A Texas mom’s campaign to ban books divided her town — and her family

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This article was produced in partnership with NBC News.

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Weston Brown was scrolling by way of Twitter final month when he got here throughout a video that made his chest tighten. It confirmed a lady at a college board assembly in North Texas, calling on district leaders to make an apology.

“Repentance is the word that’s on my heart,” she stated close to the beginning of the video.

For months, the lady within the clip had been demanding that the Granbury Independent School District ban from its libraries dozens of books that contained descriptions of intercourse or LGBTQ themes — books that she believed might be damaging to the hearts and minds of scholars. Unsatisfied after a district committee that she served on voted to take away solely a handful of titles, the lady filed a police report in May accusing faculty workers of offering pornography to youngsters, triggering a prison investigation by Hood County.

Now, in the video that Weston found online, she was telling the varsity board {that a} native Christian pastor, quite than librarians, ought to resolve which books must be allowed on public faculty cabinets. “He would never steer you wrong,” she stated.

The clip ended with the lady striding away from the lectern, and the viewers showering her with applause.

Weston, 28, stated his coronary heart was racing as he watched and rewatched the video — and not solely as a result of he opposes censorship. He’d immediately acknowledged the speaker.

It was his mom, Monica Brown.

The identical girl, he stated, who’d eliminated pages from science books when he was a toddler to maintain him and his siblings from seeing illustrations of male and feminine anatomy. The girl who’d at all times warned that studying the fallacious books or watching the fallacious films might open the door to sinful temptation. And the one, he stated, who’d successfully lower him off from his family 4 years in the past after he got here out as homosexual.

“You are not invited to our house for Thanksgiving or any other meal,” his mom had texted to him in November 2018, eight months after he revealed his sexual orientation to his dad and mom.

Weston, who lives along with his associate in San Diego, had way back come to phrases with the concept he would by no means once more have a significant relationship along with his dad and mom. He nonetheless liked them and desperately missed his youthful siblings, he stated, however he was carried out attempting to persuade his mother and dad that his sexuality wasn’t a selection or a sin. He was carried out difficult their non secular beliefs and praying for them to change.

Until he noticed the video of his mother at a college board assembly.

In latest months, Weston has watched as the identical foundational disagreements that tore his family aside have begun to divide complete communities. Fueled by a rising motion to assert conservative Christian values in any respect ranges of presidency, activists throughout the nation have fought to remove queer-affirming books from colleges, repeal the right to same-sex marriage, shut down LGBTQ pride celebrations and pass state laws limiting the methods teachers can discuss gender and sexuality.

Much because the seemingly intractable arguments over America’s pandemic response and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have led to fractured private relationships in recent times, these clashes over gender and sexuality have pitted neighbors against neighbors, parents against teachers and — within the case of the Browns — a son towards his mom.

“It was one thing when my parents’ beliefs were causing this rift between us and it was just a family matter,” Weston stated. “But seeing now that she’s applying those same views to public activism, at a time when so many basic rights are being challenged, I couldn’t stay quiet about that.”

Monica, 51, who has homeschooled all 9 of her youngsters and serves because the director of a personal Christian training cooperative, declined to be interviewed or reply written questions. In a collection of e mail exchanges with NBC News, she initially invited a reporter to focus on the article over dinner at her house in Granbury, however in a subsequent message, she stated her husband wouldn’t enable the assembly, including, “I have been advised to not speak with you at all.” Her husband additionally declined to be interviewed.

In public, Monica has denied focusing on LGBTQ books. At a latest faculty board assembly, she stated her solely goal has been to shield youngsters from sexually express content material — homosexual or in any other case.

“There’s nothing about LGBTQ involved in this,” she stated. “There are LGBTQ books that are sexually explicit, yes. They are wrong, too. If they are between men and men, women and women, cats and women, dogs and women, whatever, that is not appropriate educational content.”

That assertion, nevertheless, doesn’t sq. with most of the books that she has flagged for removing at Granbury. Several of the titles on her listing characteristic LGBTQ storylines, however comprise no sexually express content material. That contains “Drama,” by Raina Telgemeier, a graphic novel that depicts homosexual and bisexual characters navigating the routine awkwardness of center faculty crushes.

Of the practically 80 library books Monica and her supporters need eliminated, 3 out of 5 characteristic LGBTQ characters or themes, in accordance to an NBC News evaluation of titles posted on GranburyTexasBooks.org, a web site the place the activists have compiled father or mother evaluations of books they need banned. In addition to sexually express content material, the location requires books to be eliminated for “normalizing lesbianism,” specializing in “sexual orientation” and selling “alternate gender ideologies.”

Monica has additionally signaled anti-LGBTQ views in formal library e-book challenges that she’s despatched straight to Granbury faculty officers, in accordance to copies of the kinds obtained by way of a public information request. In one occasion, she criticized a biography of notable girls partly as a result of it included the story of Christine Jorgensen, a trans girl who made nationwide headlines within the Fifties for talking brazenly about her gender-confirmation surgical procedure. She advised changing that e-book with a Christian biography series about women and girls who used their skills to serve God — “biographies of truly great Americans,” she wrote.

After watching the video of his mother on the faculty board final month, Weston skimmed by way of excerpts of the books she needed pulled. It appeared to him that she and her supporters had been pushing public colleges to adhere to among the identical strict non secular ideologies that he says he suffered beneath as a toddler.

He thought of all the scholars, at Granbury and throughout the nation, who may profit from studying the kinds of books that had been off-limits to him rising up.

With tears in his eyes, he began to kind a tweet on the afternoon of July 3.

“This is my mom,” he wrote, with a link to the varsity board assembly video. “Seeing her advocate for the erasure of queer representation is crushing. Coming up on the 5 year anniversary of being effectively cut off from my family and siblings after coming out in 2018.”

He hesitated, understanding he can be reopening previous wounds for the world to see. He didn’t need to do something to harm the lady who’d raised him, he stated.

But attempting to get librarians arrested?

Weston added yet another line to his put up — “Much love to those standing up and pushing back for representation” — together with a rainbow flag emoji. And then he hit ship.

“The rejection you have chosen”

Weston has many fond recollections rising up within the suburbs between Dallas and Fort Worth, about an hour from his dad and mom’ present house in Granbury. He recalled summer time days splashing of their yard swimming pool, family ski holidays to Colorado and hours spent on the public library along with his mother, who fostered his love of studying.

“I didn’t really have friends growing up, and going to make new friends via fictional characters was always something I looked forward to,” he stated. “It was a beautiful way to leave my world and go somewhere better.”

But in a conservative Christian house, some content material was off-limits.

Although the Brown family’s bookshelves had been lined with classics, akin to books from C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” collection, many fashionable titles had been forbidden, Weston stated. That included the Harry Potter collection, which he stated his mom, like many different conservative Christians, thought to be a satanic depiction of witchcraft.

Weston, the eldest little one, stated his mom additionally did her finest to protect him and his siblings from phrases or pictures that may stir sexual curiosity. He remembered being informed to look down on the flooring anytime they walked by way of the ladies’s underwear part at shops. Even as a toddler, he stated, he was extra intrigued by the advertising photographs on show within the males’s part — although he didn’t dare inform anybody.

The classes on purity didn’t cease after he turned an grownup.

In 2015, when he was 20 and nonetheless dwelling along with his dad and mom, he returned house late one night after seeing “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” a PG-13 superhero film that his mom disapproved of. When he walked into his kitchen, he stated, he discovered two pans of brownies ready for him, together with a stack of articles printed off the web in regards to the corrosive affect of Marvel comics and movies.

One pan of brownies was regular. The different had a label that warned it had been baked with a small quantity of canine poop blended in.

“Poo anyone? Just a little?” Monica wrote later, when she posted a picture of the brownies on Facebook. “How much yuck is too much?”

The ethical of the illustration, which is popular among some evangelical Christians: If you wouldn’t eat brownies that may hurt your physique, then why would you expose your self to films, books or music that may hurt your soul?

Her son was disgusted, however he didn’t push again on the lesson.

“She made her point,” he stated, “and we never spoke about it again.”

That was the identical 12 months that the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage — a tectonic cultural improvement that disturbed many evangelical Christians. Afterward, Monica posted steadily on social media in regards to the “dangerous” homosexual agenda that she believed was on the march throughout mainstream U.S. society. She warned in posts that Disney was secretly pushing LGBTQ life on youngsters in films akin to “Toy Story 4,” and shared a link to a video alleging that pop star Katy Perry was conspiring with satanic forces to persuade teenagers to embrace homosexuality.

Weston stated he didn’t problem his mom’s views whereas he lived with her. He’d spent years struggling to reconcile his wishes with the non secular values his dad and mom had instilled in him — attempting to persuade himself that the butterflies in his abdomen any time he was round one of many boys at church was simply one thing buddies felt for one another. It didn’t assist, he stated, that he’d had no significant intercourse training as a youngster — only a blanket instruction to abstain till marriage — and no understanding of LGBTQ identities or what these letters even meant.

But by 2018, he was 23, dwelling on his personal and lastly assured sufficient to inform his dad and mom what he’d at all times identified about himself.

“Dear Mom and Dad, I’m writing this to share something that I’ve wanted to share with you yet have held back for a long time,” he wrote in an e mail to his dad and mom in February 2018. “It is with great relief, clarity and vulnerability that I share this with you: I am gay.”

He ended the be aware: “I pray that you receive this with an open mind.”

That prayer, he stated, went unanswered.

Over the following 12 months and a half, he stated, his dad and mom tried to persuade him that he was mistaken. Through a collection of emotional lunch conferences, telephone calls and textual content messages, he stated, they urged him to see a Christian counselor within the hopes that he might study to overcome his gay urges. They invited Weston to church — the one place the place they’d enable him to see his youthful siblings — and brazenly questioned about what corrupting influences may need led their son down this sinful path.

For months, his mom despatched him hyperlinks to articles from Christian news websites with headlines like “Evidence shows sexual orientation can change” and “It’s not gay to straight, it’s lost to saved” — hyperlinks that she was concurrently posting publicly on Facebook. But after Weston made clear that there was no prayer or summer time camp that will change who he’s, he stated his dad and mom made clear that he was not welcome at their house, even on holidays or birthdays.

“You are not rejected, not at all, and never will be,” his father, James Brown, texted to him in October 2019, greater than a 12 months after he got here out. “The lifestyle you have chosen goes against God and therefore that is the rejection you have chosen.”

His father added, “Have you ever considered the pain you have put your mother and I through?”

That identical day, Monica despatched him a message on Facebook to say that she was praying for darkish forces to be forged out of him.

“I specifically come against evil that has entered you from the movie ‘It,’” she wrote, referring to the time when Weston, at round age 10, had watched a part of the Stephen King mini-series a couple of murderous clown. “Clown demons have to go in the mighty name of Jesus.”

She ended the message, “I love you, Mom.”

“A raging fire”

Monica Brown’s campaign to rid colleges of books that she considers obscene started late final 12 months with a visit to the Granbury Middle School library, which generally hosts robotics competitions that her homeschooled youngsters have competed in.

She began flipping by way of a couple of books whereas she was there and was disturbed by what she discovered, in accordance to a May interview she recorded with The Blue Shark Show, a neighborhood far-right web speak present hosted by a Republican former state legislator.

“What I saw was negative, dark — things nightmares are made of,” Monica stated, with out sharing extra particulars.

Her sudden curiosity in library books coincided with a wave of similar book ban attempts throughout the nation final 12 months amid a rising conservative backlash towards faculty packages and classes coping with racism, gender and sexuality.

The books which have drawn probably the most intense scrutiny, each in Granbury and nationally, are largely younger grownup novels and memoirs that comprise passages with express descriptions of intercourse or rape, particularly these that includes LGBTQ themes and characters. Defenders of those books argue that any sexual content material is offered within the context of broader narratives that assist teenagers perceive and course of the world round them.

The battle has been significantly heated in Texas, the place Republican state officers, together with Gov. Greg Abbott, have gone so far as calling for prison expenses towards any faculty employees member who offers youngsters with entry to novels, memoirs and intercourse ed books that some conservatives have labeled as “pornography.”

Monica didn’t say in her speak present interview whether or not she had reported her issues to the varsity district. But in early January, Granbury’s colleges superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, known as a gathering with district librarians and shared that he’d began to get complaints about library books.

“Let’s call it what it is, and I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this,” Glenn informed the librarians, in accordance to a secret recording of the meeting obtained by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune and first reported in March. “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ and the sex — sexuality — in books. That’s what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that’s what we’re pulling out.”

When requested about his feedback, Glenn launched an announcement in March saying the district was dedicated to supporting college students of all backgrounds. And though he stated the district’s major focus is educating college students, Glenn stated “the values of our community will always be reflected in our schools.”

In the times after the assembly, district workers pulled greater than 130 books off of faculty library cabinets and introduced the formation of a volunteer committee to evaluation them.

Monica was one of many first residents appointed. From the beginning, she felt the method was a sham, she stated in her Blue Shark interview. The first two conferences had been held at occasions when she couldn’t attend, she stated, and by the point she arrived on the third assembly, the committee had already voted to return many of the books to cabinets.

“That meeting was completely disrupted in the sense that we didn’t vote at all because I kept asking questions,” she stated.

In the tip, over objections from her and one different member, the volunteer committee voted to ban solely three books: “This Book Is Gay,” a coming-out information for LGBTQ teenagers by transgender writer Juno Dawson that features detailed descriptions of intercourse; “Out of Darkness,” by Ashley Hope Pérez, a younger grownup novel a couple of romance between a Mexican American woman and a Black boy that features a rape scene and different mature content material; and “We Are the Ants,” by Shaun David Hutchinson, a coming-of-age novel a couple of homosexual teenager that features express sexual language.

The district returned dozens of different titles to cabinets. Several of the books had no sexual content material, the committee discovered. For the others, a majority of committee members believed that any descriptions of intercourse had been age-appropriate when learn in full context.

Monica was outraged, she stated on the Blue Shark Show in early May.

“I think they’re breaking the law,” she stated.

That identical week, she put that perception to the check. On May 2, she and one other disillusioned member of the e-book committee filed a police report with Hood County Constable Chad Jordan alleging that the district was making pornography out there to college students, in accordance to a duplicate of the incident report. Four days later, Hood County constables visited Granbury High School to examine the declare.

In a letter sent to NBC News on Wednesday and dated Aug. 1, Jordan stated his workplace couldn’t launch further information in regards to the case as a result of the investigation remained energetic. In an announcement issued in May, Glenn, the Granbury superintendent, stated the varsity district was cooperating with regulation enforcement.

In the months since, Monica has continued to maintain the strain on, talking at each faculty board assembly, submitting greater than a dozen further e-book challenges and, within the course of, turning into a distinguished and polarizing determine in Granbury.

Her activism has been praised by a number of main conservative figures in town, together with members of the Hood County Republican Party and Melanie Graft, the varsity board member who chosen Monica to serve on the e-book evaluation committee. Graft, who rose to native prominence in 2015 whereas main a conservative campaign to remove LGBTQ-themed picture books from the youngsters’s part at Granbury’s public library, didn’t reply to messages requesting an interview.

Monica’s battle has additionally come at a private value. In social media posts and public remarks, she’s stated the hours spent reviewing library books have required her to sacrifice time with her family and led to a barrage of non-public assaults from residents who oppose her efforts.

In May, Adrienne Martin, a Granbury father or mother and chair of the Hood County Democratic Party, was recording on her telephone as she confronted Monica exterior a college board assembly.

“You want to have librarians arrested,” Martin stated as Monica walked away. “That’s fascism. You’re a fascist.”

At a board assembly final month, Monica tried to clarify why she’s fought so onerous to take away books from a college district that her youngsters don’t attend. She’s doing it, she stated, for all the opposite youngsters.

“I feel like it’s a raging fire,” she informed the board, “and I’ve got a water pistol.”

“I pray for you”

After Weston’s preliminary put up criticizing his mom, he fired off several more tweets denouncing her efforts in Granbury.

It didn’t take lengthy earlier than the posts had reached his dad and mom. His dad texted him to demand that he apologize to his mom.

“We have not come out against the LGBT Community,” his father wrote, insisting that their efforts at Granbury colleges had been centered on “pornography” and nothing else. “I do know you might be harm by our selections however we’re additionally hurting and have been ever because you stated you had been Gay.

“We have not been hateful to you,” his father added.

Weston replied: “All I can say is I pity you and wish you the best.”

Soon, opponents of Monica’s efforts started posting pictures of her son’s tweets on Granbury group Facebook teams — making a family’s non-public rift public.

“Call your son and leave ours alone!” a lady wrote in response to considered one of Monica’s many public posts about obscene library books.

“Your crusade against books won’t bring your son back to you or make him straight,” one other Granbury resident wrote. “Go home and look in the mirror, fix your house before you worry about others.”

Monica by no means publicly addressed her son’s tweets, however in response to a Facebook put up about them, she wrote: “You can believe what you want about me. In the meantime, I will carry on doing my best to finish out my life for an audience of One.”

A couple of weeks later, she lastly received in contact with her son. Two days after NBC News contacted her to request an interview, she texted him to let him know that she didn’t plan to share “personal family details” with a reporter.

“I did not come out against LGBTQ at all — ever,” she wrote, earlier than including: “I love you, and I pray for you.”

Weston studied the message, pondering again to all of the hours he’d spent pleading with her to settle for him for who he’s quite than attempting to management and change him. It harm, having the lady who’d given delivery to him inform him that his sexual orientation was an abomination.

He didn’t need to revisit that trauma, he stated. He simply needed his mother to cease pushing her beliefs on different individuals’s youngsters.

Weston re-read her textual content message yet another time. He began to kind a reply, then stopped. Instead he closed the message and set his telephone apart.

He’d already informed his mother every part that wanted to be stated.

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