Visibility Matters! Maia Kobabe Responds To Book Banning
Maia Kobabe, author of the award-winning graphic novel, Gender Queer: A Memoir, wrote a very eloquent and important response to the banning of her book along with Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison by the Fairfax County, Virginia public school board. CLICK HERE to read. In case people hit a paywall to read, we’re reprinting the article below.
Maia discusses this column in more detail on James Hohmann’s Washington Post podcast, Please Go On. CLICK HERE to listen. Thank you, Maia, for your groundbreaking work and raising your voice for the truth. Visibility matters and saves lives!
OPINION: SCHOOLS ARE BANNING MY BOOK
BUT QUEER KIDS NEED QUEER STORIES
Washington Post, Friday, October 29 6 am EDT
Maia Kobabe is the author of “Gender Queer: A Memoir“ and was Chairperson for the Prism Awards in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Very late on the night of Sept. 23, I was tagged in an Instagram video. It looked like a city council meeting, with an angry woman talking about something at a lectern. I didn’t turn the sound on. “Here are the sickos who wrote those awful books,” wrote a commenter, tagging me and another author, Jonathan Evison.
The next morning, I woke up to emails from journalists at the Associated Press and local D.C. news stations. My debut graphic book, “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” had been banned at a Fairfax County school board meeting.
The story unfolded slowly over the next week. I learned that Fairfax County had become the center of a heated debate over transgender students’ rights, and the protests and counter-protests at the board meetings had already resulted in shouting, chanted prayers and an arrest. I learned from a Post article that one of the Fairfax parents “chose to target ‘Gender Queer’ and [Evison’s] ‘Lawn Boy,’ both of which happen to feature LGBTQ characters, because she saw media coverage of the texts after parent outcry in Texas. She then checked her children’s high school library and saw Fairfax was offering the books, too.” One of the charges thrown against the book was that it promoted pedophilia — based on a single panel depicting an erotic ancient Greek vase. Others simply called it pornography, a common accusation against work with themes of queer sexuality.
A week later, I found out that “Gender Queer” had also been banned in a school district in Florida, and within a month, it had been challenged at schools in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington and Texas, again.
When I was on book tour in 2019, I was asked many times, “What age of reader do you recommend this book for?” I would generally answer, “High school and above,” but the truth is, the readers I primarily wrote it for were my own parents and extended family. When I was first coming out as nonbinary, I kept getting responses along the lines of, “We love you, we support you, but we have no idea what you are talking about.”
I came out as queer to my mom as a senior in high school. It took almost a decade to also come out to her as nonbinary, even though I had been questioning my gender identity since I started puberty at age 11. A major reason for this long delay between my first coming out and my second was the lack of visibility of trans and nonbinary identities when I was young. By high school, I had met multiple out gay, lesbian and bisexual people, but I didn’t meet an out trans or nonbinary person until I was in grad school. The only place I had access to information and stories about transgender people was in media — mainly, in books.
In the early 2000s, I lived in a house with no TV and limited Internet access, so I turned to my local library for entertainment. I checked out stacks of fantasy novels and manga every week. I was especially hungry for stories with queer characters. I devoured “Skim” by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, and Julie Anne Peters’s “Luna” and “Keeping You a Secret.” I read Howard Cruse’s masterpiece “Stuck Rubber Baby.” There was “Paradise Kiss,” “Rainbow Boys,” “Weetzie Bat,” “Annie on My Mind,” “Geography Club,” “Swordspoint,” “Totally Joe,” “Very LeFreak” and everything I could get my hands on by David Levithan. These books kept me company through my years of questioning and confusion.
The American Library Association, which tracks challenges, restrictions and bans on books in schools and libraries, recorded that the No. 1 most challenged book in 2020 was “Melissa” (previously titled “George”) by Alex Gino, a narrative of a trans elementary schooler written by a nonbinary author. Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are. Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health.
Three weeks after I first heard about the “Gender Queer” ban at Fairfax County Public Schools, I received this message:
“You probably won’t ever see this but I am a queer FCPS student! My mom and I read your book. I loved it! I related to almost everything you said. I felt so understood and not alone. I think my mom understands me better and I’m more confident in confiding in her since she read your book. Thank you so much for creating your memoir!”
All illustrations by and copyright Maia Kobabe and redgoldsparks
https://redgoldsparkspress.com
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