In December 2025 – shortly after North Carolina’s Asheboro Public Library board voted to keep Call Me Max, a children’s picture book about a transgender boy, on its shelves – the Randolph County Board of Commissioners dismissed eight out of nine library trustees without giving a reason. 

Betty Jo Armfield, one of the dismissed, was shocked. “I felt frustration, anger, and grave concern for the library staff and for the public that accesses the library,” she told LGBTQ Nation. 

Related

These 10 oft-banned LGBTQ+ children’s books teach powerful lessons of love, community, & identity

For Armfield, what stung most was not just the dismissal itself, but what it signaled about the future. “This dismissal has set a dangerous precedent,” she said, “and I wonder what will happen if the next appointed board does something that the commissioners perceive as against their personal beliefs. Will the next board also be subjected to the same treatment?” 

The question keeps her up at night, as does her concern for the librarians, who must now do their jobs under a cloud of political scrutiny.

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Across the United States, library boards, librarians, and public officials who have refused to remove LGBTQ+-inclusive books have faced retaliation with increasing frequency and severity. In 2024, the Warren County Board of Supervisors in Virginia took control of its local public library after the institution resisted demands to remove books with LGBTQ+ content. In Jamestown Township, Michigan, residents voted twice in recent years to defund their public library over LGBTQ+-themed titles, a campaign that ultimately drove several librarians to resign. In Florida, the Escambia County Public School District pulled more than 1,600 titles from its shelves pending review in late 2023. The books under review included the The Diary of Anne Frank and the The Autobiography of Malcolm X. 

These cases are only a small sample, but the pattern is consistent: Local officials, pressured by organized conservative groups, are punishing the professionals whose job it is to serve everyone.

In Randolph County, three commissioners chose to go further than most, dismantling the oversight body designed to make these decisions independently. But the people they dismissed are not going quietly.

Grave concerns

The controversy began in October 2025, when a patron complained about Call Me Max, a 2019 picture book by award-winning transgender author Kyle Lukoff. The board followed its own established procedures for reviewing challenged materials and voted 5-2 to keep the book in place. As reported by the public radio station WFDD, the book is the only one of the nearly 20,000 books in the library’s children’s collection to reference questions of gender identity.

Even the commissioners who moved to dissolve the board acknowledged the trustees had followed the rules. Yet three of them, Darrell Frye, Kenny Kidd, and Lester Rivenbark, voted to fire them anyway. Two dissented, including Commissioner Hope Haywood, who noted dryly that her colleagues “felt like, just abolish the board and then figure it out.”

Steve Grove, another dismissed trustee in Randolph County, told LGBTQ Nation the decision carried echoes of a darker chapter of American history. “In 1925, Tennessee banned teaching evolution, leading to the Scopes Trial,” he said. “Today, 100 years later, there is absolutely no room in America for prejudice or censorship.”

Grove, who has served on library boards in both Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Randolph County, described the loss as a blow to a system that depends on independence from political pressure. “North Carolina law now allows library boards to be dismissed without cause, which weakens the independence libraries rely on,” he said. “It’s been my pleasure to serve on library boards in both West Virginia and North Carolina. All former board members continue advocating for our seven Randolph County public libraries.”

Both trustees flatly reject the framing of Commissioner Rivenbark, who declared that Call Me Max “doesn’t represent the values of Randolph County.” Grove’s response was pointed: “Commissioner Rivenbark was wrong. Commissioner David Allen, who dissented from the vote to abolish our former library board, handily won in his recent primary bid for reelection.” 

Armfield agreed. “This county is more diverse in its beliefs than some choose to recognize and accept. While it is a majority Republican county, I do not feel that all of the Republicans hold to the far-right values that others might.” The public hearings bore that out, she added.

The grassroots response has been remarkable. On January 3, about 125 community members held a silent read-in at the Asheboro Public Library. Three more read-ins followed at county commission meetings, where, Grove noted, “a majority of the public comments expressed strong support for the library director and staff and confidence in their professional ability to select library materials without outside interference.” He joined those protests himself.

Armfield has already reapplied to serve as a trustee. “I have the background, education, and knowledge to be an asset to the library system,” she said. “Furthermore, I feel strongly that there needs to be some continuity as new trustees are appointed.” But she is deeply worried about who those new trustees will be. 

“I have grave concerns about the appointment of the next set of trustees. I don’t know if these folks will act independently or in the best interest of the public library.” 

Grove shares that worry. “I am concerned about future trustees being chosen based on their conservative religious beliefs. I have learned that local ministers have been asked who they favor.”

The personal pressure on Armfield has extended beyond her role as a trustee. In response to her vote on Call Me Max, a local pastor contacted her own congregation’s pastor to question the church’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues; a church member followed up with a direct email.

From a legal perspective, Armfield feels her duties were equally clear. The North Carolina Library Bill of Rights establishes that “every person has the right to access information and ideas through library materials regardless of content, approach, format, or viewpoint of the material,” and bars officials from restricting access “based solely on their content or viewpoint.” 

She was bound by state law to uphold that, she says, and she did. As for the real motivation, she has no doubt: “The point of dissolving the board, in my opinion, has to do with power and control. As mid-term elections approach, there is concern that some changes might be made.” Grove agrees that the three commissioners acted “without regard to” the North Carolina Public Library Standards, which direct trustees to consider the needs of all library users, “including those who are marginalized.”

Keep it simple 

According to PEN America, there were more than 10,000 instances of banned books in US public schools during the 2023-2024 school year, affecting more than 4,000 unique titles, with 39% of the most commonly banned works featuring LGBTQ+ characters or themes. The American Library Association tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, the second-highest since the organization began keeping records in 1990.

Critically, 92% of those challenges originated not from individual parents, but from organized pressure groups and elected officials. This is up from 72% in 2024. PEN America has warned of the “normalization of censorship,” a chilling effect in which administrators preemptively remove books rather than defend them, and documented 6,870 instances of book removals across 23 states and 87 school districts in the 2024-2025 school year alone.

“Public libraries exist to serve people of many beliefs, values, and perspectives,” Grove said. “They are community institutions dedicated to providing access to information, encouraging learning, and supporting the free exploration of ideas. Efforts to remove books for ideological or religious beliefs run counter to that mission.”

After everything she has been through, Armfield keeps her viewpoint simple. “Jesus said that we are to love our neighbor. There was no ‘except for’ after that.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.