6 Moms for Liberty protesters arrested on final day of the group’s Philly summit

Five people arrested were holding hands while standing in the middle of the intersection at 12th and Filbert Streets, and a sixth was a trans woman waving a flag, according to ACT UP Philadelphia.

Philadelphia police arrested five Moms for Liberty protesters for blocking traffic outside the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Sunday morning.

Courtesy of Nico Wisler

by Maddie Hanna

Updated on Jul 2, 2023

Five Moms for Liberty protesters were arrested Sunday morning for blocking traffic outside the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, and a sixth for waving a flag over a barricade set up outside the hotel, according to activists.

Philadelphia police said the six people were arrested on charges of failure to disperse, but did not provide further details. ACT UP Philadelphia, the AIDS activism group, provided photographs of five people, who were holding hands while standing in the middle of the intersection at 12th and Filbert Streets.

“They were chanting for Moms for Liberty to go home and blocking traffic,” said Aaron Bodiford, an activist with the group. He said police gave the activists three warnings before making the arrests, pulling their vans up in front of the barricades where the rest of the protesters were stationed.

Philadelphia police arrested five Moms for Liberty protesters for blocking traffic outside the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Sunday morning.

Courtesy of Nico Wisler

Later Sunday, Bodiford said a trans woman was also arrested for waving a trans flag over the barricade set up around the Marriott.

The arrests came on the fourth and final day of the summit for the controversial “parental rights” group, which targets LGBTQ issues and diversity education and has drawn protests since its arrival in Philadelphia Thursday. The event, attended by 650 people from across the country, featured speeches from former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, among other Republican presidential contenders.

Sunday’s program included North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a GOP candidate for governor who has said “there’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth”; and KrisAnne Hall, a self-described “constitutional attorney” who has previously addressed the Oath Keepers militia group.

The summit contained a heavy focus on opposing transgender identity and gender transitioning — messages not lost on protesters, who throughout the conference have been waving Pride flags and chanting “Philly is a trans city” and “Philly is a queer city.”

Philadelphia police arrested five Moms for Liberty protesters for blocking traffic outside the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Sunday morning.

Courtesy of Nico Wisler

Police have been stationed at the protests, which started Thursday outside the Marriott and the Museum of the American Revolution as it hosted a welcome reception for Moms for Liberty that night over outcry from its staff. While some interactions have been tense — police threatened to arrest anyone who blocked traffic Thursday night — only one arrest had been reported before Sunday.

Saturday’s protests were family-oriented, with children drawing on the street with chalk and decorating signs during a daylong dance party. Bodiford said activists hadn’t wanted to risk arrests of families.

As the dance party resumed Sunday, Bodiford said protesters wanted to send a message.

“We are willing to take things further than we have been,” he said from outside the Marriott, where Moms attendees were trickling out as the summit ended. “It’s actually not on their terms. It’s on our terms.”

Shame Went to Die at Moms for Liberty’s Philadelphia Summit

Jared Holt

The Daily Beast.
Sat, July 1, 2023 

Michael M Santiago/GettyImages

In another era of politics, Republican presidential hopefuls may have hesitated before hitching their brands to an organization whose members have harassed and threatened opponents, fantasized about enacting gun violence, mingled with known extremist groups, quoted Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in their materials, and earned a designation as an anti-government extremist group. It’s safe to say that time is long gone.

Five 2024 candidates traveled to the birthplace of the United States to take turns auditioning for the support of a sold-out crowd of Moms for Liberty activists and rhetorically kissing the rings of the group’s co-founders, former school board members Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, at their “Joyful Warriors” conference in Philadelphia this week.

It’s little surprise; Moms for Liberty has emerged as a juggernaut in the conservative movement since its inception two years ago. The group claims to fight for “parental rights at all levels of government,” but it’s better known for what it opposes: COVID-19 health precautions, the contents of school libraries, and educational curricula that feature lessons about race, sexuality, and gender. Moms for Liberty has ridden its successes into statehouses across the country, where it hopes to help push anti-LGBTQ bills into law.

The Southern Poverty Law Center added Moms for Liberty to its database of extremist groups last month: a move swiftly rejected by the group as a “political hit job” and frowned upon by many of the group’s conservative media allies. For many speakers, including presidential candidates, that extremist group designation was acknowledged via a punchline.

“I’m telling you these people are sick,” former President Donald Trump said, earning laughter from the audience. “Moms for Liberty is no hate group… You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to America.”

The America First Political Action Conference Is Courting Republicans Towards Extremism

Even Nikki Haley, a relative moderate in the current slate of Republican candidates, shrugged off the group’s scandals.

“When they mentioned that this was a terrorist organization, I said, ‘Well, then count me as a Mom for Liberty,’” Haley proclaimed to the sold-out crowd. She was met with roaring applause.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Moms for Liberty that scrutiny of the group was “a sign that we are winning this fight.”

Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction who has called teachers’ unions “terrorist organizations” and is facing fallout for his handling of federal funds, took his pushback a step further.

“You know who else was called a terrorist group, an extremist group?” Walters rhetorically asked. “Those founding fathers. That’s who you are today. You are the most patriotic, pro-America group in the country right now.”

It’s clear that the SPLC’s extremist group designation struck a chord at Moms for Liberty. The joking candor shifted briefly before Trump spoke on Friday, when co-founder Justice teased that her group would be exploring retribution, hinting at possible legal action, against its opponents and critics.

But even with that scrutiny in front of mind, Moms for Liberty made no apparent effort to tamp down on the kinds of extreme rhetoric and far-right affiliations that earned its spot on SPLC’s list to begin with. Even a passing glance at the event’s speakers lineup reveals a wash of far-right ideologues.

One featured speaker was KrisAnne Hall, who has espoused far-right rhetoric and affiliated with less-debatable extremist groups like the anti-government Oath Keepers and neo-Confederate League of the South. Others include James Lindsay, an anti-LGBTQ social media performer who has described the Pride flag as that “of a hostile enemy” and North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an unabashed Christian nationalist who has declared the transgender rights movement “demonic” and “full of the Antichrist spirit.” Many speakers have publicly accused teachers and officials who promote LGBTQ inclusion in schools of grooming children for sexual exploitation—incendiary rhetoric that has undergirded surges in anti-LGBTQ threats in the US.

That sort of sentiment was mirrored by DeSantis, who maintains a fandom within Moms for Liberty, and the other presidential hopefuls, too. At one point in DeSantis’ speech, he declared that gender-affirming care for transgender youth was “wrong” and “has no place in our society.”

Haley accused transgender rights advocates of “trying to erase” the progress of women in America. Audible groans of disgust could be heard from audience members when Trump bemoaned parents who take their children to drag shows.

The incendiary rhetoric directed toward LGBTQ people and their advocates on stage was certainly hateful, but it also serves to justify a host of behaviors and policies that don’t actually help parents or their children. It also works to cast Republicans’ political opponents not just as people who disagree but as immoral villains who must be defeated by any means necessary, let alone compromised with.

Trump’s Gone Full QAnon. There’s No Point in Denying It Anymore.

The establishment conservative movement has long sought to undermine public education, and some of its biggest players have predictably rushed to support Moms for Liberty and groups like it. Its founders have discovered allies in a host of conservative movement groups with large bases of support and dollars. Heritage Foundation and Liberty Institute, two of the most powerful and well-funded think tanks in Washington, sponsored Moms for Liberty’s summit this year.

If you believe Trump, all of this debasement is in service of fighting “a cult” of “Marxists and perverts” who are pushing a “poison” of gender ideology on children. Those who believe DeSantis might think of themselves like those who battled for a democratic Berlin after World War II. Whatever it might be, to the true believer, it must be better than the child abuse Democrats supposedly hope to normalize.

The only viable currency in the modern Republican Party is raw power: a fact made self-evident in presidential candidates’ appearances at the Moms for Liberty summit. In their run to the top of the ticket, these Republican candidates have also submitted to a race to the bottom of a barrel, where shame is a benchable injury.

Moms for Liberty’s focus on school races nationwide sets up political clash with teachers unions


PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that has sought to take over school boards in multiple states, is looking to expand those efforts across the country and to other education posts in 2024 and beyond. The effort is setting up a clash with teachers unions and others on the left who view the group as a toxic presence in public schools.

By Ali Swenson The Associated Press
Sunday, July 2, 2023


Matt Rourke / AP Photo
Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice speaks at their meeting, in Philadelphia, Friday, June 30, 2023.



PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that has sought to take over school boards in multiple states, is looking to expand those efforts across the country and to other education posts in 2024 and beyond. The effort is setting up a clash with teachers unions and others on the left who view the group as a toxic presence in public schools.


The group’s co-founder, Tiffany Justice, said during its annual summit over the weekend in Philadelphia that Moms for Liberty will use its political action committee next year to engage in school board races nationwide. It also will “start endorsing at the state board level and elected superintendents.”


Her comments confirm that Moms for Liberty, which has spent its first two years inflaming school board meetings with aggressive complaints about instruction on systemic racism and gender identity in the classroom, is developing a larger strategy to overhaul education infrastructure across the country.

As the group has amassed widespread conservative support and donor funding, its focus on education ensures that even as voters turn their attention to the 2024 presidential race, school board elections will remain some of the most contentious political fights next year.

Moms for Liberty started with three Florida moms fighting COVID-19 restrictions in 2021. It has quickly ascended as a national player in Republican politics, helped along the way by the board’s political training and close relationships with high-profile GOP groups and lawmakers. The group’s support for school choice and the “fundamental rights of parents” to direct their children’s education has drawn allies such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading GOP presidential contender, and the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The group has been labeled an “extremist” organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans.

Justice said in an interview that she and her co-founder, Tina Descovich, were two moms who “had faith in American parents to take back the public education system in America” and that they “fully intend on reclaiming and reforming“ that system.

So far, the group has had mixed success at getting its preferred candidates elected. In 2022, slightly more than half of the 500 school board candidates it endorsed across the country won. In the spring of 2023, fewer than one-third of the nearly 30 candidates it endorsed in Wisconsin were elected.

Focusing on state-level candidates could give Moms for Liberty an opportunity to assert its influence on some of the positions that have more control in determining curriculum, said Jon Valant, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied education policy.

A close partnership with the conservative training organization the Leadership Institute and added money from a growing donor base also could help the Moms for Liberty run more electable candidates and help them win in 2024.

Monty Floyd, vice chair of the Moms for Liberty chapter in Hernando County, Florida, knows what it’s like to have the group’s support in a political campaign. He ran for school board in 2022 and received the group’s endorsement, as well as $250 from its Florida-based PAC.

Floyd lost that race but plans to run again in 2026, he told The Associated Press at the summit. He looks forward to seeing how the group’s political influence grows and said that even more than the money, the national network of Moms for Liberty provides a “great resource” to a candidate.

“The wealth of knowledge they have and the network of support and just the advocacy tips that we’re learning from the speakers today,” he said. “They have good advice to give. So you kind of learn a lot about what you can improve in your messaging.”

Moms for Liberty may face obstacles, however, as its rising national presence has driven a countermovement of activists who oppose it, Valant said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said she thinks groups such as Moms for Liberty have “created more action and more energy” among teachers unions.

“We have 41 new units that we have organized as the AFT this year. We’ve never had that,” she said. She said the union would “do what we have to do” during elections to show the contrast between its endorsed candidates and Moms for Liberty candidates.

Beyond unions, Moms for Liberty is likely to face opposition from grassroots groups and voters who “just don’t agree with their vision of what public education should be,” Valant said.

Martha Cooney, a Pennsylvania educator who was one of about 100 protesters dancing and holding signs outside the summit Saturday afternoon, agreed. She said that as Moms for Liberty tries to assert more political power, she and others will continue to stand in its way.

“They are a very small minority who are trying to act like they represent this whole nation, and they do not,” Cooney said.

Moms for Liberty did not answer questions on which races it would focus on in 2024, besides making it clear that it would not endorse in legislative races or the presidential election.

But even as the group says it will not get involved in the White House race, Republican candidates have tried to harness Moms for Liberty’s influence and broad network of more than 120,000 members in 45 states to woo its voting bloc and benefit their primary campaigns.

Five GOP candidates gave speeches during the gathering in Philadelphia, which ended Sunday. They included DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. The rivals tried to outflank each other with claims that “woke ideology” had overtaken education and that pronouns and “critical race theory” needed to be struck from classrooms.

“I think moms are the key political force for this 2024 cycle,” DeSantis said in his address to attendees Friday.

Other Republican presidential candidates who appeared at the summit included former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who brought his wife and two children to the stage Saturday. He pledged to prioritize parents’ rights and shutter the U.S. Department of Education if elected.

“The membership of this organization is just a small tip of the iceberg of a broader pro-parent movement, pro-children movement in our country,” Ramaswamy told reporters at the summit. “And so how important is that? You better believe it’s pretty darn important.”
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Moms for Liberty: ‘Joyful warriors’ or anti-government conspiracists?

Image via screengrab.

The Conversation

September 19, 2023

Motherhood language and symbolism have been part of every U.S. social movement, from the American Revolution to Prohibition and the fight against drunk drivers. Half of Americans are women, most become mothers, and many are conservative.

The U.S. is also a nation of organizing, so conservative moms – like all moms – often band together.

Lately, the mothers group dominating media attention is Moms for Liberty, self-described “joyful warriors … stok[ing] the fires of liberty” with the slogan “We Don’t Co-Parent with the Government.”

Others see them as well-organized, publicity-savvy anti-government conspiracists.

The rambunctious two-year-old group was founded in Brevard County, Florida, to resist COVID-19 mask mandates. It quickly expanded into the Southeast, now claiming 120,000 members in 285 chapters nationwide. Their mission is to “figh[t] for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”

By “parental rights” they mean limiting certain content in schools and having local councils and boards run only by “liberty-minded individuals” – which sounds like rhetoric from the American Revolution.

There’s historical precedent in this. Change the clothes and hairdos and these ladies could look like the conservative white women who opposed busing in 1970s Boston, supported McCarty anti-communism or blocked integration in Southern schools. Those women also formed mom-based groups to protest what they saw as government overreach into their families’ way of life.

But as a scholar of American politics with a focus on gender and race, I also see differences.

21st century conservatism

Moms for Liberty skillfully leverages social media, drawing on a population activated by the 2009-2010 rise of the Tea Party followed by the Trumpian MAGA movement. Mask mandates were the trigger for the group’s formation, but opposition to gender fluidity and queerness has become its bread and butter – more 21st century than 20th.

How racial equality is talked about animates its work also, in a distinctly new way. The conservative position on race and government’s role in the past century has pivoted from enforcement of segregation and hierarchy to a kind of social “laissez-faire” – hands off – position to match the Reaganite view that government is bad.

The extreme, hyper-male form of this anti-government, pro-traditional gender-roles ideology took shape as the Proud Boys, a number of whose leaders are now under indictment and sentence for their part in the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks. Moms for Liberty, while not going this far, shares similar beliefs and apparently has ties to the Proud Boys organization and leaders. They don’t march with guns, but their actions undermine and impede local government.

‘One minute you’re making peanut butter and jelly, and the next minute the FBI is calling you,’ said Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, testifying in the U.S. House of Representatives about government investigation of her group.

New kids in town making themselves heard

The group’s roots stretch back to a heated 2020 school board election in Brevard County. Incumbent school board member Tina Descovich, a local conservative activist mom, was challenged by progressive newcomer Jenifer Jenkins. When Jenkins won, the conservative board majority ended.

Having lost electorally, Descovich – and the corps of like-minded moms she now represents – began to shift the conversation from the outside. They joined with moms in many red states angered by what seemed fast-moving changes involving race, gender and sexuality, like the increasing numbers of people identifying as trans, queer or nonbinary, even at young ages, the vast changes in marital laws and family structure, and changing ideas about whiteness, inclusion and equity.

Moms for Liberty soon found success with disruptive tactics a VICE News investigation called a “pattern of harassment” of opponents that include online and in-person targeting of school board members, parents or even students who disagree with the group.

Members in many chapters generate ill will by turning up to school board and other meetings – sometimes to the homes of public officials or teachers – yelling insults like “pedophile” and “groomer” at opponents.

For a newcomer, Moms for Liberty has had real victories. It has disrupted countless meetings, forcing local governance bodies to focus on topics important to the group such as lifting mask mandates and, more recently, removing curricular content that they deem controversial, such as texts on gender identity and racial oppression.

The group’s success in getting talked about is perhaps its greatest strength so far, moving it from outside disruptor to political player, at least locally. It has successfully supported many local candidates and book bans.

Specific examples of banned books include “Push,” which inspired the award-winning movie “Precious,” and “Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl,” also made into a movie.

Disciplining members

Despite its many chapters, Moms for Liberty is untried nationally, its total membership is still relatively small, and Federal Election Commission filings show it raising and spending little money. The group lacks control over members, who have publicly embarrassed it. In one case, the Hamilton County, Indiana, chapter quoted Hitler in a newsletter – later apologizing.

At another point, an Arkansas member avoided criminal charges for saying, in a discussion about a librarian, “I’m telling you, if I had any mental issues, they would all be plowed down by a freaking gun right now.”

These incidents mark the group not only as green, but also as part of the new right wing. Republican-leaning groups used to take a top-down approach to setting agendas and managing people, while Democratic organizations historically cited democracy and equality as both tools and goals, even if it meant disorganization and failure.

In the traditional top-down Republican party of yesteryear, Moms for Liberty would likely be marginal. In today’s disorganized, divided, hyperpolarized GOP, it may do quite well – which is not good news for democracy.
Out of step, but useful


A poster helping those who want to run for a school board position is seen in the hallway during the inaugural Moms For Liberty Summit on July 15, 2022, in Tampa, Fla.
Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

Pro-mom language is sometimes, in the old idiom, the velvet glove hiding the iron fist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks organized hate activity, labeled Moms for Liberty “extremist.” Its empirical evaluation concluded that the group’s chapters “reflect views and actions that are antigovernment and conspiracy propagandist.”

Moms for Liberty is ideologically out of step with the country and more anti-government than most Republicans. The majority of Americans are not in support of lifting mask mandates in the middle of a pandemic or banning books.

Among Republicans, there is disagreement over the teaching of controversial topics like racial justice, but book bans find low support. Despite the current bitter political climate, most in the U.S. appreciate government and want it to work.

Yet, some media refer to Moms for Liberty as a “power player” – and no wonder, when Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis show up to court the group. Moms for Liberty may be fringe, but its members could be of use to presidential hopefuls.

Why? The answer lies in some distinctly post-2010 electoral math. These days, only a quarter to a third of voters align with each major party, and less than a third of registered partisans turn out for primaries.

So a sixth of each party – a small fraction of the overall population – now selects the nominees. And that sixth is not representative – it is far more opinionated and angry. Moms for Liberty, having organized small, ideological voting armies in swing states, is in the envious position of representing a concentrated and potentially decisive voting bloc.

The mom rhetoric may be real, but as a political scientist, I can say confidently that the framers of the Constitution would not endorse this brand of liberty. Book bans are weapons of autocrats, and democracy ends where political figures call each other “pedophiles” in public.

Shauna Shames, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Far-right 'Moms for Liberty' listed as a hate group for first time

David McAfee
June 6, 2023

(Via Moms for Liberty/Facebook)

Moms for Liberty, the far-right parental group known for protesting at school board meetings, has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group" for the first time ever.

Moms for Liberty, which recently said it knows liberal groups are spying on its activities because it's doing the same thing to them, is among 12 parental groups added to the SPLC's list of hate groups, according to USA Today.

"The Southern Poverty Law Center is for the first time labeling Florida-headquartered Moms for Liberty and 11 other right-wing 'parents' rights' groups as extremist groups in its annual report, released today," USA Today wrote.

"Moms for Liberty and the other organizations are being designated as 'anti-government extremist groups,' based on longstanding criteria, explained SPLC Intelligence Project Director Susan Corke. Corke said the grassroots conservative groups are part of a new front in the battle against inclusivity in schools, though they are drawing from ideas rooted in age-old white supremacy."
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According to the report, Corke noted: “[The movement] is primarily aimed at not wanting to include our hard history, topics of racism, and a very strong push against teaching anything having to do with LGBTQ topics in schools. We saw this as a very deliberate strategy to go to the local level.”

The 12 new groups reportedly bring the total number of active extremist groups included in the 2022 report to 1,225 in the U.S.

The move has been protested by some on the right, including the conservative The Daily Signal.

"The Southern Poverty Law Center, which brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as 'hate groups,' placing them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, added a slew of parental rights organizations to that 'hate map' for 2022 and labeled them 'antigovernment groups,'" it reported.

Southern Poverty Law Center labels parents' rights groups extremist, anti-government

Florida-based Moms for Liberty specifically cited for its efforts to ban books

The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report Tuesday, saying hate groups are on the rise and targeting public education through bans on books (pictured, 2022) and protests, as the center labeled 12 right-wing parents rights groups extremist. 

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

June 6 (UPI) -- The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report Tuesday saying hate groups are on the rise and targeting public education through book bans and protests, as the center labeled 12 right-wing parents rights groups extremist.

The report, titled "Year in Hate & Extremism," documents 1,225 active "extremist hate groups which are stripping communities of their rights" through public demonstrations, flyers and media attention.

"Taking on the most hateful factions in our country is critical to dismantling white supremacy and advancing the civil rights of all people," Margaret Huang, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement.

"We are exposing a concerted effort by hate groups and extremist actors to terrorize communities and gain control of public institutions by any means necessary," Huang said.

"These groups are descending on Main Street America and disrupting people's daily lives, too often with dire consequences for communities of color, Jewish people and the LGBTQ+ community," Huang added.

Groups mobilizing at public schools, which SPLC called "extremist," were singled out. Specifically the report documented 12 anti-student inclusion groups, which it said have attacked public education, banned books and removed curriculum focused on race, discrimination and LGBTQ+ identities.

One of those groups is Florida-based Moms for Liberty.

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"Hate and anti-government extremist groups are intent on staging public spectacles of hatred that harass, threaten and violently harm Black, Brown, Asian, Jewish, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities," Susan Corke, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said in a statement.

"Schools, synagogues and LGBTQ+ businesses -- venues that have traditionally been safe spaces for our children, the Jewish community and LGBTQ+ people -- are now on the frontlines of hatred and violence," Corke added.

Moms for Liberty, which SPLC called a far-right anti-government organization that engages in anti-student inclusion activities and is considered part of the modern parental rights movement, says it created the group to fight the "woke indoctrination" of children.

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"I raise my children. The government does not. We do not co-parent with the government," Tiffany Justice, Moms for Liberty co-founder, said in a C-SPAN2 About Books interview.

"And there are certain sensitive subjects that we would like to be directing the conversation around for our children," Justice added. "As the teachers union pushes an agenda focused on everything BUT education for our children, American parents are rising up, taking back our school districts and putting the focus back on educating our children."

While SPLC tracked an increase in what the report called extremist groups, such as Moms for Liberty, the report found the number of active militia groups had dropped from 92 groups in 2021 to 61 active militia groups in 2022.

According to SPLC, the drop in militia mobilization follows the recent federal convictions of members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Children and parents begin uphill fightback against book bans in Florida

Elle Reeve and Samantha Guff, CNN
Fri, October 6, 2023

Now that books are being banned and disappearing from school libraries, students and parents are showing up to school board meetings in Florida to argue for access to books that take on difficult subjects. But they are losing out to a new state law that makes it easier for opponents to get books off shelves.

The conservative Moms for Liberty and allied groups turned board meetings into spectacle, reading out explicit passages from books without context to argue that they should not be available to minors. This summer, a Florida law went into effect stating that if a board member stopped a reading because it was offensive, the book could be removed immediately.

It turned performance into policy. Some school board lawyers are confused by the rules, and and those arguing for access have few ways to fight back.

“Adults who are doing this clearly don’t understand teenagers,” Trixie Meckley, a senior in high school in DeLand, central Florida, told CNN. When she’d heard about one of the books most frequently banned from school libraries, “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” she’d searched the graphic novel on Google to see what the fuss was about. “It honestly looks pretty interesting,” she said.

Meckley’s friend, junior Riley Kellogg, has been an obsessive reader since middle school. “I actually have a sticker on my phone right now that says, ‘If you ban a book, I add it to my summer reads list,’” Kellogg said.

Children and their parents with means can certainly still access the works in bookstores or other libraries if they know about them.

According to a PEN America study, more than 40% of book bans nationwide last school year happened in school districts in Florida.

Moms for Liberty chapters have a plan of action to offer to supporters.

“You want to get shut down. Only read the dirtiest bits that we give to you,” a Moms for Liberty member north of Orlando in Seminole County urged viewers in a Facebook video.

But in Seminole County itself, the school board just let them read the dirty bits without stopping them – which could have triggered the ban.

They had more success south of Orlando, in Indian River County, where Moms for Liberty and likeminded allies got dozens of books removed.

And in Volusia County, a neighbor of Seminole, a school board meeting took on the atmosphere of a professional wrestling match: Everyone knows what’s going to happen, but they all want to watch anyway. The Moms for Liberty knew they’d be reading sex scenes, the people who showed up to oppose them knew they’d be reading sex scenes and the school board knew they’d be reading sex scenes. But for the spectacle to matter, a school board member had to declare the words were inappropriate for the crowd who came to hear them.

Merrick Brunker, who’s running for a school board seat, stood at the podium and addressed the board: “And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs…” He was reading from “Nineteen Minutes,” a novel by Jodi Picoult about the aftermath of a school shooting that was a best-seller in 2007. “‘Wait,’ Josie said, trying to roll away beneath him, but he clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.”

“Point of order,” a school board member said.

“Semen, stick–” Brunker continued.

“Please stop,” the member said.

Brunker threw up his hands.

Kellogg, the high school junior, also spoke at that meeting. “I have learned a lot more about the world around me through books than I have through my own eyes,” she said. “Although there might be something in a book that some people don’t want there to be, the books ultimately have a message. … They should stay in the libraries.”

Jacob Smith, who said he graduated from a county school in 2017, also addressed the board.

“I’m actually Gen Z … and we have certain feelings about how we want to be educated,” Smith said.

His father had read banned books decades ago, he added. “I don’t want to continue fighting the same things we were fighting from the previous generations … I want Gen Z to be a generation of people that find new peace, find new justice that America has never achieved before.”

“I think it’s ridiculous that we’re going back in time,” Smith said.

Florida’s new state law, HB 1069, came into effect in July. It followed lobbying from groups who were unhappy that books they complained about, including classics like “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “The Bluest Eye,” often stayed on shelves after they were read in their entirety by a committee of parents, school officials and a librarian and deemed appropriate.

“There was what I call a loophole in the statute that said the material needed to be taken as a whole, and if it had any literary value then it could stay,” Jenifer Kelly, chair of Moms for Liberty in Volusia County, told CNN. “However, I think of the analogy – if you have something poisonous inside a brownie, and you know it’s there, are you going to take a bite of that brownie? No.”

She said she was not interested in the views of students. “If they’re 17 or younger? No. It’s their parents’ decision.”

In Indian River County, at the first school board meeting after a session of many sex scene readings, Michael Marsh was angry. A parent with a book complaint could have gone to the school principal, he said. Instead, “they chose to bring the theater here and for the circus to happen here,” he said.

It’s not that he liked every single book that Moms for Liberty had targeted, he added. But the tactics were not OK, he said, wearing a T-shirt in the style of Moms for Liberty that read “Mike for Liberty” with the tagline, “Your parental rights do not stop mine.” On the back of the shirt was a photo of his daughters. “I’m the proud parent of two beautiful interracial queens,” he said.

“They are not the majority. They are bullies,” Marsh said of Moms for Liberty. “This is what happens when no one runs and everyone’s asleep. Well, you know what, I’m wide awake – or ‘woke,’ which is the bad word of the day.”

Of school board members who were aligned with Moms for Liberty, he said, “We’ve got to vote them out. We have to continue to educate, not just parents, educate staff. And we can’t have people in fear anymore.”

Any change via the polls will take time, and those who’ve been fighting against book removals are already tired, explained Julie Miller, a former Clay County media specialist – the modern term for a librarian. She has been an outspoken critic of book bans, watching the phenomenon grow since November 2021, when she received an objection to “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”

At first, she thought there could be compromise and understanding. There were some books marketed like young adult novels but really meant for readers in their early 20s and contained vivid sex scenes. The school didn’t need to offer those. But eventually, targeted books included prize-winning classics like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “The Bluest Eye,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and so on. She says she was given a lateral job move in June and decided to leave Clay County Schools.

“There is no fight right now – not in this state – there is no fight that we can win. Because it’s not just us vs. Moms for Liberty” and allied groups, she said. “It’s us versus them, and the school board members that they have successfully gotten elected, and the legislators who have written these draconian but also vague laws that that are so one-sided, and unbeatable.”

“There’s a lot of hopelessness,” Miller said.

What's behind the national surge in book bans? A low-tech website tied to Moms for Liberty

Will Carless, Chris Ullery and Alia Wong, USA TODAY
Thu, October 5, 2023 at 3:30 AM MDT·18 min read


In August 2022, a local parent sent the Clay County School District in Florida eight official Requests for Reconsideration or Review of Instructional Materials, commonly known as “book ban” requests.

On each form, where the district asked what was objectionable about the material, Adam Gilhousen wrote “see attached paperwork.” He then attached book reviews for each title, including Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” (“profanity; violence; sexual activities: Not for minors”) Sara Gruen’s “Water for Elephants” (“sexual activities; profanity: Not for Minors”) and Alice Sebold’s “The Lovely Bones” (“mild profanity; alternate sexualities: Not for Minors.”)

About 1,500 miles north in Maine, parents and activists were busy throughout 2022 pressing school districts to ban books. One group called Save Our Schools approached their district with a list of 95 books they wanted reviewed. At a school board meeting, parents handed out a packet to staff with instructions for how to check their research. It included a rubric, rating books from zero (“for everyone”) to five (“aberrant content”).

These so-called challenges appeared to begin locally, with no obvious connections. But they shared a common thread: The book review material submitted by local parents was not written by those parents.

Instead, it was taken word for word from a website called BookLooks.org.

The site launched in 2022 to showcase a book-rating system that has also been used by right-wing political activist group Moms for Liberty. It bills itself as a resource for parents, and claims not to be pushing political action: ”We do not support ‘banning’ books,” the site says.

In less than two years, BookLooks has become the go-to resource for anyone seeking to ban books – especially books about gay people or sexuality – from school and public libraries, according to researchers, library experts and a USA TODAY analysis of book-ban attempts nationwide.

Across at least a dozen states, USA TODAY found attempts to remove hundreds of book titles that directly cited BookLooks reviews.

Those attempts ranged from individual parents filing challenges to remove a handful of specific books, up to statewide legislation requiring that books be rated and recalled from schools. In all those cases, the parents, activists or lawmakers produced BookLooks’ text, or simply listed links to the website, as their rationale.

BookLooks is “not trying to tell you, ‘don't buy this book’ and ‘buy that book,’” said Cynthia Walsh, who promotes using the site and is running for a school board seat in Fairfax County, Virginia. It’s telling you: “Here's a list of books, go find them.”


It’s impossible to know how many book-ban attempts have been inspired by BookLooks, which adds new reviews weekly. But in one researcher’s national database tallying more than 3,000 challenges to library books during 2022-23, a USA TODAY analysis found at least 1,900 were for titles that appear on BookLooks.org.

According to PEN America, a non-profit organization that champions freedom of speech, the nation’s 11 most-challenged books are also all found on BookLooks.

And it’s not just individual book challenges citing BookLooks. In Virginia, one school district has adopted the site as an official reference tool for vetting its library books. In Texas, a legislator pushed to pass a new law requiring book dealers to rate and recall books by referencing an “unsuitable booklist” sourced mostly from BookLooks.

Yet all these examples likely represent only a sliver of the impact BookLooks has had on the national surge in book-banning efforts in the past two years. Last school year saw an unprecedented 3,362 instances of books being banned, restricted or access-limited, up 33% from the 2021-2022 school year, according to PEN America.

“What this says to me is that people don't trust the expertise of librarians — they say, this random website knows better than you do, even though you have schooling and this is your profession,” said Emily Knox, an associate professor who studies intellectual freedom and censorship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “The real problem is that people try to say, ‘I know what's best for the school system, and for the library, and the library should reflect my own values — no matter what the values are of other people in the community.’”

Week in extremism: Why library, schools are getting bomb threats in one California city
Banning books: Latest front in America’s culture wars

The national explosion in book bans has come with a specific focus on LGBTQ issues and books detailing racism. That corresponds with a rise in public advocacy from conservative and far-right activists.

In recent years, public protests seemed to center on a new theme every few months: The COVID pandemic saw demonstrations against masks and vaccines. Then came a flare-up over the teaching of “critical race theory” in schools. Then parents – often alongside extremist groups like the Proud Boys – started picketing all-age drag shows, decrying performers and those who support them as “groomers and pedophiles.”

As angry parents squared off against counter-protesters outside drag shows or story hours with bullhorns and signs, another group of activists was busy on a different flank of the culture wars: filing paperwork and showing up at local school board meetings.

Stoked by conservative pundits and far-right conspiracy theorists, volunteer groups from California to Iowa to Texas to Florida rallied around a new cause: Banning books that examine sexual or gender identity, or that detail America’s troubling relationship with race.

Parents – or anybody claiming to be troubled by certain books in libraries – could show up and make their case at school board meetings. Or they could file official complaints like those in Maine and Clay County.

But how – out of thousands and thousands of library books – to know which titles to complain about? And how – without reading the books first – to make the case that they were unsuitable for young readers?

That’s where BookLooks comes in.

Launched in March 2022, Booklooks.org is registered to BookLooks.org, LLC, which according to Florida business records is run by Emily and Jonathan Maikisch, a couple from West Melbourne, Florida.

The no-frills webpage bills itself as a resource for parents seeking more information about the books their children might read.

“We are concerned parents who have been frustrated by the lack of resource material for content-based information regarding books accessible to children and young adults,” reads the "about" section.

Emily Maikisch told USA TODAY in an email that she used to be a member of Moms for Liberty, the controversial organization that was recently listed as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Maikisch declined USA TODAY’s interview requests but said in an email that she left Moms for Liberty in March 2022 to launch BookLooks. The website says it has no affiliation with Moms for Liberty.

An examination of its history calls this into question.


On March 25, 2022, someone registered the domain name “BookLooks.org.” The next day, March 26, the Brevard County, Florida, chapter of Moms for Liberty posted a graphic showing a ratings system for books from zero to five.

“​​ROCKSTAR VOLUNTEERS:” the post reads. “We would like to give a shout out to our amazing Book Review Committee for developing such a detailed and professional system for reviewing and rating books found in our school libraries.”

Maikisch, on her Facebook account, even replied in support of the Moms for Liberty post at the time.

The same ratings graphic, with only slight alterations, is now used on BookLooks.org.

When asked by USA TODAY about the Moms for Liberty post, Maikisch said she used to be part of the group’s book review committee, but that she left to create her own website. She said Moms for Liberty had copied her graphic and assigned their own ratings without acknowledging that Maikisch and her husband created it, and said she had allowed the group to use BookLooks' reports, but later stopped interacting with the group.

The Brevard County Moms for Liberty group did not reply to a request for comment.

The first snapshot from BookLooks.org on the Wayback Machine internet archive is from April 15, 2022, and shows the website hasn’t changed significantly in the 18 months since its launch. But what started as a small collection of book reviews has grown into a 630-plus-book database with downloadable reviews that seem tailor-made for filing challenges.

Tasslyn Magnusson, a consultant with PEN America who researches censorship attempts in schools and built the leading national database of book-ban attempts, began seeing references last year to BookLooks.

“It’s fast becoming the preeminent resource,” for people making the case to remove books from school libraries, Magnusson said.
How BookLooks reviews are constructed

BookLooks rates each title based on what it calls the appropriateness of its content for children and young adults. The ratings are modeled on those used by the Motion Picture Association of America, Maikisch said, and are meant to provide “a quick guide for busy parents” to determine if a book has “objectionable” material – mainly profanity, nudity or sexual content.

A zero rating means the book is appropriate for all ages in the view of BookLooks’ reviewers. A one rating means it could contain “mild violence” or “inexplicit” references to sexuality or “gender ideologies,” examples of which include sentences like “Jake and Bob are gay and married to each other,” or “John was born a boy but feels like a girl.”

If the hypothetical Jake and Bob are described as being sexually attracted to each other, or if the book contains a reference to gender-affirming care, then the book is moved up to the next rating level.

Books rated two contain content that “may not be appropriate for children under 13,” according to BookLooks. As of early September, a little more than half of the titles found on BookLooks were rated between zero and two. As of September, 24 had the most extreme possible rating, a five for their “aberrant content.”

Often, the books include a brief plot summary, but almost 250 books don’t include any plot summary at all. Every title on BookLooks includes a numerical rating and a list of “objectionable” material.

There’s scant information on BookLooks.org about how, exactly, each book was assessed. In an email exchange, Maikisch told USA TODAY a member of her “group” reads the book and creates a report with citations.

“The group has a discussion then about how the citations fit within our rating criteria with the original reader providing context where needed. A consensus is reached on what rating to assign,” Maikisch wrote.

The website provides no details about who is making these decisions and what their qualifications are. Maikisch’s name doesn’t appear on the website, nor do the names of anybody else involved in the process.

Maikisch wrote that she and her husband never intended for their website to be used to provide ammunition for banning books from libraries.

“We do not support banning anything from the public sphere,” Maikisch wrote. “That aside, we do support parents who want to have a say in what is made available to their children while under the custodial care of the school.”

Maikisch also acknowledged that the site has become a resource for campaigns to ban books in school and public libraries.

“We aren’t going to try to discourage that, nor do we feel we should have to,” Maikisch wrote. “We support parents using the information we’ve provided however they see fit to make the best decisions for their family.”

But when BookLooks becomes a source in a book ban, it’s not merely a family decision. It’s a decision to impose that judgment on other families. Parents armed with BookLooks reviews, along with activist school boards, are making decisions on books that affect every student and parent in a school or district.

Experts in child literature and censorship say that’s a misguided – and unhelpful – approach.
Book censorship: Experts, librarians disagree with approach

Rating books according to one person, or a group’s subjective moral guidelines, is not how professional librarians assess whether books are suitable for libraries, said Megan Schliesman of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education.

Rather, titles often are assessed by consulting with various review journals, and with an analysis based on librarians' knowledge of children's literature and library policies, Schliesman said.

“We’re not approaching it looking for alarms to go off,” said Schliesman, a librarian who’s worked with the center for three decades. “We’re approaching it asking, ‘what does this book have to offer?’”

Rating books, she said, “implies there’s something inherently dangerous or disturbing about certain kinds of content. … That idea that there is this rating system that can set a standard that applies to every family in a community is completely untrue, completely uninformed.”

The librarian reads the book and asks: Does the information or story succeed in meeting children in the designated age group or demographic where they’re at? Books aren’t evaluated based on their topic or a list of do’s and don’ts, Schliesman said.

That’s in stark contrast to the BookLooks approach.

BookLooks reviews usually contain a lengthy list of excerpts from the book, reproduced with no context for where they fit in the broader narrative of the story. Their aim is clear, Magnusson said: to paint a book as fixated with, or defined by, sex, profanity and violence.

“It's very much about just short excerpts – it's not about evaluating the content of the book as a whole,” Magnusson said. “They're talking about all the bad words in it, rather than thinking about the piece of literature.”

Some parents who use BookLooks acknowledge the site is useful as a way to shield their children – and even themselves – from certain ideas.

Walsh, the mom running for school board in Virginia, said she learned about BookLooks at a professional development summit this past spring, geared toward conservative candidates.

“When you talk to the parents, they have no idea,” said Walsh, who’s also spoken out against mask mandates and critical race theory. “They don't know about the book. They don't know what's in the book. And honestly, they're afraid to read it.”

BookLooks, she said, allows them “to get a general idea of why people keep talking about the same books.” She said BookLooks is a great resource to learn about and “look at a book without buying it,” and she now promotes the site while campaigning.
Focused on sexuality

In an email to USA TODAY, Maikisch said BookLooks "does not focus on sexuality nor gender issues."

"They are not major factors at all,” Maikisch wrote.

But every one of BookLooks’ ratings mentions sexuality or sexual activities. The only way for a book to receive a rating of zero from the website is for it to contain “No References to Sexuality, Gender Ideologies or Sexual Activities,” according to a definition on the site. At the other end of the scale, the only way a book receives a rating of four or five from BookLooks is for references to sex or sexuality.

About 40% of the entries on BookLooks include concerns about "alternate gender ideologies" or "alternate sexualities," according to a USA TODAY analysis of all the ratings on the site as of September.

Only 131 of the more than 630 titles that appear on BookLooks do not include “sex” or “gender” in their summary of concerns, those titles including the 54 books BookLooks rated at zero.

Schliesman, the Wisconsin library expert, said BookLooks-style rating systems “are designed with the idea that we have to warn people about certain kinds of content — that there is something inherently dangerous or disturbing about it,” she said. “It stigmatizes readers who want to choose those books – and in some cases, the lives of those who are reflected by the content.”

Knox puts it a slightly different way. The very notion of some books being deemed “acceptable” for children because they reflect certain lifestyles, while others are deemed “unacceptable,” reflects the very biases in society these books aim to challenge, she said.

Knox referenced two of the nation’s most-banned books: “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe, a memoir that describes the author’s exploration of gender identity, and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson, a collection of essays about growing up as a queer Black man in New Jersey and Virginia.

“Those are actually memoirs — they aren't novels — they’re people talking about their own lives,” Knox said. (BookLooks doesn’t indicate whether a book is fictional or not.) “When you say ‘Well, this is a radical agenda,’ it's a way of saying that this person's life is not one that deserves to be told; their experiences are not worthy of being shared with other people and we should only share certain types of stories.”

“I just don’t think that’s what a library is about,” Knox said. “And part of going to school is learning about people who are not like you who think differently from you.”


A recent study, published by a coalition of nonprofits advocating for diverse books, found access to the kinds of titles most targeted in recent challenges can improve kids’ outcomes. When children can see themselves in books, the study suggests, they collectively read at least four more hours a week and see a boost to their grades of at least 3 percentage points compared with the nationally expected average.

Schliesman stressed the importance of ensuring parents have a say in what their own children read. It’s essential “that we respect where people are coming from, that they’re coming from this very genuine place of concern and fear,” she said.

But in the past several years, Schliesman has observed a change in how books are challenged and by whom.

Now, “a majority of challenges are not coming from that parent or grandparent concerned about that one book,” Schliesman said. “It’s somebody coming with a list of books they’ve gotten from somewhere else and has likely never read or seen the book. That’s really, really different. It’s more agenda-motivated than personally concerned.”

But while book bans may have been picked up by a new generation of parent activists, they have deep roots in American history.

History repeats itself: Book bans are nothing new

In the fall of 1975, the Island Trees Union Free School District in Nassau County, Long Island, received a complaint from a community group, Parents of New York United. The group wanted the district to remove 11 books from its libraries, arguing its policies were too permissive.

The board agreed and ordered the books be taken off shelves, stating they were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy."

That list of books included “The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which tells the fictionalized story of a Jewish laborer unjustly arrested for the 1911 murder of a Christian boy in Kiev.

A group of students sued the school district, claiming their First Amendment rights had been violated by removing the books. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which, in 1982, found in the students’ favor. The books were returned to the shelves.

Forty years later, BookLooks published a review of “The Fixer.” The site gave it a rating of three, saying it contains “extreme/explicit violence” and/or “extreme/excessive hate,” according to the website’s explanation of its ratings system. “Minor restricted,” the review concludes.

A few months later, last October, Ivie Szalai, a parent and a member of her local Moms for Liberty chapter in Beaufort County, South Carolina, and a small group of others, called on their school district to remove almost 100 books from libraries. The books contained pornography and X-rated scenes and were inappropriate for children of any age, the parents complained.

For evidence, they provided a 155-page Google document containing reviews of all the books. The primary source the reviews were culled from: BookLooks.org.

“The Fixer” was on the list.

Like the other titles, it was pulled from Beaufort library shelves last October. In August, after an appeal, “The Fixer” returned to Beaufort school libraries after a hiatus of almost a year. Other titles challenged by Szalai and her colleagues are still banned.

The BookLooks review of “The Fixer,” a harrowing treatise on Jewish persecution, lists several instances of characters making crude and stereotypical anti-Semitic remarks. It contains extracts from the novel of scenes where the Jewish protagonist is beaten and bloodied.

The review does not, however, contain a quote from the narrator that is one of the book’s most famous passages: “There are no wrong books. What’s wrong is the fear of them.”

USA TODAY Network reporters Finch Walker and Colleen Wixon contributed.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Book bans on rise: How Moms for Liberty rating system helps drive them

Activist moms spy on each other in culture wars over schooling

Story by Elle Reeve • CNN

 Friday, May 18, 2023

Who are Moms for Liberty? A look into the conservative group
CNN  Duration 7:29  View on Watch

Members of the conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty are known for making impassioned and sometimes spicy speeches to school boards to complain that teachers are supposedly indoctrinating students. This can include mothers, often in the group’s trademark tee, standing at a lectern reading sex scenes from books they deem inappropriate to have near their children.

Supporters post videos of these speeches, some of which have gone viral. And the group has claimed success, pointing to growing membership nationwide as well as policies and elections going their way. But because Moms for Liberty is working on such a local level, opponents have found plenty of opportunities to take action.

“I just got back from forcibly re-closeting myself for 90 minutes to infiltrate a Moms for Liberty meeting. … I got so much juice!” a TikTok user who goes by Morgan Howls said in a video. The video is one of many on social media made by parents who say they’ve “infiltrated” the group and give details of its strategy to others who do not support its politics.

When CNN traveled to Colorado earlier this month to observe a lunch meeting held by the El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty, chapter chair Darcy Schoening cautioned that some opponents might show up. It had happened before. Schoening knew there were liberal parents lurking in her chapter’s private Facebook group, because her group had some moles in the liberals’ Facebook group.

“We all know what’s going on. I don’t even know why we keep stuff private,” she said about the clandestine monitoring. She even said she welcomed some of the intended attacks on her group, showing screenshots of opponents messaging about what to tweet in protest.

“What they don’t realize is that they’re doing half the work for us,” Schoening said. “Because the more and more they post… You get those parents that are sitting out there saying, ‘Oh, this doesn’t sound so crazy. I want to go be a part of this.’”


Darcy Schoening says her Colorado Springs chapter of Moms 4 Liberty has about 250 people in it. - CNN

There were no confrontations at the Moms for Liberty meeting held in a Mexican restaurant in Colorado Springs. There was some provocative talk about purported sexual content in library books – Schoening claimed a book about “how do two men pleasure each other” was available to first graders. (She did not name the book or say what school it was supposedly found in.) But the attendees spent more time on how to wield their power.

Activists helped to get conservative majorities elected to several school boards in El Paso County in 2021. At issue then were Covid mandates and teaching about racial injustice, two issues that spurred the creation of Moms for Liberty by two mothers in Florida earlier that same year.

The El Paso County chapter’s latest push was to get Colorado Springs’s District 11 school board to adopt a policy banning teachers from asking kids about their pronouns – whether they preferred “he,” “she,” or “they” – which Schoening described as “grooming.” But the proposal sparked a big backlash, and after protests in March, the board tabled it.

One man at the lunch said some school boards were “afraid to act” on issues like pronouns and bathroom access for trans kids because of the demands of “the loudest minority,” referring to progressives.

“It’s a very loud minority,” another attendee said. “It’s very loud. It’s very intimidating,” a third agreed.

But that was not a justifiable reason, the first speaker said. “The fact of the matter is, when we come out and we campaign for them, and we put them in an office. … We’re their stakeholders, and they’re beholden to us.”

As CNN filmed the meeting, a woman sitting in the back passed the crew a handwritten note: “We have the other side of this story. This is a hate group.” This time, the opponents were being covert, not overt.

The note-passer was Carolyn Bedingfield, who said a like-minded person was coming to the restaurant who had “more info.” In the parking lot, Emily Vonachen was waiting in her car. Vonachen said Colorado Springs had changed a lot in the two years she’d lived there. She’d been researching every conservative power player in the area and how they were all connected. She agreed to an interview, and then called several people from Neighbors for Education, a group set up after the conservatives’ school board wins in 2021.

The dispute between the two groups was clear, and they took it seriously. The Neighbors for Education crowd thought Moms for Liberty was operating in a different reality.

Schoening of Moms for Liberty explained why she viewed asking a child what pronouns they preferred was “indoctrinating” them into questioning their gender.

“If you ask my children, who are 7 and 8, ‘What are your pronouns?’ They don’t even know what that is,” she said. “When you ask that, you’re planting the seed in their minds, that they maybe should identify as another gender or that identifying as another gender is hip or cool – ‘Hey, my teacher’s asking me, so maybe this is what I should do.’”

Naomi Lopez, one of the people gathered by Neighbors for Education, called that “ridiculous.” Lopez is a speech pathologist who works in a District 11 school. She’s also the mom of a trans kid.

“That’s not happening,” she said of Schoening’s scenario. “We’re not going around saying, ‘OK, you know, I want you to think about it, what gender are you?’” When teachers meet new students, they ask how they want to be addressed, she said – a kid named Josiah might want to go by Joe. A kid could say they wanted to use a particular pronoun, and the teacher would respect that.



Naomi Lopez flatly rejected many of the assertions made by Moms for Liberty. - CNN

Schoening made a series of claims that are not true, but are common amid a backlash to advocacy for trans rights.

For example, Schoening raised the idea that a tomboy – a girl who wore flannel and sneakers – would be told by a teacher, “You know, it might be time to gender transition. Let’s go talk to the school therapist. Let’s go talk to a physician. Let’s do this.” Schoening said she did not know any tomboys who’d actually transitioned after social pressure. But, she said, “Imagine the kids that aren’t strong enough to go talk to their parents and say, ‘My teacher is trying to gender transition me.’ We’re speaking for those kids. And those parents who aren’t made aware.”

Further, Schoening claimed 8-year-old boys could get surgery to remove their penises, and that she feared her state would pass a law saying if parents refused to have their boys’ penises surgically removed, the state would take them away. She thought this issue would eventually go to the US Supreme Court.

Medical guidelines do not call for gender affirming surgery on young children, and many health care providers do not offer it to patients under 18. Children diagnosed with gender dysphoria go through many years of care. In some instances, they can receive puberty-blocking hormones at the onset of puberty. These drugs are FDA-approved to treat children who start puberty at a very young age, but are not approved for gender dysphoria.

CNN asked Schoening if she was saying she believed there was some kind of high-level coordinated effort to make more children trans and gay. “There is,” she said. Who would be directing it? “Teachers’ unions, and our president, and a lot of funding sources,” she said. Why would they do that? “Because it breaks down the family unit,” she said. And why would they want that? “So that conservative values are broken down, and that we can slowly erode away at constitutional rights,” she said.

There is no evidence of a coordinated plot to make kids trans.

CNN asked Lopez what she thought of Schoening’s claims. Lopez flatly rejected the idea that teachers would encourage little kids to get surgery. “No, that’s ridiculous. The hell? No,” Lopez said.

CNN asked Lopez if there was a plan by President Biden and teacher unions to make more kids gay and trans to break down the traditional family. She began to get exasperated. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Attacking a whole sector of society who happen to be our children in order to push whatever agenda you have is dangerous, irresponsible, hateful, egregious – should I go on? No.”

And Lopez said there was no evidence that her child’s classmates cared.

“My child thinks it’s ludicrous, that it’s such a big deal, because to them, it’s just normal. To their friends, they don’t care how my child identifies, they love them for who they are.”

Another person in the Neighbors for Education group, Tiana Clark, said the controversy was a waste of time and resources. Clark is a parent and substitute teacher in that district. After one parent complained about five books, the school district had to form a committee to determine whether each book could stay in the school library. Clark sat on a committee.

“Of the five books, three of them had never been checked out. Two of them were only checked out once,” Clark said. All five books remained in the library, but the effort cost more than $20,000, she said, and asked, “What could that $20,000 have been spent on?”