Pinellas County Schools pull LGBTQ book after ‘concerns’

ABOVE: “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe. Photo via Kobabe’s Facebook page.

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. | Pinellas County Schools has removed “Gender Queer: A Memoir” from general circulation in two of its libraries after the district “heard concerns” regarding the LGBTQ-focused graphic novel’s content.

Based in Largo, PCS is the seventh largest school district in Florida. It includes more than 140 schools and centers throughout Pinellas County, including Lakewood and Dunedin High Schools where the books were removed.

“Gender Queer: A Memoir” was first published in 2019 and is written by nonbinary author and illustrator Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns. According to Simon and Schuster, “Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

“Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story,” the publisher continues. “It is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.”

Lakewood High School’s Spartan News Network first shared that the book had been removed Nov. 18. According to the student outlet, PCS Library Media Program Coordinator Bronwyn McCarthy instructed the school’s media specialist Heather Robinson that “the book needed to be ‘weeded’ due to its controversial nature.”

This resulted in the removal of a print edition from the school’s library and the deletion of its digital version. It was also removed from Dunedin High School, which SNN reported was the only additional school to offer it.

Robinson also serves as Lakewood High’s Gay-Straight Alliance, which per the school’s website bills itself as the “co-existence club.” It “works to unite LGBTQ+ and allied youth to build community and organize around issues impacting them in their schools and communities.”

She told the Tampa Bay Times that “weeding” books typically “means culling materials that are outdated, irrelevant and unused.” Robinson said she purchased “Gender Queer” last year and that it is “definitely a very timely book for our students.”

Watermark reached out to PCS which confirmed the book was taken out of general circulation. Public Information Officer Isabel Mascareñas said it remains available to teachers, school counselors, social workers and other district staff.

“The district heard concerns regarding the book, which led to an internal administrative review,” she explained via a district statement. “Due to the graphic illustrated sexual nature of some of the content, the book was deemed to not be age appropriate for all high school students.”

Mascareñas stressed that these administrative reviews take place regularly and that PCS “has had, for many years, school-based instructional materials and library information review committees which review both district-adopted and supplemental instructional materials as outlined in policy 2510.” Students are also encouraged to address concerns with their principal.

PCS isn’t the first to remove “Gender Queer” from its libraries. According to Kobabe, it’s been banned or challenged in high schools in at least seven states across the nation in response to conservative groups.

Its something the author recently addressed in a column for The Washington Post.

“Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are,” e wrote. “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.”

The piece also contained a new comic reflecting on the censorship.

“Please, leave the queer books on the library shelves, where the queer teens can find them,” it reads. “As a queer teen, I desperately needed them. And the queer teens of today need them too.”

To learn more about “Gender Queer: A Memoir” and Kobabe’s work, visit RedGoldSparksPress.com.

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