In an era of book bans, sci-fi and fantasy offer an LGBTQ refuge for young readers

Science fiction and fantasy are providing an oasis for young readers craving LGBTQ characters they can relate to as activists and wary parents increasingly clamp down on material they find offensive.

Books featuring LGBTQ content are disproportionately targeted for bans in U.S. schools and libraries, with the most challenged titles regularly including “Gender Queer,” “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

But while those memoirs and realistic coming-of-age stories take the hits, superheroes, space travel and dragons often escape mainstream notice — and the heat that comes with it.

Author TJ Klune told The Hill he knows some schools have at least a few of his magical, queer-themed works, including “The House in the Cerulean Sea,” “Under the Whispering Door” and the young adult “Extraordinaries” trilogy.

Klune said the “Extraordinaries” series, which centers on a gay high schooler in a world where superheroes are real, has been mentioned in book-banning conversations before, but he hasn’t seen the full onslaught faced by other writers. 

“It’s strange: Those young adult books are very sex-positive, in that it has discussions on consent and boundaries and protection and best practices for younger queer people. Why those have slipped under the radar, I have no idea,” he said. “I believe, at least in part, that it has to do with privilege. I am a cis, white, queer man. Many of the book challenges are from queer/trans authors of color. If you don’t think the color of my skin is playing a role in this, you’d be mistaken.”

The American Library Association says last year saw the highest number of books banned since it started keeping track of the issue 20 years ago. There were 2,571 unique titles censored in 2022, compared to 1,858 the year before.  

There is no clear formula for certain books getting banned over others, but reasons behind challenges can include genre, prior media attention and even the directness of a title, said Kathy M. Newman, a professor of English literary and cultural studies at Carnegie Mellon University who pointed to Maia Kobabe’s memoir “Gender Queer.”

“It’s very explicitly about nonbinary identity in a way that some of these fantasy young adult novels are about a lot of different issues,” Newman said. 

Fantasy works can require significantly more effort to sift for LGBTQ content. “The House in the Cerulean Sea” could be about nearly anything based on its title; it just so happens to be about a found family of magical creatures with a gay romance at its center.

Newman said activists go through public records and news articles to get ideas for what books they should target, regularly hitting ones they’ve seen censored elsewhere. She also pointed out that sci-fi and fantasy books for younger readers are often not “taught explicitly in the classroom.”

“It might be under the radar,” she said.

Lisa Jenn Bigelow, an award-winning author who writes children’s books with queer themes, hasn’t heard of her works — which include “Hazel’s Theory of Evolution” and “This Is Our Rainbow: 16 Stories of Her, Him, Them, and Us” — specifically getting banned but said it is important to note the concept of “soft censorship” in the library world. 

“That’s when gatekeepers might decline to purchase or include a book in classrooms and libraries because, sometimes, they disagree with the content themselves, but more often, even they’re worried that the content could provoke a book challenge from the community. And so rather than take that risk, they just say, ‘Well, we’re not even gonna bother. We’re not gonna go there,’” said Bigelow, who also works as a librarian. 

David Geiger, a gay middle school English teacher in Virginia, said too many people treat anything queer-themed as inherently sexual in nature.

“Some parents think that because a book has LGBTQ characters or is by an LGBTQ author, they’re automatically inappropriate. I disagree with that,” he said.

Geiger said his school has LGBTQ offerings in its book club, and he offers some in his classroom reading, specifically praising, among others, Bigelow’s “Drum Roll, Please.” He said he gives parents a list of books students are allowed to read in his class, and if they object to any, he gives the student an alternate reading assignment.

“I know not to pick books that get into sexually explicit content,” he said.

Geiger said he hasn’t had any problems with angry parents, emphasizing that LGBTQ representation is particularly important for young readers.

“I try and make sure that as many students can see themselves in the literature as possible,” he said.

While authors and schools have been forced to the frontlines of the book ban issue, some are not concerned about the pushback they could receive. 

Bigelow said she expects her titles will come under the microscope sooner or later, “especially since the book-banning movement is getting more aggressive and is targeting more and more books.”

“I’m still going to write the books that I want to write, in part because they’re just the stories I’m interested in telling. They frequently involved queer characters, and I think it’s really important to have queer books for kids, whether or not everyone likes it,” Bigelow said. “You’re never gonna make everyone happy, anyway. I think having the books is way more important than any, I don’t know, personal risks in my career.” 

Klune was even more gung-ho.

“I don’t have any fear of my books getting pulled into this. If anything, I relish the opportunity,” he said. “If they want to go to war with me, they had better be prepared. I am very loud and very annoying.”