The Huntsville-Madison County Public Library (HMCPL) board heard passionate public comments at its most recent meeting as the debate between access and limitations continues.

Ten people spoke at the public comment section on Tuesday evening, taking up half the meeting with the majority speaking out against limiting access to materials at Alabama libraries.

Seven out of ten people were advocating for no further censorship in local libraries. Many of them were affiliated with the At the Root Collective.

“The library was a lifeline for me in escaping an abusive and educationally repressive household that provided a safe and respectful environment to pursue my learning goals, regardless of the subject matter or level of knowledge,” one community member said. “Ultimately, HMCPL helped me create a successful career and a stable life for my family after decades of extreme poverty and isolation. I believe this would not have been possible if the library’s contents had been censored to meet the desires of special interest groups.”

Three speakers called for further restrictions. Some advocated for the removal of several types of children’s books, like ones that have nudity or transgender representation.

Carissa Collins brought the “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope” picture book to the meeting. She said children’s books about transgender people push an agenda.

“It’s an agenda. And libraries should not be in the agenda-driven process, especially where impressionable children are concerned,” Collins said. “Again, this is not ”Heather has Two Mommies.” That is a mentality reflecting another group of people. This is the push to be more, to be everything related to sex, everything is focused on it, not two people who are happily sharing their lives, going about their business and what they do behind closed doors is their business. This is being shoved in the faces of our children, and your collection does not have anything outside of that.”

Collins said she is a supporter of Moms for Liberty, but she was showing up to the meeting as just a mom. Conservative political group Moms for Liberty’s Madison County chapter regularly attends local library board meetings. The national organization Moms for Liberty frequently pushes public libraries to remove books it considers sexually explicit, many of which include LGBTQ+ content.

At the board meeting, censorship opponent Dr. Marissa Allison passionately drew inspiration from the late non-binary poet Andrea Gibson to explain why it’s dangerous to erase transgender identities.

“I’ve instead decided to read a shortened version of one of their poems,” Dr. Allison said through tears. “I hope it will help you all to understand the weight of the decisions this board will have to make in the coming months. Queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide. Means your life is five times harder than you should have had. It means you live five times harder than you should have had to to still have a body when you graduated high school, worked five times harder to make your spirit its wishbone.”

One study found that a transgender person attempts suicide at 7.7 times the rate of the broader population.

Another speaker, Ashley Keith, spoke about her experiences growing up as transgender in Huntsville.

“I went to Jemison High School for about a year, and unfortunately, because of my identity and the fact that nobody there had ever met someone like me before, which is something I’ve heard a lot. By the beginning of sophomore year, I got jumped,” Keith said. “As the hot button topic of the Alabama library, I think that when you platform people who very clearly have intentions to move goal posts far beyond what could be seen as reasonable outrage and to slowly turn into what is very clearly the suppression of existing minority experiences, you sort of come into a scenario where it’s it becomes too far to turn back.”

She urges that people who align with Moms for Liberty will just keep changing their goals.

Just last year, HMCPL reclassified many books after the Alabama Public Library Service banned “sexually explicit content” from children and young adult sections.

Speakers urged HMCPL to divest from the state library system so they won’t have to follow their guidelines. They urge them to request funding from the local city government.

The comments came just ahead of the Alabama Public Library Service’s July meeting. The APLS board members will be discussing “Gender Ideology Deemed Inappropriate for Children Under APLS Code” as well as “Definition of Sexually Explicit.”

Tania Staltling spoke at the HMCPL meeting and she will be speaking again at the APLS meeting. She stressed concerns about children seeing sexually explicit books at the library.

“Just like the children have been exposed to these books, I’ll never get that innocence, that trust back,” Statling said. “Once you’ve seen things like I’ve seen in these kids’ books, you can never unsee them. They’re in your mind forever. And I’m an adult, just think how much worse it is for a developing mind.”