Rumor What's going on in Portland?

He's trolling again.

This was banned by a Portland, Maine area school district.

https://www.newscentermaine.com/art...unity/97-85c219bd-c319-46d9-806c-bc117f81f864

His hate of LGBTIQA+ communities is now spreading to multiple threads.

 

Author Maia Kobabe: Struggling kids told me my book helped them talk to parents

This essay by Maia Kobabe is part of a series of interviews with — and essays by — authors who are finding their books being challenged and banned in the U.S.

In mid-2018 I showed a partial draft of Gender Queer: A Memoir, my first full length book, to my writing group. One fellow cartoonist, Jimmie Robinson, said, "Get ready for this book to be challenged, and take it as a compliment when that happens." Robinson is the author of a dark political satire series that shows a villainous, mostly nude, main character facing off with heroes and a certain former president. He was very well familiar with people misunderstanding and misinterpreting his work. He added, "Maybe go make some friends at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund now."

I was obviously already aware that queer, trans, and nonbinary narratives often receive pushback. I did brace myself, in 2019 when the book was released, for a certain amount of negative attention online, if not a full-on wave of internet hate. But it didn't come. Instead, Gender Queer was met with a wave of online love.

The first print run (just 5,000 copies) sold out the week the book was released. As I toured six states and numerous bookstores in 2019, I received only positive, often heartwarming and deeply moving, feedback. People told me they related to Gender Queer more than any other book they'd ever read. They told me it made them feel less alone. They told me they had shared the book with a parent, or a partner, or a friend, and it had opened up conversations they'd never been able to have before.

In 2020, Gender Queer was given two awards by the American Library Association (ALA): a Stonewall Honor, and an Alex Award, which recognizes books published for adults that hold crossover appeal for readers "aged 12 to 18." We headed into a second printing, then a third, then a fourth. By the time covid shut down my comic convention touring, the book had been out for long enough that it was starting to get assigned in college classes. I spent much of 2020 and 2021 speaking via zoom to literature classes, gender studies classes, comic classes, and once a class on graphic medicine, a study of narratives of health and illness in comic form. I settled into the business of writing my second book, happy that my first one had been so well received.

And then, fall of 2021. A video of a parent railing against Gender Queer in a school board meeting in Fairfax, Virginia went viral and sparked an immediate series of copy-cat challenges elsewhere. Sometimes the challenges were overturned, and the book was returned to the library shelves. Other times the book was banned and removed. Several conservative politicians made book banning a major talking point of their campaigns. There were so many challenges in such quick succession before the end of the year that I literally could not keep track of them all. I was getting so many interview requests that I could easily have turned into a full-time public speaker with no time to write.

In spring of 2022, the ALA announced that Gender Queer was the most challenged book of the previous year, taking the top spot from another book about a trans young person written by a nonbinary author, Alex Gino's Melissa. Very shortly after this, another Virginia Republican sued Barnes and Noble claiming that my book was "obscene." I thought, then, of Jimmie Robinson's advice from four years earlier. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians, and readers. I was incredibly grateful when they reached out to me, and offered to represent my book in the case. They supported me all summer, while the hearing was delayed again and again. Finally, in August, the case was dismissed by a judge as unconstitutional.

I am trying, as Robinson advised, to take all of this as, if not a compliment, at least a kind of testament to the strength of my work. Being the author of a heavily challenged book is stressful, and it wastes a lot of my time – but it puts me in very good company. I never expected my book to sit on lists beside Beloved, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Hate U Give, Speak, and Of Mice and Men. It still feels vaguely surreal, and I'm sure I haven't processed the ripple effects I will feel for the entire rest of my career. For now, I am strengthening my commitment to continue writing stories centering trans, queer, and nonbinary characters. Certain parts of the country may be fixated on censoring me, but I will not be censoring myself.

Maia Kobabe is the author of the memoir Gender Queer and a number of short comics that have been published in The Nib, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and several anthologies. You can find Maia here.

 

What exactly is "going on" in Portland area schools?

 

That's dumb, there is nothing wrong with the bible being in school libraries.

 

Just the straight white ones apparently.

More than 35 Books Pulled from Canby High Library for Reconsideration
MARCH 21, 2023 TYLER FRANCKE NEWS, SCHOOL


Canby school officials have recently pulled around 40 books from middle and high school library shelves at the request of community members, in accordance with district policy that will allow a committee to review the titles in the coming weeks and decide whether they will remain accessible to local students.


Several community members attended the Canby School Board’s March 13 meeting to speak in support of the materials being reconsidered, while a group of current Canby High School students have planned a demonstration protesting the district’s actions this week.

Many of the titles frequently appear on lists of the most banned books in school libraries across the country, with common complaints being their discussions or depictions of drug use, sexual activity, violence and abuse.

Many of them are also about or written by Black, Latino, LGBTQ or other similarly underrepresented authors. All but six of the authors on the list are women.

The list includes popular and award-winning — but also frequently banned — titles such as The Bluest Eye and Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez, Crank, Impulse and Perfect by Ellen Hopkins, and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin.



A complete list of the titles is below.

In the meeting earlier this month, two board members broadly defended and applauded the action by district officials.

Director Dawn Depner said the question is not whether “students are responsible enough to choose their books. It’s about the law, and it’s about the safety of minors.”

“Educators aren’t allowed to give prescriptions or Tylenol or ibuprofen to students, so why should we be able to distribute or make books accessible that are sexually explicit and may include pornography in our libraries?” she asked.

Depner said she appreciates the initiative of parents, teachers and administrators who are taking the time to review the books in question.



“There’s no ban on these books,” she said. “They are up for review. In my opinion, this should not be a district decision, but rather a parent’s decision to allow these books to be provided, and maybe have these books provided at home. I have no problem with that.”

Director Sherry Smith also spoke in favor of the books being reviewed.

“We have a fiduciary responsibility to spend our district moneys wisely, whether it be grant money or other sources,” she said. “And, for that reason, I don’t support the purchase or distribution of pornography, nor the hyper-sexualization of our children.”

In any business, rather than a school, Smith said, “it would be a crime for this material to be displayed or distributed to minors because it depicts sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse.”

“So I cannot, in good conscience, support the district or library aiding or abetting the distribution of that kind of material,” she concluded. “The district has no control over who sees these materials, especially when removed from district property, and I’m not willing to risk that kind of viability on behalf of our district.”


Several community members also attended the March 13 meeting and said they supported the titles being pulled and reviewed.

“I am appalled at some of the offerings that are available to children under the guise of freedom of speech,” said local resident Sharlene Sanders. “Our job as adults is to protect, to nurture, to love, to educate and to discipline our kids.

“We should not hand over our responsibility to raise our kids, but we partner with teachers and administrators. Parents have the right to speak into what is being taught to their own children, especially when it comes to important topics like sex, sexual acts, sexual violence, suicide and drugs.”

Sandra Carrigg praised the board for “doing what is right for the parents and children of Canby.”

“I pray that you will be granted discernment to see and know what is being subtly infused into curricula, material that is being purposefully designed to indoctrinate children into various social, political and even perverse sexual agendas,” she said. “We will all be held accountable for the decisions that we make and the choices that impact children.


“I am sure you’re aware of the verse where Jesus warns of offenses committed against children. He says it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Thank you for that. You’ve chosen the right path by removing library books.”

Also testifying earlier this month was Marissa Depner, a Canby High School graduate and adoptive daughter of Canby School Board member Dawn Depner.

She disclosed that she is a victim of physical and sexual abuse and how titles like Milk and Honey, a poetry collection by Rupi Kaur, and the graphic novel memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe were triggering for her.

“Please understand that when I pick up a book like [Milk and Honey], … I begin to shut down,” she said. “This means I freeze. I start to cry, and I have flashbacks of my abuse. Then I move into a full-blown panic attack and anxiety attack.


“I’m completely embarrassed and have to call one of my parents to come and pick me up or calm me down. Adults may be able to read this and be OK, because they’ve had years of years of help and healing, but for younger students like myself, we’re not able to process this, and it’s a trigger.”

Depner has also been accused of superseding the review process last year, when she was a student, by checking out a copy of Gender Queer owned by Canby High School and never returning it.

“I want to make it very clear that I checked out a book from the library last year, Gender Queer, and there were rumors going around that me and my mother and other students had done a book banning,” she said.

“That is not true. I have the book still with the Canby High School stickers on it, and I’m more than willing to bring it to the next meeting.”


Reached last week, Canby School District Director of Communications Kristen Wohlers made clear that the books were not “removed” from high school and middle school libraries, but temporarily pulled pending reconsideration. She did not disclose who requested that the materials be reconsidered.

“All I know is that it was community members who filed the requests,” she told the Current. “The reasons varied but fell within the policy requirements. Now, the 40 books are in the reconsideration process, which involves a committee.”

The district does not have a policy that is specific to reconsidering library books, so these reviews instead fall under the procedure allowing families or community members to express concerns about classroom curricula or any materials used by the district.

The policy does not require the materials to be removed from school use while they are under review — and, in fact, allows that they may still be used in classrooms with the permission of the superintendent or principal — but Wohlers said the general practice has been to pull the books.


“The procedure does leave room for ‘discretion,’ and specifically regarding our library process, materials are pulled for reconsideration when a request is made,” she said.

Based on the number of titles that have been requested for reconsideration, Wohlers estimated the review will not happen until this summer.

The titles include A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, A Court of Silver Flames and Empire of Storms by Sara J. Maas; Allegedly and Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany Jackson; The Bluest Eye and Beloved by Toni Morrison; Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin, Breathless by Jennifer Niven, and Crank, Impulse and Perfect by Ellen Hopkins.

Also on the list are Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, Fade by Lisa McMann, Heartstopper Vol. I and II by Alice Oseman, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Looking for Alaska by John Green and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews.


Other titles are Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf, None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio, Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, Sold by Patricia McCormick, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (and a graphic novel collaboration with Renee Nault).

The final books that have been requested for reconsideration are The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.

A new Instagram account, @donottakemybookschs, has been established to protest the district’s actions, and a demonstration outside Canby High School is planned for Wednesday, March 22.

https://canbyfirst.com/more-than-35-books-pulled-from-canby-high-library-for-reconsideration/