According to TheWashingtonPost:
State Farm’s jingle is unmistakable: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Yet when it came to State Farm’s support of a program providing LGBTQ-themed children’s books to teachers and libraries, conservative groups and right-leaning media outlets derided the insurance company as “a creepy neighbor” and accused it of “targeting” children with books about gender identity.
“State Farm tells us they’re a good neighbor, but would a good neighbor target 5-year-olds for conversations about sexual identity?” the narrator says in a video posted Monday by the conservative group Consumers’ Research. “That’s what State Farm is doing.”
Hours after a report about the partnership prompted an online uproar from conservatives, State Farm announced that it was dropping its support of the GenderCool Project, aimed at helping raise awareness around what it means to be transgender, inclusive and nonbinary.
State Farm spokesman Roszell Gadson confirmed to The Washington Post on Tuesday that the insurance company had ended its support of GenderCool after it had “been the subject of news and customer inquiries.”
“Conversations about gender and identity should happen at home with parents,” Gadson said in a statement. “We don’t support required curriculum in schools on this topic. We support organizations providing resources for parents to have these conversations. We no longer support the program allowing for distribution of books in schools.”
The company maintained that it would “continue to explore how we can support organizations that provide tools and resources that align with our commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
The company’s decision was reported by the Washington Examiner on Monday night.
GenderCool founders Jennifer Grosshandler and Gearah Goldstein told The Post that State Farm informed them early Tuesday that their partnership of the last year had come to an end.
“They have concluded their partnership with us; it’s done,” Grosshandler said. “We did some cool things together, and I appreciate the work we did with them.”
The move from State Farm is the latest in an academic year that’s seen far more challenges to books in the United States than usual. In early May, Pen America, a nonprofit organization that advocates for freedom of expression, found that 1,586 books have been removed from libraries or classrooms in the nine months prior, with the majority disappearing secretly and outside proper procedures. By comparison, 2018, 2019 and 2020 each saw about 300 book challenges or bans, according to a tally from the American Library Association. Most of the books targeted feature LGBTQ or Black characters or address LGBTQ themes, race or racism.
