The book explores the author’s discomfort with traditional gender roles, and features depictions of masturbation, period blood and confusing sexual experiences. It’s a graphic memoir that deals with puberty and sexual identity, and includes a few drawings of nude characters and sexual scenarios - images that critics of the book were able to share on social media to stoke a backlash. Several factors made “Gender Queer” a target. In many cases, the titles that have been pulled aren’t mandatory reading, but are simply available on library shelves. The American Library Association counted challenges against 1,597 individual books last year, the highest number since the group began tracking book bans 20 years ago.
Liberal groups, free speech organizations, library associations and some student and parent activists have argued that banning titles because some parents object to them is a violation of students’ rights.
The recent spike in book challenges has been amplified by growing political polarization, as conservative groups and politicians have focused on titles about race, gender and sexuality, and framed book banning as a matter of parental choice. groups, we’re citing it for sexually explicit content,” said Jennifer Pippin, a nurse in Sebastian, Fla., and the chairman of Moms for Liberty in Indian River County, where “Gender Queer” was banned from school libraries last fall after Pippin filed a complaint. “It’s not a First Amendment issue, this is not going against L.G.B.T.Q. It’s the sexual content in “Gender Queer” that is not appropriate for children or school libraries, they say. Some who have lobbied to have the memoir removed from schools say they have no issue with the author’s story or identity. Pennsylvania: Students in one county rose up against an effort to restrict their access to books that focused on ideas like white privilege.Tennessee: A school board voted to ban the Holocaust novel “Maus” from its classrooms because it contains material deemed inappropriate.Texas: A state representative’s list of books that might elicit “discomfort, guilt, anguish” in students has left teachers and school boards uneasy.Here are the other most challenged titles.
“I just thought, I am wanting to come out as nonbinary, and I am struggling with how to bring this up in conversation with people. “There wasn’t this language for it,” said Kobabe, 33, who now uses gender-neutral pronouns and doesn’t identify as male or female.
The words available failed to describe the experience. But coming out as nonbinary years later, in 2016, was far more complicated, Kobabe said. Ĭoming out as bisexual in high school had been relatively easy: Maia Kobabe lived in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area and had supportive classmates and parents.
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