Banned Book Resources

As an LGBTQ+* literary organization and as a community, we find ourselves targeted. Again. This time we are among a group of targets in need of silencing, according to a not-insignificant movement that has determined that the stories, histories, and experiences of racially and ethnically marginalized peoples in the U.S. amount to nothing more than some warped definition of “critical race theory” (CRT). The LGBTQ+ community has been reduced and codified as “predatory.” And this movement has declared that children must be protected from exposure to any of these groups. The banning of access to literature by or featuring BIPOC** and LGBTQ+ people has become one of the more popular means by which they can achieve their ends. This is a violation of our freedom of speech. 

These attacks are rooted in bigotry and are transparent attempts at erasure for reasons based in hatred. It’s hard to know where to begin in combating messaging or legislation that demands that LGBTQ+ people go back into hiding, that we cease any contribution to culture, that we stop speaking to children in ways that affirm their individuality and their place in the world. 

Here, we have compiled a list of resources from organizations following and responding to the current book banning crisis. Whether you are a reader, author, student, librarian, educator, or advocate, we hope you will find in these tools a way to navigate conversations and coordinate actions in defense of works by marginalized creators. If these prejudicial instigators of book banning THINK they have the power to attack our civil liberties, then we will RESIST.

*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and all emerging identities

**Black, Indigenous, and People of Color