North Carolina has always had a mixed legal and social landscape for LGBTQ+ individuals, and recently has enacted legislation impacting LGBTQ+ rights, including laws restricting curriculum on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools (sometimes referred to as “Don’t Say LGBTQ” laws), and legislation limiting transgender girls’ participation in sports. Despite these challenges, numerous organizations and community centers provide support, and events like the Charlotte Pride festival demonstrate active LGBTQ+ community life. The latter may change now as the ultra-conservative North Carolina Values Coalition has set itself as the state’s moral guardians when what can and cannot be read by the state’s citizens and their children.

They are the force behind the Randolph County Board of Commissioners’ dissolving its nine-member library board over a picture book about a trans boy, which initially caused backlash because it was located in the children’s section.  The disbanding of the library board follows a patron asking for it to be moved away from, or placed higher up in, the children’s section earlier this year. In October, the library board denied the request, leading the county’s board of commissioners to take over the library board and dissolve it.