Ultra-Conservative Activists Plan to Plant Anti-Trans Books on Shelves in Texas

Last month, during a speech to supporters gathered in the conference room of a Hilton Garden Inn in Denton, right-wing activist Tracy Shannon threw down a challenge.

In the coming weeks and months, she and a group of fellow activists in North Texas plan to push a young adult novel into circulation in North Texas’ public libraries and local public school districts, she said. If administrators refused to include the book in circulation, she said, it would constitute nothing less than political oppression and a violation of all Americans’ rights to religious freedom.

If that happened, it was the responsibility of everyone gathered that night to “raise hell," Shannon told the crowd.

The plan comes at a time when Republicans around Texas have ramped up efforts to get gender-affirming treatment for trans youth labeled "child abuse."

Shannon took the mic just after Jacob Colglazier, who headlined the Feb. 15 event and has worked on ultra-conservative gubernatorial candidate Don Huffines' staff. (Huffines has built his campaign around the narrative that Gov. Greg Abbott is not a true conservative.)

Colglazier, 24, became a flashpoint figure in his own right when Political Research Associates uncovered his ties to the white nationalist "Groyper" movement in January. Huffines refused to fire Colglazier after his affiliation with white nationalism made national news, and instead sent him to represent the campaign at events across Texas.

The novel Shannon feels kids across North Texas need to read is called Choosing, written by Ellie Klipp. The story follows the struggles of a protagonist named Tracy, a 14-year-old Texan who finds herself, as Klipp presents it, beset on all sides by “the whole transgender thing” (in Klipp’s words).

Tracy’s trouble starts when her little brother Toby, an elementary school student, gets in trouble for calling out a fellow student when they come out as transgender. The 7-year-old Toby goes out of his way to tell Jessica, who used to be called Jason, that there’s no such thing as being transgender, and is later punished by his teachers for bullying Jessica.

Toby tells Tracy he spoke up because he was traumatized when Jessica started using the girl’s bathroom: “Jason shouldn’t have gone in [the girls’ bathroom] because he isn’t a girl,” the fictional 7-year-old sniffles.

Tracy, Toby and her mother end up serving as a righteous levee holding back the rising tide of “the whole transgender thing” that threatens to overtake their Texas community. “Loving parents want the best for their child. But they may also be confused, brainwashed in a way, by popular trends,” Tracy’s mother explains to her.

Shannon’s strategy of pushing literature that frames transgender and LGBT people as victims of a supposed cultural war against conservative values is a growing trend in Texas.

The Texas Republican Party last December launched a committee aimed at swaying school board elections across the state. The committee has successfully attacked so-called critical race theory and mask mandates by promoting candidates and pushing residents to speak at school board meetings against both.

Transgender issues have now emerged as the latest symbol of the far-right’s perceived fight against the spread of hip, liberal value systems; the strength of candidates’ stances against transgender people is even being used as a measuring stick for authenticity of their conservative values in prominent state races heading into today’s primaries.

Neither True Texas Project, Ellie Klipp, nor Tracy Shannon responded to the Observer's requests for comment.