As classroom censorship bills sweep state legislatures, schools are removing books by and about LGBTQ people, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups from curriculums and libraries at an unprecedented rate. This year, more than 111 bills aiming to limit discussions about race and gender in the classroom have been passed or introduced in state legislatures. These efforts effectively erase voices, histories and lived experiences from students’ K-12 education.

In honor of Pride month, three LGBTQ rights advocates share how the recent surge of book bans and classroom censorship bills impact their work, and how they affect the students and teachers whose identities are under attack.

Credit: Maddie McGarvey

Books are incredibly powerful, and the fact that people are trying to ban them just speaks to that. Through books, we can see ourselves and the world around us — as Rudine Sims Bishop mentions, as a mirror, a window, or a sliding glass door allowing us to step into a different world.

As an English teacher, I tried to find books for the classroom that reflected the lived experiences of my students, whether they’re queer or not. I want them to see that they matter, not just in my eyes but in the words on the page. There’s something meaningful about seeing your experience published and bound in a spine.

There’s a fear that reading books with LGBTQ characters will make students gay. But I grew up reading about straight characters, with heterosexual parents, and somehow I ended up gay in this world. So if reading books is supposed to determine your sexual orientation, that woefully failed in my case.

Reading books with LGBTQ characters is important for everybody. Students are going to be better off in the world because of it. Books can expose readers to identities beyond the scope of people they know in their immediate lives — queer people with disabilities, queer people who are immigrants, queer people who wear a hijab — thereby building empathy and understanding of experiences different from their own.

For queer students, it validates their existence. When a community says a book is being banned from the library because of its LGBTQ themes, it’s telling students “there’s something wrong with you, there’s something that needs to be legislated or challenged, there’s something about you that is up for debate, that shouldn’t even be in a book.” It tells LGBTQ students they don’t even deserve to be on the shelf — literally and metaphorically. That can be very harmful to students’ self-esteem and the way they see themselves in the world. When queer students are denied access to these stories, they lose a piece of their humanity.

It’s also important to note that many of the books that are banned are also by authors of color, which shows our desire as a society to silence the voices of people of color. It’s yet another example of white supremacy at work. We cannot separate the work of LGBTQ equality from the work of anti-racism because the struggles are so closely intertwined. When we are working towards a better future for LGBTQ folks, we’re working towards a better future for people of color, too. And I think that’s important.

Credit: Maddie McGarvey

Credit: Hannah Yoon

As a mother to a seventh-grader and a member of university faculty, I’ve seen firsthand how classroom censorship affects students and educators alike, particularly those who are LGBTQ. Teachers are worried they could lose their jobs if they teach books about race and gender, which shortcuts their efficacy as educators as well as their sense of personal well-being. And I can’t imagine it’s easy for young people to witness their own identity and existence being erased from school curricula.

Representation is so, so important. I know what it’s like to grow up unable to see yourself reflected in books or other parts of society and culture. During my childhood in the 1980s, I never saw a book reflecting experiences and identities like my own. It wasn’t until college that I found LGBTQ voices in literature — and even then, I had to seek it out. I think I would have had a very different experience growing up if I had been exposed to LGBTQ voices earlier in my education. For example, maybe I wouldn’t have had to go through adolescence twice — before and after coming out.

Exposure to diverse perspectives sets students up for success as future leaders in the world. It shows them how to treat and interact with people whose experiences are different from their own. It’s especially important at the elementary age. Kids should be able to read books that portray LGBTQ people and families as part of the fabric of our communities, not marginalized or erased.

Today, I’m amazed at how well LGBTQ kids are learning to navigate the world at such an early age — far younger than I was when I finally started figuring it out. I have a 14-year-old nephew who recently transitioned, and another child in the family came out as non-binary at age 12. Increasing representation of diverse voices in our books and classrooms helps build students’ confidence as they discover who they are.

As educators and students confront a continuing spate of classroom and library censorship efforts, it’s important to remain open and be kind to one another — even as parents keep showing up at school board meetings to yell about books. Instead of attacking others and pointing fingers, we should approach this issue from the base assumption that everybody wants the best for their kids. We must come together and try to find a middle ground that doesn’t shortchange a student’s education or harm LGBTQ students and educators.

Credit: Hannah Yoon

Credit: Will Martinez

The reason that I do the work that I do is because of what I learned in school. I grew up in New York and I was fortunate enough to have a program in junior high school called Council for Unity. It was a group of civically engaged young people learning about racism, conflict resolution, how to be vulnerable and share their life experience with their peers. We had a school field trip to the GMHC, an organization that taught me about the work of ACT UP — an activist group that was started in the 1980s to address the AIDS crisis. And I just fell in love with the idea that someone could use their individual power to change society. It was a profound realization for me — a moment of light that inspired me to continue a career in advocacy and volunteer work helping the LGBTQ community. That’s what led me to Equality Texas.

Over the course of the 2021 legislative year, we had the most anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation filed in Texas in the history of the United States. Although only one of those bills passed, the harmful narratives and manufactured moral panics that came with them are living on in school board meetings, where LGBTQ students are seeing their very humanity up for debate by those who are charged with their safety and education and in schools where books and symbols of support are being removed from classrooms — creating hostile school climates for young people. As a direct result, we started getting calls from all over Texas about escalating bullying, increased harassment and violence, and even the removal of safe space stickers and flags or posters. Since January 1, 2021, the Trevor Project has received close to 25,000 calls, texts or emails from young Texans in crisis.

Credit: Will Martinez

It’s not surprising that the majority of the books lawmakers are trying to ban and remove from libraries are books that center the voices of LGBTQ people or Black and Brown people. I remember what it’s like to not see people like you in your textbooks, and to see homophobia from teachers, administrators, and peers. It added to a sense of fear about coming out, even though I already knew who I was by junior high. Going to the library was a joyous experience because I could find those stories I didn’t always have access to in the classroom — stories of LGBTQ people, of first or second generation immigrants like myself and my family. Seeing positive representations of people who looked like me thriving and creating families let me know that there was hope.

Inclusivity in the classroom is good for all students. It allows students to put themselves in the shoes of somebody with a different experience, fostering empathy and compassion. It gives LGBTQ students a sense of power and worthiness. Most importantly, it tells them that their stories matter.

Read more about students and teachers fighting classroom censorship.

American Civil Liberties Union

School is For Learning — Including Learning About Race and Gender | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union

A student and two teachers in Oklahoma share how a new censorship bill has curtailed important discussions about race and gender in the classroom.

The Supreme Court’s ruling today, which overturned Roe v. Wade, is nothing less than a shameful, sweeping, politically-driven decision that will have life-altering, and indeed, life-threatening consequences for women and other people who can become pregnant. The devastation of this moment and how it will erode so many of our fundamental rights cannot be underestimated.

Today’s decision revokes the federal constitutional right to abortion, and with it our agency over our lives and futures. As a result of this decision, half the states are expected to ban abortion.

This is an outrageous attack on women’s rights and the bodily autonomy of everyone who can become pregnant, and the effects will be immediate and far reaching. Forcing someone to carry a pregnancy and give birth against their will has devastating impacts, derailing their life, education, and career plans, and assigning them to a future they never wanted or envisioned for themselves.

As bad as today is, this is just the beginning. Extremists have made it clear they won’t be content until abortion is banned nationwide. And they won’t stop with abortion either. The same extremists seeking to control the bodies of pregnant people are coming for our rights to access birth control and gender-affirming health care, to marry who we love, and to vote. But the ACLU has been fighting for our fundamental rights since before Roe v. Wade was decided, and we are not backing down now — or ever. The ACLU and our supporters have been preparing for this moment.

The state of Mississippi used Dobbs to issue a direct invitation to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. The case was brought on behalf of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi by the Center for Reproductive Rights, and it challenged a state law banning abortion after 15 weeks, in plain violation of Roe. The state asked the court not just to uphold the 15-week ban, but to reconsider the constitutionality of abortion entirely and to declare that the Constitution does not protect the right to abortion at all. That is precisely what the court ruled today.

Forcing someone to carry a pregnancy against their will has life-altering consequences, including enduring serious health risks from continued pregnancy and childbirth, making it harder to escape poverty, derailing one’s education, career, and life plans, and making it more difficult to leave an abusive partner. This decision will also lead to miscarriages being subject to suspicion, investigation, and arrest, and patients and doctors being thrown in jail.

These burdens will disproportionately fall on women of color, those struggling to make ends meet, young people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ communities.

Today’s ruling will also have deadly consequences, with the harm falling hardest on Black women and other people of color who already face a maternal mortality crisis that is most severe in the same states that are determined to ban abortion. In fact, Black women are three times more likely than white women to die during childbirth or shortly thereafter. If abortion is banned nationwide, pregnancy-related deaths are estimated to increase by 21 percent nationwide, and 33 percent among Black women.

Without the federal right to abortion, about half the states are expected to ban abortion in the near future. Some of these laws will take effect immediately, some will require additional action to put the law into effect, and some states will pass new laws.

This didn’t happen overnight. It has been part of a decades-long project to take away a right upon which people have relied for half a century. Anti-abortion politicians have spent decades enacting a patchwork of abortion bans at the state level that pushed abortion out of reach and laid a foundation for the moment we find ourselves in now: when they can ban abortion throughout wide swaths of the country. But we know they will not stop there. Today’s decision brings anti-abortion politicians one step closer to their ultimate goal of outlawing abortion nationwide.

Everyone deserves the dignity and power to decide for themselves if and when they have a child. Those who are trying to take away our basic rights are counting on our silence. We cannot afford to stay quiet when our rights and our freedoms are on the line, and we won’t.

PeoplePower.org

Take the pledge: Commit to being a defender of abortion rights

This is a moment of crisis, but we are not powerless. Abortion access is literally on the ballot this year, and we must vote like our rights depend on it — because they do.

With the federal constitutional right to abortion gone, state constitutional rights are more important than ever. In Michigan and Vermont, efforts are underway to enshrine the right to reproductive freedom in their state constitutions.

Conversely, proposed state constitutional amendments to take away abortion rights are on the ballot in Kansas this August, and in Kentucky this November. We cannot let those measures succeed.

We can make our voices heard by taking to the streets. Protests and actions are taking place across the country, and you can locate events in your state here. You can join these efforts and sign up for alerts from the ACLU by texting FIGHTBACK to 826-23 for more actions and updates on the crucial work ahead.*

You can also help secure abortion access for those who need it most by donating to abortion funds that help people access critical care, and by donating to the ACLU.

Finally, you can help fight the stigma of abortion by sharing your stories and talking about how abortion access has changed your life. Talk to your friends, family, and neighbors about why abortion access is essential.

It is up to us — the overwhelming majority of Americans who support abortion access — to come together and fight for a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies and futures. We are joining forces with partners and working to mobilize folks in every corner of the country to get involved in the fight for bodily autonomy.

The ACLU will continue to do everything in our power to ensure all people can access the care they need, when they need it. We are fighting for our rights everywhere: in the courts, in Congress and state legislatures, in the streets, and at the ballot box. Politicians don’t get the last word. We do.

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