On March 17th, 2026, the House Committee on Education and Workforce passed H.R. 7661. You probably didn’t hear about it. You were busy, I’m sure, trying to keep up with Mango Mussolini’s temper tantrum. The Dollar Menu Dictator is aways breaking something now-a-days.
It’s called the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.” Go ahead, try to be against that. I’ll wait.
But that’s the point. That’s the whole goddamn point. They didn’t name it the Federal Book Removal Act or the We Don’t Trust Teachers, Librarians, or Parents Act, even though, that’s exactly what it is. They named it so that anyone who opposes it sounds like they support the sexualization of children. It’s not legislation. It’s a rhetorical trap purposefully designed to mislead you with a bill number slapped across it.
The bill actually amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to pull federal funding from any school that uses materials deemed “sexually oriented.” No court. No review board. No appeal. Just the vague, infinitely elastic phrase sexually oriented material—the same language that’s already been used in states across the country to yank books about puberty, books about gay teenagers falling in love or households with two dad or two moms, books about slavery, books about the Holocaust, books about anything that makes someone’s kid ask a question their parent doesn’t want to answer.
Vague language isn’t a flaw in this bill. It’s on purpose. It’s always on purpose with this shit politicians. Vague means, whoever holds the hammer gets to decide who’s the nail.
And you, the one who clicked away from the news last week because it was too much, you may think this won’t touch you… but I guarantee it will.
Maybe you don’t have kids. Maybe your kids are out of school. Maybe you live somewhere blue and feel insulated. Maybe you you just don’t have the bandwidth for one more thing. But that’s exactly who this bill is counting on.
Book bans don’t announce themselves as book bans. They announce themselves as child protection. And anytime I’ve ever heard anyone say, “It’s about the children,” it’s never about the damn the kids. They walk in wearing the right language, wrapped in the right concern, and by the time anyone calls it what it is, the money’s already gone and the shelves are already empty. We’ve watched this happen in school districts across Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri and now, coming to a school near you.
It’s a federal bill now. There is no more local. .
These are some of the “sexually oriented” books they will be banning:
And Tango Makes Three—A picture book about penguins.
The Kite Runner
The Handmaid’s Tale
Beloved.
Books about puberty written for children by doctors. Books that exist because some kid somewhere needed to know they weren’t alone, that their body was normal, that their family wasn’t shameful, that history actually happened.
Those books are the target. The drag shows are just the conspicuous cover story.
This is not about protecting children. Children are protected by knowledge. Children are protected by seeing themselves in a story. Children are protected by adults who trusted them enough to tell them the truth. What this bill protects is the fiction that if you don’t name a thing, that thing doesn’t exist—that a gay character will simply decide not to be gay. That a girl who never learns the word for what happened to her body won’t need to process it. That ignorance is innocence.
It isn’t. It never was. And the people who wrote this bullshit bill know this.
They’re not confused about what they’re doing. They’re counting on you being confused about whether it’s your problem.
It is. It was aways going to be.
The committee voted it through three days ago. It heads to the full House next. And right now, the people who think this is fine are very loud, and the people who know it isn’t, are very tired.
Be tired later. Be loud now.
Mind control. It's sadly ironic that The Handmaid's Tale is mentioned, because we are slowly but surely becoming Gilead. Fuck.
In school I read Animal Farm, Johnny Got His Gun, The Catcher in the Rye and others. Our teachers expanded our minds. I feel sad for students who are at the mercy of those who are afraid of what they don't understand.