The School Administrative District 6 Board of Directors voted 11-1 Tuesday to keep a controversial sex education book on school library shelves, despite protests that it is too graphic and discusses LGBTQ issues.

Robie Harris’s “It’s Perfectly Normal” is one of two books that faced requests for removal by parents earlier this year in that district.

The board will hold a vote regarding Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer: A Memoir” – a graphic novel that addresses issues and inner conflicts faced by the LGBTQ community – at a date that has not yet been determined.

“It’s Perfectly Normal” is about puberty, but some residents say it contains graphic depictions and descriptions of sexual activity, along with a section that describes non-heteronormative sexual orientations.

On Tuesday, Lindsay Russell, of Standish, said her objections to “It’s Perfectly Normal” was about graphic sexual content rather than sexual orientation.

“It isn’t an attack on the LGBTQ community,” Russell said. “This is about a parent’s rights, and this is about whose role is this. Is this the parents’ role or is it the school’s role?”

Vickie Shane, of Buxton also objected to what she felt was sexually-explicit drawings in the book.

“This is not an issue about intolerance,” Shane said. “This is an issue about age-appropriate material.”

Lex Jackson, also of Buxton, who described himself as an educator who identifies as queer and trans, said the book should stay.

“Removing books with representations of queer sexuality because of its representations for sexuality and starving young queer and trans people of represenation will not take away their queerness or their transness,” Jackson said. “It will only add to their feelings of shame and isolation.”

Board Chairperson Nathan Carlow, in a statement before the vote, noted that parents have always had the right to flag this or any other book in the school library system, thus preventing their children from checking the books out of the library.

“I have reservations about removing this book from the middle school library when options exist to accommodate the concerns of parents who disagree with this content,” he said.

Carlow also quoted language in complaints submitted to the board that “alarmed” him. 

Specifically, he noted concerns that making the book available would lead to physical and psychological harm to students, including “elevated incidents of suicide, disease, drug abuse, domestic violence, obesity, depression, mental disorder, infertility and a lifetime of physical and mental suffering.”

“This argument was presented without any evidence at all,” Carlow said. “The notion that retaining this book in a middle school library would result in these illnesses is an argument I found so patently absurd that it weakens the integrity of their entire appeal.”

SAD 6 serves Buxton, Hollis, Limington, Standish and Frye Island. 

Earlier, SAD 6 Carlow said a committee that included at least one parent reviewed both of the Buxton complaints and recommended the board not remove the books.

The complainants appealed both decisions, and Tuesday’s vote represents the board’s final decision on the book, “It’s Perfectly Normal.”

Throughout the U.S., school districts and libraries are under pressure to ban or restrict material concerning sexual orientation. In recent years, American Library Association President Lessa Pelayo-Lozada has seen an overall increase in the number of “challenges,” or reports of people asking for books to be banned from libraries.

In 2021, the association recorded 729 separate challenges, covering 1,597 separate books. 

Pelayo-Lozada said the numbers are the highest since the association began tracking book challenges 20 years ago. While data for 2022 are not yet available, she said, “We expect it to be the same if not higher, based on what we’re seeing.”

The association does not break down the data by reason for the challenges, but Pelayo-Lozada said the majority of the reasons relate to racism or LGBTQ issues.

“We’re looking at folks who are trying to silence ideas,” Pelayo-Lozada said, later adding: “Frankly, it’s heartbreaking, because this is what I got into library work for, to help with the free exchange of ideas.”

At the May 11 meeting of the Gorham School Committee, Eric Lane of Standish, a parent of a Gorham Middle School student, charged that LGBTQ issues discussed as part of the curriculum are contrary to his religious upbringing.

“I have seen no evidence on how the school respects my protected religious values in the same way they protect the sexual revolution they’re pushing on kids in the school,” Lane said. 

Lane and some other local residents want a classroom poster defining different sexual orientations removed.

Two books are also being targeted: George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto,” and Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” 

“All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir relating to the author’s life as a gay black man, made the American Library Association’s top 10 list of challenged books in 2021, along with “Gender Queer.”

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is set in a dystopian theocratic future where women are subjugated as concubines, and has come to prominence thanks in part to a high-profile television adaptation. 

Neither School Committee Chairperson Anne Schools nor Superintendent Heather Perry would discuss the complaints in detail. However, Perry said that the three complaints the district currently is facing are the only ones she has seen since she became superintendent in 2015.

In Buxton, Carlow said while the books are on library shelves, they are not part being taught in the schools. Parents also always have the right to flag the books at the libraries to make sure their children do not check them out. 

“Parents have total control over what their child consumes from the library,” Carlow said.

Carlow said this is his 6th year on the school board, and he has never seen materials challenged in this way before.

“There is a nationwide effort, I think, to undermine public education, and I think that’s disappointing,” Carlow said.