Should parents be allowed to opt their children out of seeing books that include people who are different than themselves?

At Issue:

In this poignant essay in TIME, Our Books Help Teach LGBTQ Themes in Schools. Should SCOTUS Allow Parents to Opt Out?, children's book authors Sarah and Ian Hoffman explain their perspective on being both the parents of a child who doesn't fit the gender binary's strict two-and-only-two boxes of behavior and the authors of one of the books being challenged in a case about to go the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

They write,

Jacob’s Room to Choose is one of nine children’s picture books named in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a lawsuit filed in Montgomery County, Md., by parents who are upset that their children saw books like ours in their classrooms—books that teach self-acceptance and kindness.

Speaking of the power of representation – how meaningful it is when you have it, how devastating when you don't, Sarah and Ian share:

Allowing families to opt their children out of reading our books hurts the children whose lives and families are reflected in those books. “Opt-out” policies starkly communicate to classrooms of children that behaving decently to all human beings is optional and tells kids who are different that they and their families don’t merit the respect of all their classmates.

Some Thoughts on Creating In the Midst of This:

I'm a Gay man who writes books to empower kids and teens. Many of my books are inspired by Queer history and social justice.

The precedent if SCOTUS allows parents to opt-out of seeing and knowing diverse books exists would be wide-ranging. It's not much of a stretch to envision the subsequent groups whose representation in schools would be denied next... 

But diverse readers who need to see themselves reflected in books will still need that representation. 

And readers from the dominant culture will still need to have empathy and understand that they share so much with people who on the outside may seem really different from themselves.

And maybe most of all, living in community doesn't mean everyone is the same. Rather than seeing that as something to deny, or tolerate, or even accept, shouldn't we be working toward a world where our differences are celebrated?

That's the world I want my kiddo to live in. It's the world I want to help create. And that's a big part of what drives me creatively.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee