FORT WORTH, Texas — When Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker removed a Pride badge from the city’s summer reading challenge, emails poured into the city, a petition received thousands of signatures and community members filled city council chambers.
City emails newly obtained by WFAA reveal how the planning, decision and aftermath played out behind closed doors.
The issue began May 24 when a Fort Worth Public Library communications manager emailed the mayor’s staff along with councilmembers at 11:37 a.m.
“We received complaints this morning from eight parents who do not like the optional Pride badge in the youth section of the Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge,” the email read.
The plan was to inform the eight parents the badges were optional.
At this point, Parker had received five community emails regarding the challenge that had nearly identical wording.
“Hello, I recently learned that the Fort Worth library reading challenge includes an LGBTQ badge (school-aged pride badge) that encourages children to celebrate pride,” each message started. “I know I stand with many others in our community when I say that we do not want political agendas pushed on our children. We have to fight for our kids in big ways and small and I intend on doing just that.”
At 1:44 p.m., about two hours after the library told councilmembers and the mayor’s office, Parker sent her first email on the issue and directed it to city manager David Cooke and assistant city manager Jesica McEachern:
David and Jesica -
My staff is meeting with Library staff but frankly I am furious. I was not given the opportunity to approve the Mayor’s summer reading challenge badges. You can see from screenshots what was chosen without consult. This is not an appropriate venue for a youth reading challenge and children of all ages. I’ve asked my team to instruct library staff to immediately make changes and implement revisions of the badges and any material by 5pm today.
Thank you,
Mattie
Parker defended her decision to remove the badge at a council meeting in June.
“I strongly believe that parents are the ultimate decision-makers for their own families,” she said at the time.
WFAA sat down with Parker to discuss the emails and the removal of the badge.
“I was furious that something was created with my name on it and I was never consulted,” Parker told WFAA. “It’s not as if I created the program, developed the program and then took it away. I was never really made aware of it with my name on it.”
The removal immediately led to a response from people on both sides of the issue.
By the end of the week following the removal, records show Parker received at least 75 emails from community members.
More than 2,000 people signed a petition to have the badge reinstated.
Liberty Lounge, a queer bar in Fort Worth, has its own book exchange along a back wall inside. Owner Jenna Hill said she spoke to many people who felt afraid and frustrated.
“Sometimes, it’s only through outside sources like a book or movie that we get to see, ‘Oh wait, I’m not alone’,” she said. “I felt like we were saying to that group of kids, you know what you don’t need to be seen.”
“I would never want anybody to feel unwelcome or unseen,” Parker told WFAA. “I think my decision was well-founded and, again, it was not meant to hurt anybody’s feelings.”
In her city council speech, Parker said she didn’t know about the pushback or eight community member emails at the time of her decision.
“Frankly, I was out of the country and was not aware there was any kind of uproar from any organization,” she said in June.
In speaking with WFAA, Parker again addressed whether she was responding to the first group that spoke up.
“Most of those come to a public email, and it was only then because of the library’s email that I was able to actually read what was in the summer reading challenge with my name on it,” Parker said. “I think there was a real concern about ‘who was I listening to’, and I have my personal beliefs about why I removed it, especially as channeling my motherhood, I just didn’t feel like it was an appropriate use and we can debate that.”
“I was just shocked that it was so quick to take it down,” Hill said. “I was like, ‘Did you consider the message that it sent to those kids’? I understand there’s pushback, but I just wish there’d been a conversation, because that’s all we’re asking.”
This year, isn't the first for the optional badge. It was the third. City records show more than 300 people who did the reading challenge in 2022 got the Pride badge, including 71 in the 0-5 age group and 140 in the youth age group.
The badges could be earned this year by creating a rainbow heart garland or reading a book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist among several other activities.
“I think the content was different,” Parker said. “I think it reached all the way into younger children, babies and toddlers, in particular, young teens.”
In her initial public statement, Parker said, “My aim is not to tell families what is right for them.”
In her first email to the city manager’s office asking for immediate action on the removal, though, she said, “This is not an appropriate venue for a youth reading challenge and children of all ages.
“Isn’t removing the badge, even the option of the badge, telling some families, this isn’t appropriate?” WFAA asked.
“I don’t think so at all,” Parker said. “It was a program for all the public and I just simply said I didn’t think in my opinion, a program with my name on it was appropriate. That’s what I believed.”
Hill is straight but was raised as a kid by lesbians. She also spent decades as a middle school teacher in Fort Worth and Northwest ISDs.
“I don’t think there’s an appropriate age to just be introduced to people who love each other,” she said. “At the end of the day, this isn’t a queer issue. This is a human issue.”
At 3:30 p.m., Fort Worth Assistant City Manager Jesica McEachern replied to Parker, about two hours after her decision, and called the issue a ‘misstep’.
“The pride badge is being removed today,” she wrote. “I apologize that you were not consulted regarding the badges prior to the launch of the Summer Reading Program. This was a misstep and I will work with the library team to ensure that does not happen again."
Once media questions began, city communications staff worked with the public library on its statement working on adjusting working like calling the Mayor’s email a “directive” instead of an “ultimatum”, which was the initial choice.
Parker said the badges took the focus away from the literacy goal and noted other cities in Texas don’t have similar programs.
She’s undecided about bringing the badge back next year.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I think the most important thing to me is to create a summer reading program that’s actually incredibly effective.”
Hill said more than a bar, the Liberty Lounge is a supportive, safe place. She wants Fort Worth to be the same.
“I don’t want any child to feel like they don’t belong, or they don’t matter,” she said. “We want to be here. We love Fort Worth. We want to feel like we’re loved back.”
“Moving forward, the most important thing you can do is have these conversations, and I’ve had numerous conversations with people,” Parker said. “Whether you wish it could or not, no badge is going to erase any kind of vitriol or hate or concern or disagreement about someone’s lifestyle. It’s just not.”