Foothills County council addressed the Okotoks Public Library board over concerns regarding the Reading with Royalty program, as well as future programs supporting the “LGBTQ+ operation,” as council was not aware prior to the event being held.
“The intent of this program is basically to condition kids, it says specifically 12 and under, to become accustomed to this sort of thing, to the LGBTQ issues,” County Councillor Rob Siewert said at its June 12 public meeting. “So when I see one of our publicly funded, publicly run organizations, the Okotoks Public Library, doing something that according to the American College of Pediatricians [ACPed] labels as child abuse, I certainly become concerned.”
Siewert claimed ACPed was an example of organizations condemning “these types of activities where we are conditioning our kids to believe that transgender expression and sex changes and all this sort of thing.”
ACPed is a small, politically motivated group according the fact-checking website Snopes—which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre—that endorses conversion therapy and corporal punishment for LGBTQ+ youth.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not support the statement by ACPed shared by Siewert in council, and instead recommends an affirmative approach to gender identity based on leading research.
Reading with Royalty was a family event held on June 7 at the Okotoks Library. There were 13 children at the event, and 10 adults.
Parents were required to attend with their children, and were active participants in the program as drag king Shane OnYou and drag queen Felicia Bonée sang songs with the children and read age-appropriate books with diverse themes.
Siewert attended the Okotoks Public Library Board meeting on June 13—serving as an alternate to Alger, the Foothills County representative on the board—to address the concerns expressed at council.
“An informative discussion followed, including the fact that parents or guardians were required to attend this event with their children,” said Lorraine Cathro, board chair, in a statement following the board meeting. “Councillor Siewert will take the information provided back to the Foothills County Council.”
Siewert said in an interview on June 18 that council was satisfied with the library’s safeguards, calling the library board a “well-run entity.”
“I would just like to say that as a municipality, freedom of speech is very important and a valuable component of our society and we want to protect it as a municipality,” he said. “As a group that partially funds the library, we just want to learn more about the program and how it is run.”
Siewert’s comments at the meeting were brought up during the committee reports at the meeting. The issue was not on the agenda, and no vote was done.
“The focus of it was about inclusiveness, and teaching people tolerance,” said Okotoks library director Lara Grunow in an interview. “The stories that were read weren’t sexual by any stretch of the imagination.”
Siewert said at council’s meeting that he was concerned that “we as an organization (Foothills County) are funding this.”
He proposed county council asks the library to stop the Reading with Royalty program, and to instruct the library director that “any time we seek to get into bed with any of these special interest groups” that it goes before the library board first.
Withdrawing funding from the library was touched on by council, depending on the library board’s position on what Coun. Alan Alger described as “supporting the LGBTQ operation.”
Coun. Delilah Miller cautioned against the discussion, calling it a “slippery slope.” She said that while some may be against the program, others believe it is a necessary part of society today.
CAO Harry Riva Cambrin told the Western Wheel on June 17 that Foothills County supports the Marigold Library System in addition to a shared services agreement with the Town of Okotoks, based on the ratio of library cards for Foothills residents. He stressed that there was no real discussion around discontinuing funding the library.
Grunow attended the Reading with Royalty program with her daughter Halla, and said it was like any other story time program the Library has hosted in the past and the performers made no mention of sexuality.
Grunow said the library viewed Pride as a human rights issue, not a special interest.
“They’re a human rights group that’s just out there trying to make known and advocate for their community,” she said. “We’re happy to help them advocate for their community because we’re all about inclusivity (at the library).”
Though she was prepared for negative feedback, Grunow said the library received almost 300 positive responses on social media during the several weeks of advertisement of the program, and only three negative or questioning responses.
The Reading with Royalty program fits within the Canadian Federation of Library Associations position statements on diversity and inclusion, and intellectual freedom, which Cathro shared with the Wheel.
The statements detail a library’s responsibilities to safeguard and foster free expression, make library space and services available to all individuals and groups, and to gather without discrimination.
The statement on diversity and inclusion reads: “Canada’s libraries recognize and energetically affirm the dignity of those they serve, regardless of heritage, education, beliefs, race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental capabilities, or income.”
Further, libraries are committed to tolerance and understanding, as “libraries act to ensure that people can enjoy services free from any attempt by others to impose values, customs, or beliefs.”
Under these tenets, Grunow was confident in the program and the library’s right to hold programs like it in the future.
Marissa Johnston, founder of the Foothills Rainbow Connection (FRC), said she was concerned that statements like Siewert’s were made in council, and said that is why Calgary Pride and the FRC are still important.
Johnston said introducing people to a community they relate to decreases suicide rates, especially in transgender or gender non-conforming youth, which is more important in communities like the Foothills due to the lack of resources.
“To say that we’re conditioning kids to be gay is just going to push more kids into the closet, and it’s going to cause the suicide rates for trans youth, which are pretty high already in Alberta, they’re just going to continue to skyrocket unless we make it safe for queer youth to explore their gender expression,” she said.
In the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics, studies showed transgender children who are not supported in their identities are 20 per cent more likely to attempt suicide than those that are.
Exposing children to people that are different from them encourages tolerance, and would benefit society as a whole, said Johnston, who rejected the notion that LGBTQ2S+ events condition children.
“Saying that exposing kids to (LGBTQ2S+) people is going to somehow influence their gender expression or identity is ridiculous. It’s not exposure that makes us gay, it’s just how we are,” she said.
“(…) If we’re not turning kids straight by having them in mainstream society, we’re not going to turn kids trans or gay by letting them be read a story by a drag queen.”
Johnston clarified that drag has nothing to do with transgenderism, sexual identities or sexualities, and is rather about expression.
Calgary Pride vetted the books for suitability, and all of the performers have vulnerable sector checks, said Grunow.
