The York County Library board discusses Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, at its Fort Mill branch a change to its policy about books referencing gender identity. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
FORT MILL — The York County Library will move books about gender identity out of the children’s section, making it the latest library system to limit young readers’ access to certain books.
The library’s seven-person board agreed in a vote of six to one to put all books “addressing topics on gender identity or other mature themes” in sections for people 13 and older.
The change follows a clause first added to the state budget in 2024 that told librarians to limit minors’ access to sexual books or risk losing state funding. Specifically, county library systems must certify they don’t offer books in children or teen sections that appeal to their “prurient interest,” defined in state law as nudity or sex that arouses “lewd and lascivious desires and thoughts.”
Opponents call the York County policy an unnecessary overreach.
SC senators agree to restrict children’s access to ‘prurient’ books
The policy still allows children under 13 with their own library card to check out books referencing gender identity if they found them, since library cards aren’t restricted to a single section, said library director Julie Ward, who did not take a side on the policy.
If children want to read those books, they can go find them, said board member Carol Herring.
“If you’re a young person, you’re just going to go get that book and check it out,” Herring said.
“But you’re excluding that book from the section it was written for,” replied board member Terry Plumb, the lone “no” vote.
With the books located in another section, children are less likely to happen upon a book that introduces them to different ideas about gender unless they know what they’re looking for, Plumb added.
For supporters, that’s a good thing.
Parents may not want their children to pick up a book that mentions gender or sex at all, said Elizabeth Enns, a Fort Mill mother and co-founder of She Leads Carolinas.
She was among six people allowed to testify ahead of the vote. Dozens of people attended the meeting. The board heard from the first six to sign up. That happened to break down to two speakers for the policy and four against.
“This was never about banning books or eliminating anyone’s freedom,” said Enns, who lost a bid for the state House last year in a GOP primary. “It was about commonsense boundaries. It was about protecting childhood innocence while still preserving access for adults who wish to read whatever they choose.”
She described the books as “sexually explicit,” which opponents called a mischaracterization.
Mentioning gender, including gender transition, is not inappropriate, said Karen Stock, a professor of fine arts at Winthrop University.
The policy moves books addressing “gender identity or other mature themes” out of libraries’ children’s section. It defines gender identity as “an individual’s self-declared identity that may not align with biological sex.”
Librarians are trained to make sure books placed in each section of the library are appropriate and popular, and the children’s section is no exception, Stock said.
“The existence of the LGBTQ+ community is not a problem,” Stock said. “It is not obscene. It is not something to be hidden away. It is not something that should be put only within a certain section of the library.”
Axel Irby, a transgender man, grew up in a community that didn’t support transgender people. Reading books about gender geared toward a younger audience could have helped him find more acceptance and information about himself at a younger age, said the 23-year-old Rock Hill resident.
Working on the York County Library’s Bookmobile, which travels the community to promote access to books, Irby meets a lot of gay and transgender children and teenagers who want to read books about people like themselves, he said.
“It’s really disheartening to hear that they wouldn’t have access anymore, as somebody who works so closely with these kids and somebody that had that experience myself growing up,” Irby said.
Irby and Plumb also raised concerns about part of the policy instructing librarians to consult ratedbooks.org to decide whether a book is worth buying. The website classifies books based on how objectionable its reviewers find them, taking into account sexually explicit scenes and curse words.
Librarians already have industry-accepted websites that help them gauge where a book belongs in the library, Plumb said.
He warned that the county and public library system could face a lawsuit challenging the policy and its requirement to use that website to judge books for the collection.
“If you leave that in there, to the exclusion of other groups, you’re just asking for trouble,” Plumb said.
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Greenville County over a more restrictive policy, which moved all books about transgender people to the adult section.
In Greenville County’s library system, cardholders under the age of 17 must get their parent’s permission to check out books from the adult section, limiting access for those who don’t have parental approval.
Whether the same sort of legal action might happen in York County is unclear, though in a Thursday letter, the ACLU warned the board that it considered the change unconstitutional.
“Such a change would violate your minor patrons’ fundamental right to receive information under the First Amendment,” wrote attorney Sam Kennedy.
The proposed policy at one point mimicked the Greenville County policy, but a smaller panel of board members changed it.
Dennis Getter, who oversaw that committee, declined to say why, though he told the board the final proposal approved Thursday followed months of public comments and legal counsel.
Chairman Timothy Steele said he thought any legal challenges would fail.
“That’s just a commonsense policy,” Steele said.
Other libraries across the state have contended with changes under the state budget clause.
Citing state law, the Pickens County Library Board in August moved 10 books from the young adult section to the adult section, before later declaring that vote invalid and returning the books to the young adult section.
A fight in Anderson County centered around whether to move a single book from the children’s section to the adult section. “Melissa,” a book about a young transgender girl fighting to play a girl character in the school play, stayed put after the vote to move it failed.
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