Stacy Langton, the mother of a student at Fairfax High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, reads aloud sexually explicit content from two books distributed in the school district's libraries at a Fairfax County School Board meeting, Sept. 23, 2021. | Screenshot: YouTube/Do Better FCPS

Warning: The following article contains sexually explicit content

A concerned mother has slammed one of the largest school districts in the United States for including sexually explicit books in their high school libraries, which she classified as "pornography" for their graphic descriptions of sex acts between men and boys.

The parent of a student in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia read aloud sexually explicit material and shared graphic images featured in two books available in the district's high school libraries at a school board meeting on Thursday. A video of her addressing the board, uploaded by the advocacy group Do Better FCPS, has received more than 300,000 views.

Stacy Langton explained, "After seeing a September 9 school board meeting in Texas on pornography in the schools, I decided to check the titles at my child's school, Fairfax High School." Langton held up the two books singled out at the Texas school board meeting that are also available in several public high schools in Fairfax County. She said that "both of these books include pedophilia, [and] sex between men and boys."

"Both books describe different acts," she added. "One book describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male. The other book has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy."

Langton added, "The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys, masturbation and violent nudity." She read aloud from one of the books, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe: "I can't wait to have your c**k in my mouth. I am going to give you the b**w job of your life and then I want you inside me."

She then read an excerpt from the other book, titled Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison: "What if I told you I touched another guy's d**k? What if I told you I sucked it? I was 10 years old but it's true. I sucked Doug Goble's d**k, the real estate guy, and he sucked mine too."

As Langton maintained that "this is not an oversight at Fairfax High School," a school board member interrupted and told her that "there are children in the audience here."

In an article on Substack, Asra Normani, the vice president for strategy and investigations at the grassroots advocacy organization Parents Defending Education, who attended the meeting, disputed the assertion that children were present at the meeting.

Langton, who didn't appreciate the board member's interruption of her time to speak, added: "Do not interrupt my time. I will stand here until my time is restored and my time is finished. These books are in stock and available in the libraries of Robinson, Langley and Annandale High Schools."

A school board member then suggested that teenagers' access to the books is OK because they're only available "for high school students." However, the majority of high school students are younger than 18, which is the age of consent in Virginia.

Before her time was up, Langton replied to the board member's assertion, saying, "Pornography is offensive to all people; it is offensive to common decency." When Langton's time came to a close, the school board attempted to introduce the next speaker as many in the crowd gave the mother a round of applause.

Langton remained at the podium as parents expressed their anger at the school board by chanting, "Go to jail!" As a security official tried to escort her away from the podium, Langton alleged that "This board is in violation of the law of the state of Virginia called 18.2-376! This board should be charged accordingly!"

The law cited by Langton is one of Virginia's "Crimes Involving Morals and Decency." It declares that "It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly prepare, print, publish, or circulate, or cause to be prepared, printed, published or circulated, any notice or advertisement of any obscene performance or exhibition."

Another member of the audience remarked that "this is child pornography and every one of you all should be arrested for allowing this bullcrap to be perpetrated in our schools and infecting the minds of these children."

In response to the criticism, one member of the board, Karl Frisch, took to Twitter and implicitly defended the inclusion of the book in high school libraries: "It's not every week the School Board receives two exorcisms during public comment. To be clear, nothing will disrupt our Board's commitment to LGBTQIA+ students, families, and staff. Nothing."

Fairfax County Public Schools released a statement Friday announcing that "The circulation of these books has been suspended, while a committee reviews and makes recommendations about the text." After outlining the process for the "Request for Reconsideration of Library or Instructional Material," the statement indicated that two committees had been formed to determine whether to remove the books from the schools.

"Each committee will include two teachers, two parents, one school-based administrator, one member of the Equity and Cultural Responsiveness team, and two high school students. Each year, we identify potential committee members by working with our schools and regions. The committee members will be randomly selected from the list, though we will ensure that the students selected are 18 years of age given the concerns."

The controversy is the latest example of school boards facing pushback over some of the material taught to children in public schools. In nearby Loudoun County, Virginia, parents read aloud similar literature their high school children were exposed to in a high school English class at a school board meeting this past spring.

Earlier this month, Mayor Craig Shubert of Hudson, Ohio, called on the school board to resign or face criminal charges for allowing a book titled, 642 Things to Write About.

The book features sexually explicit writing prompts intended for use in a college-level English class taught in the district's high school. Like Langton and parents in Loudoun County, parents of students in the Hudson City School District read some of the sexually explicit writing prompts that children taking the class were asked to write about to the board.

Prompts students were asked to write about included instructions to "explain a time when you wanted to orgasm but couldn't" and "write a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom."

Concerns about the kind of material children are exposed to in public schools have led to the foundation of several advocacy organizations, including Parents Defending Education and the 1776 Project PAC, which seeks to "get school board people in there who can actually start reversing it."

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