#book-bans

#book-bans

Over the last four years, LGBTQ+ people-especially transgender people-have been attacked from every angle: bans on healthcare, restrictions on bathrooms, even attempts to restrict driver's license gender markers. But one of the earliest and most revealing features of this backlash was the push to strip books about queer and trans lives from classrooms and libraries. At first, these bans cloaked themselves in neutrality, prohibiting vague "gender and sexuality" discussions-rules that always seemed to allow depictions of straight marriage while quietly targeting anything queer.

Not long after I arrived, my English teacher, sensing I was having difficulty adjusting, asked how I was doing. ... I told her I didn't like the humidity and that I didn't understand why all the Black kids seemed so angry. She reached for the bookshelf and handed me a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and said: 'Read this - it will help you understand.'

Alberta recently directed schools to purge library books from shelves that fit its definition of explicit sexual content by 1 October. If the policy is applied precisely as outlined, a host of books face being purged, including George Orwell's 1984 due to passages in the text that discuss sexual intercourse and rape. Academics and researchers who examine censorship say the policy specifically targets books that affirm LGBTQ+ identities

Libraries and museums are facing unprecedented challenges because of mass layoffs and funding cuts associated with the Trump administration's actions.