The authors of a children's book about a gender non-conforming boy have a message for conservatives who got their book banned from a Charlotte school district: "Reading a book can't turn you gay."

Sarah and Ian Hoffman have been watching as officials in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district have bowed to the pressures of Republican lawmakers over its inclusion of their book Jacob's New Dress in first grade classrooms.

Much of the pressure has come from the state's General Assembly, who see the book as having a very specific agenda—promoting the acceptance of transgender people.

“The idea that a book can turn someone gay or transgender is bizarre to us. Reading a book can’t turn you gay,” Sarah Hoffman told the Charlotte Observer.

“If a white kid reads a book about Martin Luther King Jr., will they become black? This book is about a little boy who wears a dress, something outside of traditional gender roles, much like the idea of a girl wearing pants was 100 years ago. It’s about following your heart.”

Jacob's New Dress is a picture book about a young boy who likes to dress in traditionally feminine clothing. The book is all about celebrating difference and encouraging kids not to bully those who aren't like them.

To that point, the Hoffmans said they find it ironic that a book about "love and acceptance" is being met with "a message of hate and discrimination."

“North Carolina seems like a very divided state. And I sense a lot of fear,” said Sarah Hoffman. “We like that this conversation is being had. It’s why we wrote the book. In this case, it’s a forced conversation.”

Her husband added: “Some of the code being used [by critics] is confusing to me. All this talk about ‘privacy.’ But I think they are using the ‘slippery slope’ argument: If boys are allowed to do something outside the boy gender box, it is the next step to becoming gay.”

The couple went on to say that their book has been met with this kind of controversy only once before, in Lancaster, PA in 2015. In that situation, parents objected to the fact that they weren't told beforehand that their children would be reading it in school.

“It’s not about a little boy wearing a dress. And it’s not about banning books being read,” Pastor Jamie Mitchell Lancaster Online at the time. “I just want the opportunity to know the book is being read... I don't want to be surprised as a parent.”

Conservative groups in North Carolina have rallied around the book's banning, calling it nothing more than "privacy-invading political correctness."

“Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools... seeks to indoctrinate students in the school district by normalizing transgender behavior,” said the N.C. Values Coalition in a statement. “The purpose of our elementary schools is to teach writing, reading and arithmetic, not to encourage boys to wear dresses... These lessons found in the book, Jacob's New Dress... are not appropriate for any child whose parents support traditional family values.”

That the dispute is occurring around the one year anniversary of the state's infamous House Bill 2 is not lost on the Hoffmans.

“It tells us our book is needed there,” said Ian Hoffman. “Our hope in writing this book was that it would one day be considered quaint. This controversy [in North Carolina] tells us there is more work to do.”