DENTON, Texas — The City of Denton announced that its Rainbow Storytime event, scheduled for Saturday, was canceled because of "safety concerns for staff and patrons."
The event, set to take place on the Transgender Day of Remembrance, is one of about 1,000 events and special storytimes the city's libraries host each year to celebrate different sectors of the community.
“Our focus is the community that we serve, and Denton is a vibrant and diverse community," Jennifer Bekker, Denton's director of libraries, said.
Bekker said the library started hosting events intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community about three years ago, and while the staff has received concerns in past years, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
"I think the difference this time is there was a loud social media call from outside groups," Bekker said.
She said the library has received messages and calls from people in California, Georgia and Oklahoma warning them to "shut it down."
“We saw some threatening comments online, and that made us concerned for the safety of any children that might be coming in as well as our staff members," Bekker said.
Despite the event being held on a day of remembrance for the transgender community, Bekker said the books selected for the event were not explicitly about gender identity, but about gender expression.
"There was a misconception that the books we had selected were specifically trying to tell children to be transgender," Brekker said.
None of the books that were going to be read include the word "transgender." She also said, despite rumors that the library was planning to bring in outside groups to read for the event, only librarians or library staff read during storytime events.
Amber Briggle has a transgender child and is an outspoken advocate for the transgender community.
"My community here in Denton was pretty upset when this thing got canceled," Briggle said.
So, she started making some phone calls.
The initial plan was to host a replacement event on the lawn outside of Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship after the church's board agreed to host it.
"I realized all it would take is one protestor with a megaphone to ruin the event for the kids," Briggle said.
She and the church, instead, connected with the owner of Armadillo Ale Works, a local brewery, and will host the event there on Saturday at 11 a.m.
Briggle said the event will also serve as a fundraiser to help expand the children's programming at Denton Public Library as well as the LGBTQ+ programming at Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
"I've raised about $2,000 so far," Briggle said. "People are really excited."
Briggle said she and city councilman Brian Beck will read the books, and while she will include one of the titles selected for the original event, the others will be more directly catered to transgender children and will include the word "transgender."
"I wanted to have this event just to show trans kids that they’re worth fighting for. That’s they’re worth celebrating," Briggle said.