Or Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, who thinks teachers should be forced to tell parents if a pupil confides in them about their gender or sexual identity. Just look at Boris Johnson, who recently claimed that no children under 16 should be allowed to make medical decisions about transitioning without parental involvement, despite the fact that the Gilick competency test is widely used to assess children’s ability to make independent decisions any other kind of medical treatment. LGBTQ people, especially teens, are being used for political point-scoring by the right, with no concern for their wellbeing. I wonder if the noted rise in attempts from right-wing groups to ban books is partly born of post-Biden frustration, or a sign of the much-discussed “culture wars”. Just as jumping off a building will kill a person, so will the spread of homosexuality bring about the demise of American culture as we know it.” Such rhetoric meant that Ronald Reagan, the president at the time, didn’t utter the word “Aids” until four years into the epidemic. One Moral Majority commentator said: “There are absolutes in this world. Through the group, formed by a Baptist preacher, the Christian right entered politics in a significant way, influencing Republican victories through the 1980s. In the late Seventies the Moral Majority came to prominence in the US.
This was, of course, during the Section 28 era, when teachers were forbidden to discuss LGBTQ issues thanks to Margaret Thatcher’s government. I came away from high school wholly unprepared for the perils and pleasures of adult life. I also knew from my own youth how appalling sex education was for queer kids. The idea was first suggested by my UK editor at Hot Key Books, and I knew from my teaching days that there was a dearth of teen non-fiction covering LGBTQ issues. This Book is Gay is a non-fiction guidebook for LGBTQ youth, broadly divided into three sections covering identity, coming out, and sex and relationships. This Book Is Gay came out in the US in 2015, so I’ve struggled to understand why a seven-year-old book is getting so much heat now. Almost all of the top ten most challenged books feature socially progressive themes around race, sexuality or gender. I’m in great company: the top ten also includes the bestseller The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Toni Morrison’s seminal The Bluest Eye. Disturbingly, attempts to ban books surged in 2021 to the highest level since the association started keeping records 20 years ago. It was challenged - meaning people lobbied for it to be removed from public school libraries - on the grounds of LGBTQ content and for being sexually explicit. It brought me no pride whatsoever to learn that my 2014 title, This Book is Gay was the ninth most banned or challenged book in the US in 2021 ( according to the American Library Association). And, for the most part, these authors aren’t getting the now-expected post-controversy media tour. It seems to me, however, when you examine what sort of books are materially being banned, “challenged” and removed from schools and libraries they usually contain progressive themes. When you read articles about “cancel culture”, they are almost exclusively written by people with conservative views on any number of issues: trans rights, climate change, race and immigration.