A superintendent in North Texas instructed librarians to remove books relating to sexual orientation and gender identity from school library shelves in a January meeting, according to a recording obtained by NBC News, ProPublica, and The Texas Tribune.
Jeremy Glenn, the superintendent of the Granbury Independent School District, said the titles were not in alignment with the community's conservative culture.
He noted that the district's school board was also very conservative, and employees with different political beliefs "better hide it."
"Here in this community, we're going to be conservative," Glenn said.
The superintendent then warned the librarians about the mature content available in their school libraries, saying the titles needed to go immediately.
"I don't want a kid picking up a book, whether it's about homosexuality or heterosexuality, and reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries," Glenn said.
"And I'm going to take it a step further with you," he continued. "There are two genders. There's male, and there's female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they're women. And there are women that think they're men. And again, I don't have any issues with what people want to believe, but there's no place for it in our libraries."
Glenn further emphasized to the librarians that he was explicitly referencing books that taught about "transgender, LGBTQ, and sexuality."
"That's what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that's what we're pulling out," the superintendent said, referencing a letter to the state's school board by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott months earlier that demanded schools remove "pornographic" titles.
Abbott, a Republican, also called for criminal investigations into school employees who make the "obscene content" available to students, The Hill reported.
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