Terri Lesley was recently fired from her position as director of the Campbell County Public Library System in Wyoming and on Thursday, she joined CNN This Morning to talk about it. There, she was allowed to falsely state that none of the books in the library contained any sexually explicit material.
Co-host Phil Mattingly asked about precisely that, “For people who are trying to contextualize what’s happening, because it seems like a pretty mass escalation over a short period of time, related to a library and books. The concerns about sexually explicit content and its availability to minors or to younger people, what kind of books were these? Why-- is there any merit to those concerns?”
As Mattingly was asking the question, an on-screen graphic read “Community Members Challenged 29 books Including:” with pictures of the covers for Gender Queer, Lawn Boy, and This Book is Gay.
Gender Queer is notorious for being a sexually explicit comic book, which its author, Maia Kobabe, has stated is of critical importance. Lawn Boy author Jonathan Evison has stated his book is meant for adults, while This Book is Gay, features information on orgies, instructions on anal sex, how to use sex apps, among other things.
Nevertheless, Lesley responded, “There is nothing in the library that can be classified as pornography in any way shape or form. We do have some sex education books and biology books, things like that. And, things like that and that are, you know, are important for youth to have access to in case they have questions. There were some LGBTQ themes in these books and I felt like the LGBTQ part of that was a big part of the complaints from the public were about.”
Neither Mattingly nor fellow co-host Poppy Harlow ever challenged the assertion that the books were either strictly scientific or wondered what orgies and sex apps have to do with sex ed.
This segment was sponsored by booking.com.
Here is a transcript for the August 17 show:
CNN This Morning
8/17/2023
8:48 AM ET
PHIL MATTINGLY: For people who are trying to contextualize what’s happening, because it seems like a pretty mass escalation over a short period of time, related to a library and books. The concerns about sexually explicit content and its availability to minors or to younger people, what kind of books were these? Why-- is there any merit to those concerns?
TERRI LESLEY: There is nothing in the library that can be classified as pornography in any way shape or form. We do have some sex education books and biology books, things like that. And, things like that and that are, you know, are important for youth to have access to in case they have questions. There were some LGBTQ themes in these books and I felt like the LGBTQ part of that was a big part of the complaints from the public were about.
