LGBTQ+ literature, book bans, and the power of a new public narrative
By Jennifer Buehler, Associate Professor
Educational Studies, Saint Louis University
November 27, 2025
As the past four years have shown us, book bans are not about books. Rather, they are about the fight for political power. While book banners work to erode free speech and weaken public institutions, one of their other goals is to send a message about who belongs in today’s America and who should be excluded.
Perhaps no one understands this better than LGBTQ+ authors and readers. Book banners attack books about queer characters, especially those written for teenagers, with hateful and inflammatory rhetoric. They characterize LGBTQ+ stories as inherently sexual in the attempt to dehumanize queer people and erase queer identities from our schools and communities.
When book banners tell the public that LGBTQ+ books contain “pornographic” or “obscene” content, they engage in acts of deliberate misrepresentation. Their efforts are not, as they claim, about protecting children from harm. Instead, they seek to prey on public fear, whip up panic, and stoke division.
Homophobic book ban laws
The homophobia within this messaging campaign is particularly visible in state book ban laws, many of which ban books that contain sexual content. Legislators write these laws using vague and ambiguous language so it’s not clear what counts as “sexual.” Their intent is to intimidate teachers and librarians into self-censorship. What’s worse, they falsely conflate homosexuality with explicit sexuality.
For example, Iowa Senate File 496, passed in May 2023, prohibits any description or visual depiction of a sex act, regardless of context, from public school and classroom libraries, all the way through 12th grade. This law also bans books relating in any way to gender identity or sexual orientation from school and classroom libraries in grades K-6. Putting both categories of restriction into the same law creates a misleading and harmful connection between sexual behavior and queer identity.
Similarly, Idaho House Bill 710, passed in July 2024, requires public schools and libraries to remove or relocate books deemed “harmful to children” or risk getting sued. The law defines harmful content to include sexual content, nudity, and homosexuality. The homophobia in this law is clear. Its language conveys an unfounded and damaging message that homosexuality itself is harmful.
Here in Missouri, Senate Bill 775, enacted in August 2022, made it a crime to provide minors with “sexually explicit visual material.” After librarians and other school officials were threatened with up to a year in jail or a $2000 fine for violating the law, the ACLU of Missouri filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association. In a victory for right to read advocates across our state and nation, the law was struck down last month in circuit court. However, the fight to defend LGBTQ+ literature is far from over.
Reframing the conversation
The New York publishing company Penguin Random House has led the legal fight against book bans. PRH filed lawsuits in Iowa, Idaho, and several other states. Malinda Lo, author of the YA historical novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club, appears as a co-plaintiff on the Iowa and Idaho lawsuits.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in November 2021. In the four years since then, it has been banned, challenged, or restricted in over 90 cases across 20 states. According to PEN America, it was the fourth most banned book in America during the 2024-2025 school year. Last Night at the Telegraph Club is one of the only – if not the only – historical novels for young adults about a Chinese American lesbian. Banning this book effectively erases all representation of the Chinese American queer experience.
Lo posts periodic updates about the Penguin Random House lawsuits on her blog. Over time, she has honed her arguments in defense of queer literature. Three of her blog posts suggest talking points we can use to reframe the conversation about LGBTQ+ book bans:
- Bans on LGBTQ+ literature are really about shaming. When book banners characterize LGBTQ+ literature as “pornographic,” their goal is to shame this literature and the authors who write it. In response, we must call out their lie and reject their shame. As Lo writes, “Being queer is not shameful, sexuality in general is not shameful, and queer sex in particular is not shameful, either. What is shameful is stigmatizing a natural expression of human connection while stoking homophobia and transphobia.” (see Lo’s October 3, 2023 blog post)
- Bans on LGBTQ+ literature ignore the importance of literary and personal context. When book banners cherry-pick short excerpts that narrate sex or mention sex, they aim to misconstrue the meaning of these scenes in service of their own agenda. In response, we must insist on the role that context plays in literature and in the interpretive work done by readers. Lo reminds us that “the degree to which any scene is shocking or explicit depends on countless factors including the reader’s own knowledge of language, metaphor, and their personal beliefs about queerness and sexuality.” (see Lo’s March 8, 2024 blog post)
- Bans on LGBTQ+ literature are designed to deny the humanity and power of queer readers. When book banners target LGBTQ+ literature, they seek to degrade and silence queer people. In response, we must stand up for queer authors and their readers. Lo explains, “Not only does LGBTQ+ literature provide readers with information about the lives of people who may be different from them; these same books can help queer readers love and accept themselves. Seeing yourself in a book can be a transformative and empowering experience.” (see Lo’s March 12, 2025 blog post and her November 25, 2025 interview with PEN America)
A new public narrative
The movement to ban books is national, but the fight is local. Our power is local. We win the fight against book bans one school board, one library, one lawsuit at a time. It’s up to us to decide how we will use our individual and collective voice to defend LGBTQ+ books and make them available to young people who need them.
The stories we tell about these books, informed by our own experiences as readers, can shift the way people think. Students in my college young adult literature class at Saint Louis University tell stories each year about how Last Night at the Telegraph Club challenged them, moved them, validated them, and changed them.
The more we tell our stories, the more they become a new public narrative. Let’s come together to refute false claims about LGBTQ+ literature. Instead let’s argue for the place of these books in a world we’re still trying to build – where LGBTQ+ experience is represented with love, dignity, and full humanity.
For more information, read YA editor Andrew Karre’s defense of YA literature with sexual content.
Sources
In the four years since then …
https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2025/2/4/banned-books-update-new-year-more-censorship
Fourth most banned book in America …
https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/
Blog post on October 3, 2023
https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2023/10/3/book-banning-2023
Blog post on March 8, 2024
https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2024/3/8/my-books-keep-getting-banned-an-update
Blog post on March 12, 2025
… and her November 25, 2025 interview with PEN America
https://pen.org/malinda-lo-interview/
For more information …