Banning The Breakaways
The current war on reading being waged by Christian Right extremists is giving me almost too much data to follow and track. My interest is particularly drawn when the books are ones that I haven’t seen challenged and attacked before. This is how I came across a challenge to and removal of The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson from the Spring Branch, Texas, school district. At one level this surprised me because the book is a sweet middle grade graphic novel about a bunch of kids who are bad at soccer playing it anyway and making friends. The nature of the characters, though, explains the controversy because it includes a range of diverse characters including queer kids and a sweet trans boy coming out. Pretty much any depiction of trans identity is enough to get challenged and this was no different. Though this raises the question of why The Breakaways was both challenged and removed. The Houston Chronicle, in a paywalled article I can’t access, noted it was removed largely because of the trans character. The school district got angry at this and stated that the book was banned because of its “sexual content” and not the trans character. As the book has no sexual content of any real kind, this is clearly untrue and it appears the school simply caved to angry parents.
Original complaint against The Breakaways. “Inappropriate sleepover storyline and illustration (p.153-159) inappropriate storyline (p.166-167, 193-195) political propaganda (p.186-187).”
The only complaint officially submitted made only three objections, seen above. Some other individual, not the one who submitted this complaint, started a petition against the elementary school and its principal: “An elementary-school principal who fails to recognize how such content could pollute a young, impressionable mind demonstrates an evident and appalling lack of judgment.” This petition made clear that this complaint was not driven by any sexual content so much as the representation of people the censors don’t like - queer people - and messages they dislike, such as Black Lives Matter. We can look at each of these in order.
The Breakaways Pg. 159.
This is the extent of the “sexual conduct” seen in the book. Two kids are sharing a bed during a sleepover when one comes out as trans and asks to kiss his best friend. They later start dating. This is the extent of anything remotely sexual. Middle grade books regularly depict kids kissing because, shockingly, kids kiss. The only thing objectionable here, to the challengers and apparently censors at the school, is one kid is trans.
The Breakaways pg. 186
Here we have the “political propaganda.” The image is one half of a two page spread of the kids playing in their band. I actually could not figure out what the problem was until I read the online petition which cites the poster on the wall saying “Bleed the Pigs.” The petition sees as “an apparent reference to killing police officers” but is more likely about defunding police departments; I also discovered it is the name of a band. Regardless, it is an interesting stretch to get to “propaganda” simply because a book has a message you don’t like. If that is the standard for removal then nothing will be left in any library.
The Breakaways pg. 167
The Breakaways pg. 193.
The final images objected to really seal the issue for the challenger. The “inappropriate storyline” is two characters coming out to friends and being accepted by them. There is never any sexual contact or anything else, it’s just that they exist in the book and this existence is dangerous. Again, the online petition was more comfortable admitting the real reason for the campaign to remove the book: “A middle-school-aged protagonist questioning her biological gender.” You’ll note the intentional misgendering of the character. Depicting a trans kid is inappropriate because these censors believe trans people are inappropriate and should not exist. Depicting a trans kid being affirmed and supported by his friends would spread the dangerous message that trans people should be supported and accepted as well and transphobes can’t handle this. Note also that they object to a queer girl being told it is ok to be queer. Once again, when your worldview is the school must turn out straight, cisgender kids only, this kind of representation is threatening.
Committee formal recommendation.
The review committee notes are being withheld from me by the school at this time - this could be because something really interesting is in them or, possibly, the district’s lawyers have sincere concern about their release amid the conservative assault on schools - so I’m left only with the final report. The central element is above. For a committee with three librarians (along with two teachers and an administrator), I hope professionally trained ones, this is a weird report and I’ve never seen one like it. They note that the book has strong reviews and the age ranges are inclusive of middle school as well as older elementary. But the committee simply disagreed despite the fact that this age range is objectively correct. They specifically disclaim any concern about the trans storyline but then point to something that no one objected to, suicide, and the “political propaganda.” But as three of the four noted objections were about representations of queer and/or trans identity, this attempt to reshape the complaints is ridiculous. Of specific concern is that the report does not engage with the book as a whole, it is banned only for isolated elements of the book read out of context. This certainly runs against the training of both teachers and librarians.
Without the notes evaluating this is report is difficult. On the face of it is simply hard to take seriously. Especially when administrators invented “sexual conduct” in the book to justify the removal to the public when news stories appeared. This reads as a classic case of appeasing challengers to avoid prolonging an issue. Having studied hundreds of these fights, I feel confident in saying that schools are somewhat more likely to ban a book than public libraries, though banning is until recently pretty rare. This is because public education is compulsory and thus brings with it more political headaches. Texas schools are currently under siege from rightwing extremists bent on removing any diversity or inclusion from the schools. Recently one district official advised teachers that having a book on the Holocaust is dangerous under the current terrible laws in Texas without including “the other side.” In this environment, I’d guess that the District and its employees sacrificed The Breakaways to appease the censors in their community. Unfortunately for them, censors are never pleased with purging just one book and they are almost certainly after others.
