The children’s picture book “Sylvia and Marsha Start a Revolution!” by Joy Michael Ellison, self-proclaimed “queer and non-binary trans writer”, makes heroes of “trans women of color” and promotes the bizarre belief that people can change sex. I found it on the Pride display in the children’s room in the Nashua Library last June.
This book is a hagiography about Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who Ellison identifies as transwomen. The author presents them as selfless heroes who were leaders in the Stonewall Riots and opened a home for trans youth. Fred Sargeant, who was at the Stonewall Riots, says they weren’t at the riots, and their house for trans youth was more like a drug den.
Sylvia and Marsha identified as gay male transvestites. They cross-dressed. They did not identify as transwomen, but that doesn’t fit the author’s narrative. Read Fred Sargeant’s first-person accounts of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson.
In the notes at the end of the book, the author defines “Transgender girl” as “A person who the doctor thought was a girl, but who is really a boy” and “Transgender boy” as “A person who the doctor thought was a boy, but who is really a girl.”
A child reading this book is going to take those definitions at face value and believe that they can change sex and feel encouraged if they become gender-confused to follow the dangerous protocol of taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and having healthy body parts removed in the belief that they can become the opposite sex.
Many people have discovered the hard way that they can’t change sex, and they end up with damaged bodies like detransitioners Chloe Cole and Prisha Mosley. Would the Nashua Library stock picture books about them in the children’s room?
This is the last in a series of reviews I wrote of the books on the Pride Month display in the Nashua Library children’s room last year. Read my other book reviews below.
Grandad’s Pride: Book Promoted by Nashua Library to Small Kids Features Bondage Gear and Nashua Library Doubles Down on Promoting Bondage to Kids
The Meaning of Pride: Gender Cult Propaganda in the Nashua Library Children’s Room
Being You: Library Promotes Gender Propaganda to Toddlers
The Sublime Ms. Stacks: Children Propagandized with Queer Theory
Pride Colors: Library Promotes Book That Teaches Kids to “Love Who You Choose”
What Was Stonewall?: Public Library Promotes Children’s Book Celebrating Violent Action Against Police
My Maddy: American Psychological Association Promotes Gender Confusion to Kids
