Hello everyone, thanks for continuing to support this petition.

After the collective meeting where I and a number of others organized to get on the same page, we decided on a few courses of action to mitigate the harm that Halifax Public Libraries is enabling through the inclusion of misinformation in the library.

One of the plans is something I have been working on actively and I'm hoping to produce a set of counter-arguments for teachers and others who work with youth to defend against the misinformation from this book.

But ultimately that is not an effective strategy for protecting trans children who will be abused by parents who believe in the false narrative this book preaches.

This book must be removed from libraries.

Today I would like to introduce an article published by the progressive librarians guild which talks about hate material in US libraries. Canada's legal reasoning is different as we do not have freedom of speech like the USA, but we do have freedom of expression and so similar arguments can be made and should be made here.

You can find the progressive librarians guild's 47th publication (winter 2020) here.
http://www.progressivelibrariansguild.org/PL_Jnl/contents47.shtml

the article Does Hate Literature Belong in the American Library?
by Alastair McPherson is of particular interest. McPherson contests the positive nature of neutrality and demonstrates how the inclusion of unfactual viewpoints actually enables hateful ideologies even when included alongside the current facts of a subject.
http://www.progressivelibrariansguild.org/PL/PL47/018mcpherson.pdf

This campaign is continuing, but I want to expand beyond just addressing this one book. Misinformation in our libraries is enabling hate. The library's neutrality is enabling violence, and as such it is violence.

The decision-makers have tried to equate this movement to remove hate to the movement that sought to erase queer people from libraries in the past. This is a violent comparison. Bigots who seek to erase their targets from public discourse are not hurt by the absence of their hate from discourse.

Thank you for continuing to support this action. If you would like to lend a hand with this campaign reach out to me on Twitter @MilaPolitical