenne lawmaker brought a bag of books, some checked out from libraries and some she had purchased herself, which she said contained material inappropriate for children.

“I sat here for the past week and I went through a lot of books and I looked for all the nasty words,” she told the committee. Lucas put sticky notes on certain pages in the books, and one title in particular, the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, drew the committee’s opprobrium. 

“I don’t think there is a single person up here … that would look at this book ‘Gender Queer’ and think it belongs in a children’s section,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jared Olsen, R-Cheyenne. 

The only no vote on Lien’s bill draft came from Rep. Kenneth Chestek, a Laramie Democrat and University of Wyoming law professor, who said he feared the Legislature would struggle to regulate books without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that regulation of materials as obscene must pass what’s called the Miller test, after a 1973 case. In Miller v. California, the justices found that for material to be considered obscene under the law, it had to lack serious “literary, political or scientific value.”

Lawmakers asked Wyoming Library Association President Lindsey Travis and other bill opponents several times if they thought copies of Hustler, a pornographic magazine, should be available to minors. Travis responded that Hustler was considered obscene under the law and pornography wasn’t available in the library. The books in question aren’t the same thing, she said. 

“Gender Queer” is described by the author as a memoir written as a graphic novel. Through words and drawings, it recounts the author’s experiences as an adolescent and young adult grappling with Kobabe’s gender identity, and includes explicit depictions of masturbation and later sexual encounters as the author enters adulthood. Kobabe wrote the book for young people facing similar turmoils, according to an online interview with Michigan news outlet MLive, and considers it most appropriate for high school students. 

“I felt very alone in my gender experience as a teenager and I’m very grateful that as an adult I’ve been able to share this and I’ve been able to build such a loving and strong community out of sharing,” Kobabe said in the interview, in which the author called for tolerance from people seeking to ban or isolate the book.

“Even if they can’t see the value of this book, it could be valuable to someone else,” Kobabe said of crusaders against the text. “Just let it be, as a resource, one among many in a community, and know that the people who read it will mostly be the people needing it.”

In Wyoming, Kobabe’s book is located on bookshelves in the young adult or adult sections, Travis told WyoFile. What ages are considered young adult is a decision made by each local library, Travis said, but it generally includes teenagers. Libraries pick their own collections and display locations, she said. They are governed by local library boards, and the Legislature’s efforts would take some of that control away. 

“Wyoming libraries are locally controlled, and I think we need to maintain that,” she said. 

But lawmakers worried that children could access “Gender Queer” and other books as they roam through libraries, regardless of what shelves they’re placed on. The practicalities of keeping younger children away from books for adults and teenagers weren’t substantively discussed at the meeting in Torrington, though Lucas noted the public library in Cheyenne keeps its young adult section in an area of the library that doesn’t sit behind closed doors. 

Wyoming libraries have drawn conservatives’ ire, particularly when they highlight LBGTQ+ literature in special sections or social media posts. In Campbell County, for example, where the political dispute has played out most sharply, trouble started in 2021, after the library highlighted a series of such books for Pride Month. 

Furor over that post kicked off sustained scrutiny of books in the Gillette library from a group of local residents. That conflict ended with the firing of a library director who had resisted such efforts, and the regulation of certain books to a special library section. The library board later ended the special section, and placed the books into the adult section of the library, current Campbell County library director John Jackson told WyoFile on Tuesday.

The ousted-director, Terri Lesley, has sued both a local family and government officials for discrimination and wrongful termination. The two lawsuits accuse residents of harboring clear bias against LGBTQ+ people and lifestyles, and violating the First Amendment in their quest to limit access to books on the topic.

Correction: This story has been updated to indicate that debate over library books in Campbell County began in 2021 and to note that the bill draft proposed by Rep. Jayme Lien would include a $50,000 financial penalty for institutions that do not comply with the new law. -Ed.