It is no coincidence that of the ten book the American Library Association singled out in 2019 as the texts most challenged for content, no less than eight were deemed inappropriate for under-18 readers because, to one degree or another, they contained positive messages about members of the LGBTQIA population. Amazingly, the book which topped the list as the most challenged novel for three straight years was Alex Gino’s George. A novel about a character born biologically male but who identifies as female…in fourth grade. As you hopefully would expect, George contains nary a single four-letter word, sex scene, or even description of body parts not routinely covered by even the skimpiest of swimwear.
It almost goes without saying that since its publication in 2019, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer has found itself being challenged across the country and is almost certainly destined to be a recurring title on the ALA’s list through at least the 2020’s. These two books together serve to muddy the waters of the opposition to the opposition of banning books from school libraries. The plain facts of the matter are clear: the only thing about George that opponents don’t like is that it suggests transgender awareness can begin as early as elementary school.
That is the only thing to oppose in the entire book: it was written for kids and it shows. The same, however, does not so easily and perfectly apply to Gender Queer. While banning any book is fundamentally wrong, even the staunchest supporters of this belief cannot draw an equivalence between challenges to George and challenges to Gender Queer. The content of Kobabe’s graphic memoir is, well, pretty graphic. Scenes of a speculum pulled from the main character’s vagina with blood on it is one thing when it exists only as written text; a visual illustration accompanying the text takes it to the next level.
But explicit visual imagery of a pap smear is not what is really driving attempts to have the book removed from high schools. The scene in the book which is driving the move to have the book removed from shelves are two panels in a three-panel vertical spread occupying one page. The illustration explicitly shows one character wearing a strap-on dildo that is partially inside the mouth of another character on their knees. The accusation is that by virtue of the sex act, this qualifies the book as pornography.
And therein lies the rub. The inescapable fact is that such a scene is a mainstay of pornographic films. But it is not the presence of the sex toy and the act being performed that makes those films pornographic. It is that the scene serves literally no other purpose than titillation. Kobabe does not include the admittedly shocking scene in order to titillate. If such is the consequence, that responsibility lies entirely with the reader. The author’s purpose is abundantly clear: it is just another of many episodes throughout the book that illuminate the discomfort with the link between gender and sexuality for the protagonist.
That said, however, defenders of those books being challenged must stand up to an irrefutable truth. Gender Queer is not the same thing as George. That George is on any list at all of controversial books—much less topping the list for three straight years—is the very definition of political absurdity. Regardless of how strongly one might feel about the movement to keep books out of the hands of certain readers, Gender Queer is much tougher going. Not only is the text infinitely more explicit than George (or I am Jazz, for that matter), but that verbal description is always accompanied by an equally explicit rendering of the scene in visual terms.
Should Gender Queer be removed from high school libraries? That's not the point. What is problematic about the whole situation is the decision to treat all books which are challenged as equal. By any measure of judgement, a stronger case can be made for challenging Kobabe’s graphic memoir than can be made for Gino’s actually rather sweet little tale. And it is this refusal to admit the obvious on the part of those opposed to banning books that makes those opposing the books dig in even more fiercely. Simply admitting to understanding how more than a handful of parents might be opposed to the presence ob a book in a high school library containing a scene showing oral sex with a dildo is in no way the same as admitting that the opposition is right, much less agreeing that the book should be removed. It is possible both to admit that some scenes in some books might provoke discomfort among a majority and still not agree that this is a logical rationale for removal.
