Parents in Oregon have voiced outrage after a book about a transgender boy was included in a statewide reading competition for third through fifth grades, and at least two school districts have opted out of the competition because of the pro-LGBT book’s inclusion. Over 1,000 people have signed onto an online petition calling on the state to drop the 2015 children’s book George from the
reading list for its 2018-2019 voluntary “Battle of the Books” competition. The book, which is written by Alex Gino and published by Scholastic, focuses on the story of a biologically male fourth-grader who goes by the name Melissa seeking to play a female role in a school play. “We don’t feel that it’s an age-appropriate book for a variety of reasons, and more so than the transgender aspect, when they talk about dirty magazines and use the word ‘porn,'” Pete Cakebread, a parent of a second grader at Turner Elementary School told The Statesman Journal. READ MORE
