Nonbinary People Shouldn't Exist in Books
One of the persistent findings in my work is that book challengers, in part, attack books representing certain types of people because they don’t think those people should exist. We have another example from a book challenge in Independence, Missouri. The book was Cats vs. Robots Vol. 1: This is War. You see the book had the gall, the temerity to show nonbinary people existing. This kind of challenge doesn’t surprise me, especially as I have a paper in the works on attacks on trans inclusive literature. What was a little more surprising is that the school joined in this bigotry.
To what do you object? “Non-Binary discussion”
“no age-appropriate. This material is not vulgar - but is not appropriate.”
“No, not in K-5”
Above is the objection to this kids’ graphic novel from a mother’s who’s kid checked it out. Once again a lot of the public justification for censorship today is dressed up around supposed “porn” and sexual material. Here the parent doesn’t even pretend to that and admits it isn’t vulgar, it is just not appropriate. Why? Well that has to be inferred a bit but the full material disclosed by the school (available here) demonstrate that it is solely because the book has a nonbinary character and that shouldn’t be allowed. The character appears on 3 pages and answers a question basically stating that the gender binary is made up. This basic truth freaked the parent out because nonbinary people shouldn’t exist.
The real frustration here is not with the challenger, I’m used to this kind of challenge from doing this work for years. But sadly the school decided to join in and amplify the bigotry. The above minutes have one committee member describing it as “heavy” content, the idea that nonbinary people exist is inherently “heavy” and “controversial.” Another complained that the “chapter was not needed - it seemed to out of nowhere” and “there was nothing to alert [parents/readers] that this book had any controversial content.” This frames the issue as one of hidden, surprise content. It “seem like the chapter was placed to start a conversation” and that shouldn’t happen. But if the book was all about nonbinary characters then it would indoctrination and too dangerous. So just dropping in a nonbinary character as one of many is dangerous by starting conversations but anything more is also too dangerous. Best to remove the book, which this panel supported by a 6-3 vote.
So what exactly is the danger here? Well it is that their normal kids will catch the trans. One member shared that Massachusetts has seen an increase in nonbinary kids in school - but also noted that east coasters are different from midwesterners, you know “real” Americans. This taps into one of the big sources for the anti-LGBTQ backlash of recent years: the perception that too many kids these days are queer. In February 2022, Gallup released a poll finding that nearly 21% of Generation Z identified as LGBTQ. To most of us this is a reflection of a slightly more tolerant public reducing the demands of compulsory heterosexuality that we were raised with. But to right wing activists, it is the ultimate evidence that the homosexual agenda of converting their darling children has worked. This is, of course, absurd. Reading about queer people existing doesn’t make people queer; as the old joke goes, every single queer person over 30, and most under, pretty much read only books with straight people and it didn’t make them straight. But the base of fear behind this book banning isn’t rational.
Amusingly, the committee kept stressing that this was only about elementary schools and not middle schools, where the book would also be appropriate given its audience. This is one of those arguments I love so much. It runs like this: listen, we don’t hate nonbinary people we just think that it is too advanced now for kids to learn that they exist, a little later is better. Guess what? Later never comes. The entire goal of the organized book banning movement is to purge anything that they see as dangerous, such as queer people existing. I guess I should be happy that the Independence Schools didn’t try to hide their bigotry and make up sexual content as a district in Spring Branch, Texas, did last year. Open bigotry is preferable to hidden but it still ends up in the same place: LGBTQ kids should not exist and any book depicting LGBTQ existence is an inherent danger that must be purged. After all, nonbinary people shouldn’t exist either and this is step one of that erasure.
