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This article was produced in partnership with NBC News.
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Weston Brown was scrolling through Twitter last month when he came across a video of him squeezing his chest. A woman was shown at a school board meeting in North Texas, calling district leaders to ask for forgiveness.
“Repentance is the word in my heart,” he says near the beginning of the video.
For months, the woman in the clip has been demanding that the Granbury Independent School District ban from its libraries a number of books that contain references to sexuality or LGBTQ themes — books that she believes may affect the hearts and minds of students. Dissatisfied with the district committee she served on that voted to remove only a few titles, the woman filed a police report in May accusing school employees of providing pornography to children, and a Hood County criminal investigation began.
Meanwhile, in a video Weston found online, he told the school board that a local Christian minister, rather than the library, should decide which books should be allowed on public school shelves. “He will never let you down,” he said.
The clip ended with the lady walking out of the lecture, and the audience applauding.
Weston, 28, said his heart was racing as he watched and re-watched the video – and he’s not the only one against the sentence. He immediately recognized the speaker.
His mother, Monica Brown.
This is the same woman, he said, who tore pages from science books when he was young to prevent him and his siblings from seeing pictures of male and female bodies. The woman was always warned that reading the wrong books or watching the wrong movies could open the door to sinful temptations. And one, he said, was effectively estranged from his family four years ago after coming out as gay.
“You are not invited to our house for Thanksgiving or any other meal,” his mother texted in November 2018, eight months after he revealed his sexuality to his parents.
Weston, who lives with his partner in San Diego, has long agreed to the idea that he will never have a meaningful relationship with his parents. He still loved them and really missed his younger siblings, he said, but he had already tried to convince his mother and father that his sexuality was not a choice or a sin. He has already challenged their religious beliefs and prayed for them to change.
Until he saw the video of his mother at a school meeting.
In recent months, Weston has watched as the same political conflicts that tore his family apart have begun to divide entire communities. Spurred by a growing movement to promote Christian values at all levels of government, activists across the country have fought to remove charters from schools, repeal same-sex marriage rights, close the LGBTQ pride celebrations and passed state laws are restrictive. ways teachers can discuss gender and sexuality.
Just as the seemingly uncontrollable debate over America’s reaction to conspiracy theories about the 2020 election has led to the breakdown of personal relationships in recent years, these conflicts over gender and sexuality have been reversed. neighbors against neighbors, parents against teachers and — in the case of the Browns — a son against his mother.
“It was one thing when my parents’ beliefs caused this conflict between us and it was just a family matter,” said Weston. “But now to see that he’s using those same ideas in public events, at a time when so many rights are being challenged, I can’t sit still on that.”
Monica, 51, who educated all nine of her children and is the director of a private Christian education organization, declined to be interviewed or to answer written questions. In a series of email exchanges with NBC News, she first invited a reporter to discuss the story over dinner at her home in Granbury, but in a later message, she said her husband wouldn’t allow it. the meeting, adding, “I have been advised not to speak to you again.” His wife also refused to be interviewed.
Publicly, Monica has denied pursuing LGBTQ literature. In a recent meeting of the school board, he said that the only purpose is to protect children from sexual issues – gay or otherwise.
“There’s nothing about LGBTQ being involved in this,” he said. “There are LGBTQ books that show sex, of course. They’re wrong too. If they’re between men and men, women and women, cats and women, dogs and women, whatever, it is not a proper academic subject.”
That information, however, does not match the many books he marked for removal in Granbury. Some of the titles on his list feature LGBTQ stories, but no sexual content. This includes “Drama,” by Raina Telgemeier, a graphic novel about gay and bisexual characters dealing with the classic tragedy of a middle school crush.
Of the nearly 80 books Monica and her supporters want removed, 3 out of 5 feature LGBTQ characters or themes, according to an NBC News analysis of titles posted on GranburyTexasBooks.org , a website where activists put together parents’ reviews of books they like. prohibited. In addition to sexual issues, the website requires the removal of books for “correcting homosexuality,” focusing on “sexual behavior” and promoting “sexually active behavior.”
Monica has also expressed anti-LGBTQ views in official library challenge letters she sent directly to Granbury school officials, according to copies of documents obtained in a records request. in general. At one point, she criticized a prominent feminist biography in part because it included the story of Christine Jorgensen, a transgender woman who made national headlines in the 1950s for speaking out about her plastic surgery. the sex. He suggested replacing that book with a series of Christian biographies about girls and women who used their talents to serve God—“biographies of true great Americans,” he wrote.
After watching his mother’s video at school last month, Weston looked at the parts of the books he wanted to draw. It appeared to him that he and his supporters were pushing public schools to adhere to some of the same religious beliefs that he said he suffered from as a child.
He thought of all the students, in Granbury and across the country, who might benefit from reading the kinds of books he couldn’t grow up with.
With tears in his eyes, he started typing a tweet on the afternoon of July 3.
“This is my mom,” he wrote, along with a link to a video of the school board meeting. “Seeing her advocate for eradicating queerness is heartbreaking. It will be 5 years since I was separated from my family and siblings after coming in 2018. .
He hesitated, knowing he was about to reopen old wounds for the world to see. He doesn’t want to do anything to hurt the woman who took care of him, he said.
But trying to catch the librarians?
Weston added another line to her post – “Love those who stand up and push back for change” – along with a rainbow emoji. Then he clicked send.
“The rejection you have chosen”
Weston has many fond memories of growing up in the suburbs between Dallas and Fort Worth, about an hour from his parents’ home in Granbury. He remembers summer days splashing in the backyard pool, family skiing vacations in Colorado and hours spent at the public library with his mother, who instilled his love of reading.
“I didn’t have any friends growing up, and going to make new friends through fiction was always my goal,” he said. On the same subject : Wellesley POPS Senior Profile: Nora Jarquin’s contribution to the Department of Performing Arts goes far beyond the stage. “It’s a wonderful way to leave my world and go to something better.”
But in a conservative Christian family, some topics were off limits.
Although the Brown family’s bookshelves were lined with classics, such as books from C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” series, many popular titles were banned, Weston said. It included the Harry Potter series, which he said his mother, like many other skeptical Christians, thought was a satanic depiction of witchcraft.
According to Weston, the eldest, his mother also did her best to protect him and his siblings from words or images that might arouse curiosity about sex. She remembers being told to look down at the floor whenever they walked into the women’s clothing section of department stores. Even as a child, he said, he was more interested in the marketing images that appeared in the men’s section – although he did not dare to tell anyone.
The lessons about purity did not end when he became an adult.
In 2015, when he was 20 years old and still living with his parents, he returned home late one evening after watching “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” a movie PG-13 movie his mother disapproved of. When he walked into his kitchen, he said, he found two brown cans waiting for him, along with a stack of articles printed from the internet about bad influence of Marvel comics and movies.
One can of brown is normal. Another had a label that warned it was baked with a small amount of dog poop mixed in.
“Or anyone? Just a little?” Monica wrote later, when she posted a photo of the brownies on Facebook. “How much yuck is too much?”
The meaning of the parable, which is popular among some evangelical Christians: If you don’t eat brown things that might harm your body, then why expose yourself to movies, books or music that might harm you your soul?
Her son was upset, but he didn’t push back on the lesson.
“He made his statement,” she said, “and we never talked about it again.”
That same year the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage – a cultural development that troubled many evangelical Christians. Later, Monica frequently posted on social media about the “dangerous” gay agenda that she believed was on the march in American society. He warned in posts that Disney is secretly pushing LGBTQ lifestyles on children in movies like “Toy Story 4,” and shared a link to a video that claims pop star Katy Perry is conspiring with satanic forces convince young people to accept homosexuality.
Weston says he never challenged his mother’s views while living with her. She spent years struggling to reconcile her passions with the religious values her parents instilled in her – trying to prove herself as the baby in her womb whenever she was with one of the boys. in the church it is just something that friends feel for each other. It didn’t help, she said, that she had no meaningful sex education as a teenager — just a blanket order to hold off until marriage — and no understanding of LGBTQ information or the meaning of those books.
But by 2018, he was 23 years old, living on his own and finally confident enough to tell his parents what he knew about himself.
“Dear Mom and Dad, I’m writing this to share something I’ve been wanting to share with you for a long time,” he wrote in an email to his parents in February 2018. very interesting. relief, clarity and the problem I share with you: I am gay.”
He concluded the letter: “I pray that you will receive this with an open mind.”
That prayer, he said, was not answered.
Over the next year and a half, he said, his parents tried to convince him he was wrong. Through a series of emotional lunch meetings, phone calls and text messages, he said, they encouraged him to see a Christian counselor in hopes that he could learn to overcome his homosexual desires. They invited Weston to church—the only place they could allow him to see his younger siblings—and asked directly what evil influences might have led their son down this sinful path.
For months, his mother sent him links to articles from Christian news sites with headlines like “Evidence Shows Homosexuality Can Change” and “It’s Not gay in the right, it is lost in salvation” – the communication that he published on Facebook. But after Weston made it clear that no prayer or summer camp would change him, he said his parents made it clear he was not welcome in their home, even on holidays. or birthdays.
“You are not rejected, never have been, and never will be,” said his father, James Brown, in October 2019, more than a year after coming out. “The life you have chosen is against God and therefore the rejection you have chosen.”
His father added, “Have you ever thought about the pain you caused me and your mother?”
That same day, Monica sent him a message on Facebook saying that she was praying for the removal of dark forces from him.
“I come specifically to fight the evil that entered you from the movie ‘It,'” he wrote, referring to when Weston, at about 10 years old, watched a part of the Stephen King mini-series about a serial killer. “Speaking demons must go in the mighty name of Jesus.”
He ended the message, “I love you, Mom.”
“A raging fire”
Monica Brown’s effort to rid schools of books she considers obscene began late last year with a trip to the Granbury High School library, which sometimes hosts in robotics competitions where his students competed. See the article : The best books to take you through Berlin, Germany.
He began looking through a few books while there and was not happy with what he found, according to a May interview he recorded with the Blue Shark Show, an online television show in online hosted by a Republican former state legislator.
“What I saw was not good, dark – the stuff of nightmares,” Monica said, without elaborating.
His sudden interest in library books coincided with several attempts to ban similar books across the country last year amid growing opposition to school programs and lessons that deal with racism. race, gender and sexuality.
The most studied books, both in Granbury and nationally, are mostly stories and memoirs by young adults that contain explicit descriptions of sex or rape, especially those featuring LGBTQ themes and characters. Opponents of these books argue that any sexual content is presented in the form of general stories to help young people understand and process the world around them.
The fight was particularly heated in Texas, where Republican state officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, in calling for criminal charges against any school employee who gives children access to stories, memorabilia and sexist books by some conservatives. it’s called “pornography.”
Monika did not say in her interview whether she reported her concerns to the school district. But in early January, Granbury’s superintendent of schools, Jeremy Glenn, called a meeting with the district’s librarians and shared that he had begun to receive complaints about library books.
“Let’s call it what it is, and I’m getting rid of a lot of this stuff,” Glenn told the librarians, according to a secret recording of the meeting obtained by NBC News, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune and first reported in it. March. “It’s transgender, LGBTQ and gender – sexual – in the books. That’s what the governor said he was going to prosecute people for, and that’s what we’re pulling out.
When asked about his comments, Glenn gave a statement in March that the district is committed to supporting students of all backgrounds. And although he said the district’s main focus is student education, Glenn said “the values of our community will always be reflected in our schools.”
In the days after the meeting, district employees pulled more than 130 books from school library shelves and announced the formation of a volunteer committee to review them.
Monica was one of the first appointees. From the beginning, he felt the process was a sham, he said in his Blue Shark interview. The first two meetings were held when attendance was not possible, he said, and by the third meeting, the committee had already voted to return most of the books to the shelves.
“That meeting was really disrupted in the sense that we didn’t vote because I kept asking,” he said.
In the end, over objections from him and another member, the volunteer committee voted to ban only three books: “This Book is Gay,” a coming-out guide for young people LGBTQ by transgender author Juno Dawson includes detailed descriptions of sexuality; “Out of Darkness,” by Ashley Hope Pérez, is a young adult story about a friendship between a Mexican-American girl and a Black boy that includes a rape scene and other issues. adult statue; and “We Are the Ants,” by Shaun David Hutchinson, a coming-of-age story about a gay teenager that includes explicit sexist language.
The district returned several other titles to the shelves. Most of the letters contained no sexual content, the committee found. For others, the majority of committee members believed that any species description was age-appropriate when read as a whole.
Monica was angry, she said on the Blue Shark Show in early May.
“I think they broke the law,” he said.
That same week, he put that belief to the test. On May 2, he and another disgruntled board member filed a police report with Hood County Constable Chad Jordan alleging that the district was making pornography available to students, according to a copy of the incident report. Four days later, Hood County police visited Granbury High School to investigate the complaint.
In a letter provided to NBC News on Wednesday and dated August 1, Jordan said his office could not provide additional information about the case because the investigation is still ongoing. In a statement issued in May, Glenn, Granbury’s superintendent, said the school district is cooperating with law enforcement.
In the months since then, Monica has continued to persevere, speaking at every school board meeting, submitting more than a dozen additional book challenges and, in the process, became a prominent and polarizing figure in Granbury.
Her action was praised by some famous people in the city, including members of the Hood County Republican Party and Melanie Graft, the school representative who chose Monica to work on the book review committee. Graft, who rose to local prominence in 2015 while leading a campaign to remove LGBTQ comics from the children’s section of the Granbury public library, did not respond to messages requesting an interview. .
Monica’s fight also comes at a certain price. In press releases and public statements, he said that the hours spent reviewing library books required him to sacrifice time with his family and led to personal attacks from people who were against his efforts.
In May, Adrienne Martin, a Granbury parent and chairwoman of the Hood County Democratic Party, was filmed on her phone confronting Monica outside of a school meeting.
“You want to catch the librarians,” said Martin as Monika walked away. “That’s fascism.” You are a fascist.”
At a board meeting last month, Monica tried to explain why she fought so hard to get books removed from a school district her children don’t attend. He is doing it, he said, for all the other children.
“I feel like a fire,” he said to the board, “and I have a water gun.”
“I pray for you”
After Weston’s first post criticized his mother, he fired off several more tweets disparaging her efforts at Granbury. To see also : Pfizer Internship Allows Pre-Dental Students to Explore Data Science.
The posts soon reached his parents. His father texted him to say he apologized to his mother.
“We did not come against the LGBT Community,” his father wrote, saying that their efforts in Granbury schools were focused on “pornography” and nothing else. “I know you are hurt by our decisions but we are also hurt and ever since you said you are Gay.
“We didn’t hate you,” said his father.
Weston replied: “All I can say is I love you and wish you the best.”
Soon, opponents of Monica’s efforts began posting pictures of her son’s tweets on the Granbury community’s Facebook group – a family’s social media.
“Call your son and leave our son!” wrote a woman in response to one of Monica’s many public comments about the library’s obscene books.
“Your attack on books will not bring your son back to you or make him right,” wrote another Granbury resident. “Go home and look in the mirror, decorate your house before you worry about others.”
Monica has not publicly mentioned her son’s tweets, but in response to a Facebook post about them, she wrote: “You can believe what you want about me. In the meantime, I will continue to do my best to finish my life for the audience of One.”
A few weeks later, he finally got in touch with his son. Two days after NBC News contacted him to request an interview, he texted her to tell her that he did not plan to share “personal family information” with a reporter.
“I have never come out against LGBTQ – it’s normal,” he wrote, before adding: “I love you, and I pray for you.”
Weston studied the message, thinking back to all the hours he had begged her to accept him for who he was instead of trying to control and change him. What hurts is that the woman who gave birth to him tells him that his sexuality is disgusting.
He doesn’t want to revisit that tragedy, he said. He just wanted his mother to stop pushing her beliefs on other people’s children.
Weston read his text message once more. He started to type an answer, then stopped. Instead, he closed the message and put his phone away.
He has already told his mother everything that needs to be done.
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