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The cover of "Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter?" by Heath Fogg Davis

WEST FARGO, North Dakota, August 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Two North Dakota state legislators are speaking out against their public library promoting a radical book called Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter?

According to KFGO, the book was “prominently displayed” at the West Fargo Public Library. The book, authored by Temple University professor and LGBT activist Heath Fogg Davis, questions “the need for gender classification,” according to its Amazon description. Davis is a woman who identifies as a man. 

In the book, she argues that it's “necessary for our society to take real steps to challenge the assumption that gender matters.” 

She's presented at academic conferences on topics like “transitioning while teaching,” a “non-heterosexist ethos of reproduction and family,” and “gender inspection in public transit.”

State Reps. Chris Olsen and Ben Koppelman say they were contacted by constituents unhappy with the anti-biology display.

“Taxpayer-funded institutions should proceed with great prudence when engaging, promoting or appearing to promote issues of societal controversy. This issue in particular, perhaps above any other issue, is a source of great controversy – and with good reason,” Olsen told LifeSiteNews in an email.

“Human sexuality is a sacred and sensitive topic in every culture known to man or that has ever existed,” he said. “Additionally, each of the world’s three major religions have much to say about the role of sex in human life. And even if we were to all agree on some philosophy of sex, we would surely disagree about having strangers take the liberty of introducing our children to it in any manner they please without our consent.”

“In this important and original book, Davis argues that most bureaucracies should get out of the business of administering sex by classifying people as female or male,” Transgender Studies Quarterly wrote in a glowing review of Beyond Trans.

In an interview with Philly Mag, Davis said, “Policies that add a third gender option don’t go far enough, because they leave intact the primary source of gender-identity discrimination: sex-classification policies themselves.”

Olsen continued, “I do not think it proper for public money to be used to promote deconstructionist sexual ideologies, such as that provided in the book Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter? Instead, government should only expend tax moneys on those issues which are of urgent public necessity. Taking a side, or appearing to take a side, in this debate does not serve the public good.”

“We are all entitled to our opinions and positions on these issues, but should our tax moneys be spent to promote an issue on which so many of us disagree?” asked Olsen.

Earlier this summer, the Boston Public Library hosted drag queens mockingly dressed as Catholic nuns for a children's story hour. A Maryland public library came under fire in early 2017 after it advertised a no-parents-allowed sex-ed class taught by a self-proclaimed lesbian “pole dancer.” The class was eventually cancelled due to community opposition.