'My Heart Sank': in Maine, a challenge for a book and for a city's self-image

Rich Boulet, the director of the Blue Hill Public Library, was working in his office when a patron stopped by to ask how he could donate a book to the library. “All you have to do is hand it over,” Mr. Boulet said.

The book was “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Fad Seducing Our Daughters,” by journalist Abigail Shrier. The book argues that gender dysphoria is a “diagnostic fad” fueled by adolescent confusion, social media, and peer influence, and that teens are too young to undergo potentially irreversible gender transition surgery.

Many trans people and their advocates say the book is harmful to trans youth, and some have tried to suppress its distribution.

“If I'm completely honest, my heart sank when I saw it,” Mr. Boulet recalls.

Founded in 1796, the library has an endowment of $7.9 million in a coastal enclave popular among affluent summer residents. Blue Hill secured a 35-point victory for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 presidential race. The communities surrounding it are a mix of liberal, conservative and none of your business, all of which have helped the library withstand political proxy battles like those roiling the nation's libraries.

But in mid-2021, the Blue Hill Library and its leadership were tested in ways none of them expected.

“Irreversible damage” did not reflect Mr. Boulet's personal views nor those of his staff. But because “I want the library to be for everyone, not just people who share my voting record,” Mr. Boulet said he gave the book the same attention as anyone else and concluded it should be on the shelves.

“I felt like it filled a gap in our collection of a lot of material on that subject,” he said. His staff supported the decision.

Less than a week after the book hit the spotlight, the parent of a transgender adult told Mr. Boulet that she found it harmful.

“She and I have known each other for years and we talked about it quietly,” he recalls. The patron filled out a request for reconsideration and asked that the book be kept “under the desk,” which was only available upon request.

The library's collection committee voted unanimously to keep the book in circulation. “But I knew it wasn't over yet,” Mr. Boulet said.

Residents who objected to the book confronted him, library staff and board members at the supermarket, the post office and the library itself.

“They would say, 'I can't believe the library is allowing this,'” said John Diamond, chairman of the library board. “My feeling was, 'I can't believe the library would do that not allow it, based on his position on free access to information. ''

The strongest criticism was reserved for Mr Boulet. One patron told him that if a trans youth read the book and died by suicide, “it's your fault,” Mr. Boulet recalled. Critical Facebook posts and negative Google reviews poured in.

Mr Boulet defended the decision on the library's Facebook page, which only fueled the controversy. Painfully, Mr Boulet knew many of the negative commentators.

Mr. Boulet appealed to the American Library Association for a public letter of support, which it is offering to libraries facing censorship. “They ghosted me,” he said.

Asked about the letter, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said Mr. Boulet's request had sparked internal debate and delay.

“Our position on the book is that it should remain in the collection; it is beneath us to adopt the tools of censorship,” she said in an interview. “We must support intellectual freedom in all its aspects in order to claim that high position.” Months after Mr. Boulet requested the letter, Ms. Caldwell-Stone saw him at a conference and apologized.

Mr. Boulet wrote an open letter in the local newspaper emphasizing that the library welcomes everyone, “not just your or my part of the community.”

“The presence of an item in the library does not constitute an endorsement of the ideas it contains,” he added.

A friend of Mr. Boulet's, a high school teacher, posted a comment on social media and sent it to the library board.

“The 'All Lives Matter' position taken by the Blue Hill Library is biased, harmful and manipulative hate speech,” it said. Furious, Mr. Boulet confronted the teacher personally, and the two are no longer friends.

And by the end of 2021, the commotion had died down and the book survived.

Before the controversy, “I hadn't really thought as much about intellectual freedom as I should have,” Mr. Boulet said. His conclusion, he said, is that “intellectual freedom or freedom of expression is not just about protecting ideas that we like.”