This month, an anonymous tipster went to police in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to complain about Gender Queer, which is among the most banned books in the country.
The complaint led to a cop visiting an eighth-grade classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School to search for the graphic memoir—and sparked national media attention, an apology from the department’s police chief, and a walkout from LGBTQ high school students.
“Are you really calling the cops over a book?” read one student’s protest sign, which was published in the Berkshire Eagle.
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Now The Daily Beast has obtained the responding officer’s body camera footage and police reports, which reveal new details on how a single book attracted a short-lived investigation by the cops.
According to the officer’s narrative, provided via a public records request, “an individual wishing to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation came into the police station” and shared that they were “concerned about images in a book they saw in a classroom.”
The police department kept the reporting party’s name “confidential” in the incident report but did not extend the same courtesy to the English teacher. The document says that the complaining party shared the first name of the teacher, whom they accused of keeping a book with “illustrations of sexual content” on a desk in their classroom.
This person claimed they once observed a student sitting on the teacher’s lap and that they were concerned about the teacher and other staff “discussing subjects related to LGBTQ material and telling them not to tell their parents about it,” the report states.
The witness snapped photographs of the book’s illustrations, which included depictions of a strap-on dildo and oral sex, and the officer's report notes that the images could be a violation of a state law against the dissemination of obscene material.
Before a plainclothes officer showed up to the school after classroom hours on Dec. 8, they contacted the school district superintendent Peter Dillon, who then alerted the principal Miles Wheat. The report states that Dillon “did not have an issue” with cops visiting the school and following up with the anonymous complaint.
Wheat and the officer then met with the eighth-grade English teacher in her classroom.
The teacher, the report notes, “also runs a LGBTQ club/meeting group.” The principal told the investigating officer he was not aware of any complaints or concerns about the teacher or any other teachers involved in the club.
Reached by The Daily Beast, the teacher targeted in the complaint called the situation “a horrific lie-riddled homophobic attack on the only queer teacher, and our brave LGBTQ+ and ally students who enjoy a safe space in our voluntary Gender & Sexuality Alliance club)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://gsanetwork.org/what-is-a-gsa/__;!!LsXw!SCH2QISkU2Xay7Llt2q-3lO2YPyFKpB7GYoCpOOp95qXrBwL-2TJUAVflsnVUn3gdQ0iCGt-lMeHMwLxM7R9TuYd4sE$">Gender & Sexuality Alliance club.” She described this weekly lunchtime club as “deeply beloved and completely run by students, sanctioned and paid for by the school, and well-supported by their grateful parents.”
The educator, who asked to remain anonymous, said students decide on the club’s activities, which mostly “involve things like making paper snowflakes and drinking hot chocolate, with the only unifying rules being that everyone is welcome and everyone respects each other.”
The teacher said she was “horrified that someone in our school community would have such hatred in their hearts to attack already marginalized teachers, students, and families” and that law enforcement gave credence to the complaint.
As long as the complaining party’s identity remains a mystery, she added, “it is unlikely any one of us will be able to feel safe again knowing that a hateful and dangerous person could be walking around our school building and free to harass any adult or child they hate with police protection.”
Body camera footage obtained by The Daily Beast is blocked out by the officer’s clothing, but his conversation with the teacher is audible. She informs the officer she doesn’t see the book in her resource library and suggests it’s been checked out by a fellow teacher.
The cop asks the teacher, “Have you looked through the book yourself?”
“I did read it back when it first came out, yeah,” she replies. “But I don’t really recall.”
The officer explains the issue with Gender Queer. “It’s not the general idea of what the book’s about, it’s—you can’t present that kind of material to people under 18,” the cop said. “So that’s our concern. That’s why we’re here.”
“Some of them are about coming of age,” the teacher answers. “You’re welcome to remove it if you see it, but I don’t see it, so … It’s possible that a teacher has it… I don’t keep track of it.”
The officer then asks if a student might have the book or if it’s meant to stay in the classroom, and the teacher says it’s supposed to remain on the shelf.
In the audio, the officer and the teacher can be heard rooting around for the book on the shelf and on a table in her classroom. “It’s not something that is out for everybody. This is special approval only,” the teacher says.
The cop then asks if any of her “other books” have “similar images” in them, and she tells the officer he’s welcome to look through her tomes. “I’m not going to flip through every single book here,” he announces, before asking if Gender Queer might be anywhere else in the room.
“When it does return, I think it needs to be turned over to Miles [the principal] and we’ll go from there at that point,” the officer announces. “Like I said, it’s not the general material itself, it’s the images that are in it that constitutes material that you can’t disseminate to children.”
The cop then asks if she knows of any specific teacher that might have the book and adds “it doesn’t mean they’re in any kind of trouble.”
“I would make it a point yourself as a teacher to go through the books that are there to make sure there’s no other images that would be deemed stuff like that,” he continues, before telling the principal, “We could sit here and search every room and ask every teacher. I’d rather not go that route and, you know, disrupt everything over one book…”
The teacher says she hasn’t seen the book “in a long time.”
According to the officer’s report, he informed the teacher that the anonymous tipster took a photo of the book a week or two prior.
In his narrative report, the cop indicates that he spoke to Police Chief Paul Storti after this visit and was advised to contact the district attorney for guidance.
On Dec. 13, the officer and Storti had a call with an assistant district attorney, and the cop was told that he may need to “write a search warrant” to get “any additional documentation from the school.” The next day, however, the district attorney and schools superintendent “had talked directly” and “it was no longer a criminal matter and the school would handle internally,” the incident report states.
The Daily Beast asked Storti for more information on the person behind the complaint. In an email on Wednesday, he said that “the complainant wanted to remain anonymous.”
The police response to a complaint over the LGBTQ book raised alarm bells for civil rights advocates and parents concerned about a wave of book banning nationwide.
Ruth Bourquin, senior and managing attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts, told The Daily Beast, “This incident—including many of its details as confirmed by the body camera audio— is a deeply concerning escalation of a vocal minority’s attempts to ban books that are by and about LGBTQ people, communities of color, and other marginalized groups.”
“These assaults on free expression and students’ right to learn have no place in our Commonwealth—or any free society. As a matter of law—not to mention good judgment—law enforcement has no role in policing materials in Massachusetts schools or educational programs.”
In a Dec. 14 email to parents, Dillon, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District superintendent, said the situation was “something that many districts and libraries are working through.”
“We have policies in place if a parent has concerns about a text, but our policies did not anticipate this situation,” Dillon wrote. “... In these type[s] of situations, many other districts form a review committee either of school, district and families, or of the school committee, to read and rate the book.”
Dillon invited the community to reach out with questions. Many did.
“Shame on you and the police,” one resident wrote in an email obtained via public records request. “Your actions and the actions of the police in this instance are disgraceful and your actions should be investigated by the school board for allowing the police to interfere with our children’s learning and development and for further stigmatizing queer youth in our school community.”
In another, an area parent wrote, “Peter, This is a disturbing story—and a somewhat confusing email. While you laid out the possibilities, what exactly is the school choosing to do about this book? I will be happy to purchase additional copies as a donation to make available for more students and parents who want to read it.”
Others said they were “saddened” that the police considered the complaint credible, and said they hoped the department would not continue to “engage with such clearly false complaints.”
One parent told Dillon they were highly concerned about his “encouragement of policing of reading material, and specificity [sic] LGBT educational material.”
“Your insinuation that our district may need a book banning committee is outrageous,” their email said. “Your actions and those of the police in this situation should be reviewed by the towns’ government and School Committee.”
Multiple people contacted Storti too. “What is going on here?” someone wrote to the police chief. “Are we to expect that police walking into classrooms and accusing teachers of distributing porn is a new norm?”
Not everyone took the same point of view. In a message to Storti, one area man cited an article from The Gateway Pundit, a far-right conspiracy site, calling the book “pornographic.” Another couple wrote of their “immense gratitude for the officer who showed up at the school to retrieve the book Gender Queer.”
“Please feel free to share this email with him and any of the anonymous parents/individuals who made this complaint in the first place,” the pair told Storti. “As I said, we represent many parents who are outraged by this book. Thank you to all those who have the courage to speak out against this.”
Another person emailed Storti, “Unfortunately the smut that is spreading throughout the. Country [sic] has reached our school district” and added, “Stay strong and please do not let the liberal ..woke….misfits drag you down.”
For his part, Dillon wrote back to one parent, calling the issue a “school matter,” and said he had been making that very argument to law enforcement “for a week.”
“There is not interest in banning books,” Dillon said, “but we may look at if a particular grade level is appropriate.”
