The firing of a Texas professor and subsequent resignation of the university's president are illustrating a statewide battle on when and how LGBTQ topics are discussed on college campuses.

State lawmakers say what the Texas A&M lecturer did was illegal, opponents say academics are losing their free speech rights and at least one other college in the state is trying to preemptively avoid political fire by banning LGBTQ discussions in classrooms.

Brian Evans, president of the Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors, said the ousters are “very difficult to see because it creates a chilling effect for other faculty who want to make sure that their students have the ability to discuss the topics that the students want to discuss. So to have to play censorship, that certain topics can't be taught in a class, especially those that are related to the class, just seems a little bit strange, because students want to ask questions, want to explore ideas."

It all began in an English course titled “Literature for Children” at Texas A&M and a summer session student recording a professor’s response to her objections to some of the course material.

Professor Melissa McCoul was sharing a graphic called a “gender unicorn” that demonstrates concepts of gender expressions, identity and sexuality while going over the class reading “Jude Saves the World,” a novel about a 12-year who comes out as nonbinary, according to The Texas........

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