Why does the Salado Public Library children’s librarian have a Safe Space sticker with a Progress Pride flag on her office door?
Is it appropriate for a taxpayer-funded public librarian to discuss sexuality and gender identity with minors, especially without their parents’ knowledge or consent?
It raises other questions, too.
1) Would the librarian participate in socially transitioning a child without asking or informing the child’s parents?
2) Would she help a child who is questioning their gender identity investigate medical transition?
3) Would she share with children her personal beliefs surrounding LGBTQ practices, expressions, and identities?
4) Are there any sex- or gender-related topics she would not discuss with patrons—who, again, are prepubescent children?
The Texas Administrative Code has strong safeguards in place to prevent educators from doing this in a school setting. (See 19 Tex. Admin. Code § 247.2; § 249.3.)
Its definition of “grooming behaviors” includes “exposing the student to adult topics or conversations and/or media that is not age appropriate,” and “meeting behind closed doors with the student without another adult present.” (It should be noted that these are “considered in context and on the totality of circumstances.”)
In considering whether communication with a student is inappropriate, the state considers “the subject matter of the communication,” “whether the communication was made openly, or the educator attempted to conceal the communication,” and “whether the communication involved discussion(s) of the … sexual history, activities, preferences, or fantasies of either the educator or the student.”
It’s fair to ask whether private conversations between a child and a librarian who displays a Safe Space sticker superimposed over a Progress Pride flag might likewise be inappropriate.
Yet there are no equivalent protections for children in a library setting. Why not?
Maybe it’s time for legislators to take up the question.
Stephen Sequeira
[Published as a letter to the editor in the Salado Village Voice on January 8, 2026.]
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