https://twitter.com/AsraNomani/status/1441356537163706378?s=20

by Asra Q. Nomani

Last night, Thursday, September 23, a brave Fairfax High School mother, Stacy Langton, walked up to the podium at a regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board, carrying with her two books and printouts from images in the books.

She had watched a Texas school board meeting at which parents read from two books that they had found in their school library — “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison and “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe. She looked for the books at Fairfax High School, and she found them at the school and throughout the county — available to minors as young as seventh grade, or as young as 12 years old, at Robinson Secondary School.

“The books were available, and we checked them out,” she recalled.

She started putting yellow Post-It notes on the pages. “Both of these books include pedophilia, sex between men and boys.” One book included a 4th grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male.

“The other book has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy,” she said, unfolding oversized photocopies of the x-rated drawings, one after the next as she explained them. “The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys, masturbation and violent nudity,” as well as pedophilia.

The school board’s video recording panned away from a close-up and censored the images from the books available in the school library to children.

At the podium there at Luther Jackson Middle School, she started reading excerpts from Gender Queer, her voice trembling: “I can’t wait to have your cock in my mouth — I’m going give you the blow job of your life. Then I want you inside me.”

From Lawn Boy: “What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick? What if I told you I sucked it? I was 10 years old but it’s true. I sucked Doug..’s dick, the real estate guy, and he sucked mine too.” The “real estate guy” was an adult man.

At that point, the board chair, Stella Pekarsky, huddled with Laura Jane Cohen, another board member, sitting to Pekarsky’s left.

“This was not an oversight at Fairfax High School,” Langton began.

At that point, Cohen interrupted — something that board rules say that members cannot do during citizen participation — “Excuse me, madame chair,” she said to Pekarsky, claiming, “There are children in the audience.”

I looked around. There were none at that point.

Pekarsky tried to interrupt Langton.

The mother, Langton, was not going to be interrupted. “Do not interrupt my time,” she demanded.

Parents and audience members started booing the board.

“You are sick!” one man yelled to the board.

Langton insisted, correctly, that her time be restored.

She continued: “These books are in stock available at the libraries of Robinson, Langley and…
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Pekarsky again interrupted the mother, saying incorrectly: “Those are high school students, ma’am.” Robinson Secondary School includes 7th and 8th graders.

“Pornography is offensive to all people,” Langton continued.

Before her time was even up, a buzzer not yet having gone off, Pekarsky interrupted Langton again: “Our next speaker!”

The audience broke into applause and a standing ovation to support the mom.

I watched in shock in the front rows of the meeting. When I think it can’t get any worse in America’s public schools, I attend another meeting of my local school board, and I am stunned at the political corruption and lack of professional ethics of America’s elected public school officials.

For my part, since my first speech to the board in June 2020, I have gone before my elected officials to warn them about the spread of this dangerous ideology called “critical race theory” in America’s schools, the ugliness of their anti-Asian racism against the students and families at America’s No. 1 high school and their abject failure returning children to school, responsibly spending taxpayer money and building any trust with parents. They have muted me, yelled at me and ignored me.

But still we persist.

FCPS takes on graphic novels, literally

School Board silenced a mom then BOLTED from dais tonight to duck this; no parent could imagine public school providing this to minor children

Teachers, where are you? You know. Speak up. pic.twitter.com/k0wFxKBKip

— Elizabeth L. Schultz (@Think_Schultz) September 24, 2021

Update: The Associated Press reports that Fairfax County Public Schools are removing the two books from school libraries pending a review.

This column has been republished with permission from Asra Q. Omani’s substack account Asra Investigates.