When our son Sam was six years old, he was assaulted in the boy’s bathroom at school. Sam was wearing khaki pants and a grey Star Wars t-shirt, but had long hair and was wearing his favorite pink Crocs. Another student looked at Sam, decided Sam was a girl, and began to scream at and kick Sam.
It wasn’t just at school that Sam had problems in the bathroom. We couldn’t safely send Sam by himself into any public bathroom. At playgrounds and zoos, in airports and restaurants, other kids—and often adults—felt the need to tell Sam he was in the wrong place. Sometimes they were polite. Mostly they were not. And Sam? He was a little kid who just needed to pee.
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After Sam had endured years of bathroom confrontations, we wrote the children’s picture book Jacob’s Room to Choose. In the book, Jacob and his friend, Sophie, are chased out of the bathrooms at school. Jacob tries to use the boys’ room, and Sophie the girls’ room, but other kids decide that they do not belong in those places based on their clothes. Jacob and Sophie’s teacher realizes there’s a problem, and puts together an impromptu lesson on basic courtesy in bathrooms. Just like the teacher, we, as parents and children’s book writers, believe that everyone should be able to use the bathroom safely—whether they look like other people expect them to or not.
Jacob’s Room to Choose is currently banned in multiple U.S. states and the country of Malaysia.
Jacob’s Room to Choose is one of nine children’s picture books named in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a lawsuit filed in Montgomery County, Md., by parents who are upset that their children saw books like ours in their classrooms—books that teach self-acceptance and kindness. These books were added to the school district’s language arts curriculum after a thoughtful, inclusive community process to increase the number of books that reflect the diverse lived experiences of the children in the district. On April 22, Mahmoud v. Taylor will be argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, in a case involving the constitutionality of inclusive education. The plaintiffs argue that not being able to opt their children out of instruction involving books with LGBTQIA+ characters constitutes a violation of their right to freely exercise their religion under the First Amendment of the Constitution. They claim that irreparable harm will come to their children from seeing the diversity of people and families represented in these picture books.
Read More: Banning Books Isn’t Just Morally Wrong. It’s Also Unhealthy
We believe that people have a fundamental right to practice and express their faith, but not when it harms others. Allowing families to opt their children out of reading our books hurts the children whose lives and families are reflected in those books. “Opt-out” policies starkly communicate to classrooms of children that behaving decently to all human beings is optional and tells kids who are different that they and their families don’t merit the respect of all their classmates.
We know how meaningful it is for kids to see themselves represented in books. When Sam was four, and the only boy we knew who wanted to wear a dress, we looked around for books about boys like him. We found none. It was a lonely time—for him and us. So we wrote our first book, Jacob’s New Dress, to help kids like our son know that they are not alone—and to help all kids learn to be kind. Parents, teachers, and librarians tell us often how this book has improved the lives of the children in their care.
Sometimes it seems like telling stories is not enough. That a little rectangle of cardboard and paper and ink is no match for all the hateful rhetoric about books somehow hurting children. But then we remember that our stories are so powerful that some people are actually afraid of them. So afraid that they lie about the books’ contents, calling them “radical indoctrination” and “pornography” and “child abuse.” So afraid that they are trying to hide them away. So afraid of books that are about, simply, being kind.
We believe that every student in an elementary school classroom deserves kindness and respect. Accepting others as they are is a path to a world where we can live together in peace, regardless of religion.