The American Library Association (ALA) has released its annual report into banned books, and LGBTQ+-themed titles topped the list again.
Seven of 10 books banned last year had LGBTQ+ characters, while the top two – All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M Johnson and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer – are memoirs by LGBTQ+ authors which have previously been banned or had their sale restricted in the US.
Both have featured on the list since 2021, with Gender Queer hitting the number-one spot three times since it was published in 2019.
The full list remains largely unchanged since last year, with queer semi-autobiographical graphic novel Flamer, by Mike Curato, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was turned into a film starring Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller and Emma Watson, and Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins, all included.
The ALA said the “third-highest number of book challenges” ever occurred last year. Tracking began in 1990.
According to the ALA, while the titles remained similar, the people initiating challenges and bans had changed, with 72 per cent of demands to censor books in schools and public libraries now coming from “pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members and administrators”.
Parents only accounted for 16 per cent of demands for books to be removed from shelves.
“We can trace many of the challenges to Moms for Liberty and other groups,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA’s office for intellectual freedom, told NBC News.
The most common justification for challenging titles involved “false claims of illegal obscenity for minors”, featuring topics such as race, racism, equity and social justice, or the inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters or themes.
Queer writers have previously spoken about how damaging book banning can be for LGBTQ+ children and teenagers. Non-binary author Fox Fisher said: “If you don’t see anyone like you growing up, or only see negative depictions, you’re going to internalise that guilt and shame, and suppress who you are. That’s hugely damaging to people’s mental health.”
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