The author of one of America's most challenged kids books says 'trans people are unsafe' (2024)

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The author of one of America's most challenged kids books says 'trans people are unsafe'? ›

The author of one of America's most challenged kids books says 'trans people are unsafe' The author of one of the most challenged books in America says it's important for people to know that restricting books about the LGBTQ community and their experiences does far more harm than good.

In 2019, Beyond Magenta became the second-most banned book because of its LGBTQIA+ content, "its effect on any young people who would read it," and concerns that it was sexually explicit and biased.

In this story, two worms in love plan their wedding. Their friends want to know who will wear a dress and who will wear a tuxedo, since both worms are happy to be either the bride or the groom. A conservative group in Florida objected to the book, saying it inappropriately subjected young readers to an L.G.B.T.Q.

Banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe was one of five LGBTQIA+ titles challenged by a parent at the North Hunterdon-Voorhees (NJ) Regional High School District.

offensive language (61.5%) unsuited to age group (49%)

Some books are challenged because they depict children behaving, well, childishly (Junie B. Jones, the heroine of a series of books by Barbara Park, gets in trouble for using words like “stupid.”) So adults worry that books may be bad for children's morals and for their manners.

Some school districts aimed to ban the book from schools because they believed the book has unsuitable topics for children to read about. One major complaints was that the story portrayed talking animals that can communicate and act just like humans.

Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham. Beginning in 1965, it was forbidden to read Green Eggs and Ham in Maoist China because of its “portrayal of early Marxism,” and the ban was not lifted until author Theodor Seuss Geisl's death in 1991.

There were concerns over the violence and increasingly dark tone of the later books but most of the censorship attempts were for religious reasons. It was also banned in some Christian schools in the UK.

Rainbow Boys was on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books of 2000-2009.

Why is the bluest eye banned? ›

Reasons cited have included, “sexually explicit material,” “lots of graphic descriptions and lots of disturbing language,” and “an underlying socialist-communist agenda.” One complaint simply called it a “bad book.”

Although the books outperformed any other long-running literature series, they were banned by librarians and educators throughout the United States for “debauching and vitiating” a child's imagination.

Beyond Magenta centers around six young adults, members of the trans/nonbinary community, who describe their struggles and their triumphs, their feelings and experiences when dealing with their personal identities.

Colleen Connolly: So New English Canaan, it's a book that was published in 1637, so that's almost 400 years ago. Klimek: Colleen Connolly recently wrote a piece for Smithsonian about New English Canaan, the first book to be banned in what is now the United States of America.

As The Banned Books Project points out, there have been “different reasons for the book being banned, including religious objections, hom*osexuality, violence, African history, rape, incest, drug abuse, explicit language, and sexual scenes.” The bans and challenges to The Color Purple, as we know, have nothing to do ...