“My deepest emotional relationships have always been with women. Did that mean I was a lesbian? But my sexual fantasies involved two male partners. Was I a gay boy trapped in a girl’s body?”
Of all quotes in “Gender Queer,” this one strikes me the most. Despite being a cisgender woman, I’m aware that the quote relates to most transgender and non-binary individuals. When they begin questioning their gender identity, they ask similar questions. Some transgender and non-binary people rely on LGBTQIA+ literature like “Gender Queer” to answer them.
But now that these books are being banned, what are transgender and non-binary people going to turn to for support?
Hello and welcome to Secluded Rainbows! This is a biweekly column that publishes stories every other Tuesday. In each story, I will discuss an LGBTQIA+ book that’s currently being banned or challenged. The topics will vary from same-sex relationships to gender identities.
The very first book I’m highlighting is “Gender Queer,” a graphic memoir that I argue is one of the most representative stories about gender, sexuality and the LGBTQIA+ community. There are many artifacts that make it a gorgeous, yet controversial piece of literature.
“Gender Queer” follows the story of its author, Maia Kobabe, who is asexual, non-binary and uses e/em/eir pronouns. According to the prologue, Kobabe began writing the story in 2013. However, it wasn’t published until May 28, 2019.
“Gender Queer” has multiple themes. A major one is coming out. For the longest time, Kobabe kept eir gender identity a secret. Towards the end of the memoir, Kobabe consistently hesitates to correct people when they misgender em. Furthermore, when e begins teaching comic workshops at a local library, e doesn’t share eir pronouns with eir students, even though e feels ashamed by it.
“Every time I fail to give my pronouns, I feel like a coward,” Kobabe says on page 238.
Kobabe’s closet experience is a vivid representation of what people of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations endure in their lives. Some feel they should come out but are afraid to do so.
Another crucial element in “Gender Queer” is the concept of questioning one’s own identity. In many scenes, Kobabe asks emselves if e is a lesbian, bisexual or asexual individual. Kobabe considers emselves bisexual in eir teenage years but asexual in adulthood. A similar process takes course with Kobabe’s gender identity. At first, Kobabe identifies emselves as female, the sex e was assigned at birth. When Kobabe begins high school, e starts to believe that e is not a girl. Growing up in a time where labels like non-binary were nonexistent, Kobabe wouldn’t identify as non-binary until the 2010s.
As of 2023, “Gender Queer” has been published in eight languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian and Czech. It received the Alex Award and the Stonewall Award Nonfiction Honor Book in 2020. “Gender Queer” was also nominated for the Garden State Teen Book Award in 2021, and it was one of Denver Public School’s top 100 high school books in 2020 and 2021.
“Gender Queer” received a lot of praise after it was published. The School Library Journal said it’s “a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand.” Meanwhile, Booklist said it “grapples with issues of identity and sexuality in ways that highlight how messy and painful but ultimately vindicating the process of understanding and valuing yourself can be.”
Unfortunately, “Gender Queer” also faced backlash. According to Harper’s Bazaar, it was banned in Colorado, Florida, Texas, Utah and many other states in 2023. “Gender Queer” was the most challenged book in 2021, 2022 and 2023. It was also the second most challenged book in 2024 and the third most challenged book in 2025. That year, “Gender Queer” received 25 challenges.
According to Kobabe’s article, “I Made the Most Banned Book in America,” “Gender Queer” was threatened to be removed from many libraries. One is the Patmos Library in Jamestown, Mich. A few years ago, staff refused to ban “Gender Queer” and other books from the library, and as a result, Jamestown’s citizens defunded it in fall 2022.
Banning “Gender Queer” is like smothering the LGBTQIA+ community. While there are many books that address gender and sexuality, “Gender Queer” is unique because it’s a textual and visual representation of those things. Its images allow us to see what Kobabe went through and how e embraces who e is. Without graphic memoirs like “Gender Queer,” LGBTQIA+ audiences will miss out on a remarkably distinct resource.
“Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are,” Kobabe said in eir author statement. “Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health.”