By Mabel Wellman.
On 2nd July 2025, Kent County Council leader Cllr Linden Kemkaran (Reform UK) announced on X, formally known as Twitter, that cabinet member Cllr Paul Webb had trans material removed from the children’s section of all the libraries in Kent. Kemkaran then went on to say: “Telling children they’re in the ‘wrong body’ is wrong and simply unacceptable.”
The one book that was removed from the children’s section (and reorganised to be in another category of Kent’s libraries) was ‘The Autistic Trans Guide To Life’ by Yenn Purkis and Wenn Lawson. This is a book I own, after being recommended to read it by a psychiatrist I have seen with the GIC (Gender Identity Clinic). And this book most certainly does not tell the reader, child or otherwise, that they are in the wrong body.
The Autistic Trans Guide To Life is brilliantly informative. Over eight chapters, the book goes over many aspects of life a trans person may have difficulty in, from helping to understand themselves as a both gender and neurodiverse individual, to helping with coming out, finding work, and managing one’s mental health. The only thing I can fault with this book is it didn’t make its way into my life sooner.
When I was 15 and first coming out as trans, I do remember scouting the local Southampton City Council libraries for books – to both help me understand my experience, and also my mom understand what being trans meant in the first place.
At the time, a lot of the books on being trans that were available to me were memoirs, which I struggled to apply to my own life. So thinking of trans people at the start of their journey having such a great resource available to them as The Autistic Trans Guide To Life makes me very happy for them, but at the same time very disappointed that a council decided it was necessary to go after one self help book, which posed no danger to anyone at all. All this achieves is telling the new generation of transgender teens that they are inappropriate to be around other kids their own age, and that there is something wrong with them which should be hidden, or a source of shame, instead of just another aspect of their personhood to accept.
Unfortunately, this is not the only recent incident where LGBTQ+ youths have been made to feel uncomfortable for existing.
At the end of June, Fareham MP Suella Braverman criticised a school in her constituency for planning to host a Pride event which had a drag act planned, as it had done the previous year without issue. Braverman, when talking about the planned drag act, stated: “It’s highly sexualised, presents a demeaning and distorted image of women, and does not fairly represent the LGBTQ+ community either.”
It was reported shortly afterwards that the school in question decided to cancel the inclusion of a drag act in their school Pride. This is especially frustrating when you remember that in Shakespeare’s time, ALL theatre was drag, because men would have to perform women’s parts of plays due to it being illegal for women to be actresses. Drag is deeply ingrained in British culture, and yet it finds itself being villainised.
This further demonstrates how perfectly innocent and mundane things (such as self help books or performances which might combine music with loud outfits and dancing) are being twisted into being perverse or unsafe for children, due to being related to gender and being trans. This is particularly dangerous when you keep in mind, that in Britain, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the definition of a woman is leading to trans women finding themselves being asked or restricted to using male restroom and changing facilities, being strip searched by male police officers, and many other distressing realities due to the fallout of this ruling. It is becoming increasingly hard to live in public as a trans woman, and a rhetoric which announces anything related to being trans as being inappropriate for children, could very easily become a proclamation that trans women themselves are not safe around (and should therefore not exist in public to avoid being around) children.
Libraries are magical places where people can spend time for free, get help with research and learning, job applications, learning to use computers and more.
A very rare space to come by.
They do not deserve to become battlegrounds, and yet what is happening in Kent is not the only instance of this either.
In 2024, the Index on Censorship polled 53 school librarians and found that 28 had been asked to remove books from their libraries – of which many books being asked to be removed where LGBTQIA+ titles. Out of the 28 that were asked to remove books, half of those asked did remove the books in question. The Index on Censorship has reported that one school librarian even lost their job due to refusing a headteacher’s request to remove a book from the school’s library after a parent complained. This has made many of the librarians involved feel pressured and intimidated by what is being imposed on them, which in turn will make it harder for LGBTQIA+ books that could help students with their personal development be purchased and added to shelves altogether.
Ultimately, it is children who are being hurt the most in this argument. Yet the whole argument for this recent decision in Kent is to protect children from a trans ‘ideology’. As a former trans child myself, I can give nothing but thanks to the help it was to have some sort of books regarding gender and sexuality available to help me understand myself in Southampton’s libraries. I fear for the new generation of trans children who are having their resources taken, medication banned, and being told they’re brainwashed by an ideology.
I can only hope that people realise the ridiculousness of this situation could only ever be driven by a truly dangerous ideology of its own right.
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