Queer Voices Persist
Authors of The Geography Club, Rainbow Boys, and The Magic Fish reflect on LGBTQ+ representation and the rise of book bans.
When Brent Hartinger pitched his book “The Geography Club” to publishers in the early aughts, he worried it wouldn’t sell because the industry already one gay teen book out there. Alex Sanchez’s “Rainbow Boys” had come out in 2001, already covering the bases for gay teen high school drama.
Hartinger’s publisher at HarperCollins had the same concerns. They liked the book but didn’t think that it would sell, so the publisher started out with a small print release. Two days later, the first printing sold out. Not long after the second printing sold out as well, and printing entered into its third run.
“The audience really, really, really responded,” Hartinger says, “Even the industry did not recognize that there was sort of this need out there in the world, that there was a market.”
“The Geography Club” follows Russel, a closeted teenage boy coming to terms with his sexuality. After discovering that he is not the only gay student at his school, Russel and his friends form an LGBTQ+ alliance group. They call their group “Geography Club” to stay undercover at their conservative school.
Hartinger pulled from his own experience as a gay teen as well as from his work with support groups for gay youth. Even so, he hadn’t realized that the world would change so rapidly, allowing kids to be out and proud from much younger ages. But just as young readers proved ready for books with queer characters, conservative organizations rose to combat access.
“I think it was in the early aughts when the book bannings became focused on LGBTQ issues. And I think it’s because they sensed, like we sensed, that the world was shifting, and they wanted to stop that,” Hartinger says.
Hartinger notes how in the early aughts book bannings became focused on LGBTQ+ issues. As the LGBTQ+ community began to sense a shift in the world, so did opposing forces.
“At the time, I was thinking, things can change for the good so quickly. But now these last few years, I think, wow, they can also change for the bad just as quickly,” Hartinger says.
As LGBTQ+ stories have gained readership and cultural legitimacy, conservative backlash has intensified.
Since publication, Hartinger has faced a series of book challenges and bans for “The Geography Club” and other books of his. One of the first times he recalls “The Geography Club” being challenged was in his own hometown.
“The Geography Club” opens with two teenage boys talking in an online chat room who later meet up in person. Hartinger was writing about a phenomenon he witnessed often while working with kids. At the time, it was common for people to meet through chat rooms.
In Hartinger’s hometown, some people who read the book complained that Hartinger was encouraging people to meet up with strangers they met on the internet and therefore the book should be banned. The school board agreed with the complaint and said that the book should be removed from the library.
Hartinger felt like his book was being given a bad faith reading, and some readers were taking scenes out of context.
“I was just describing reality,” he says, “I wasn’t telling kids to go out and meet strangers on the internet. I was saying this is sometimes what happens.”
Alex Sanchez, author of “Rainbow Boys,” says that LGBTQ+ books are often held to a higher standard in terms of what is and isn’t “appropriate” to include.
“It’s a homophobic, or bi-phobic, or transphobic standard, where it’s okay for straight teens to be doing certain things, but not for gay teens to, even if it’s just kissing,” he says.
Sanchez describes how when he first published “Rainbow Boys” in 2001, there were only a handful of books that had openly LGBTQ+ characters and they were usually in supporting roles. Not only that, but there was an unspoken rule that if there was a queer character, they either had to commit suicide or die tragically.
"Rainbow Boys" subverts this trope by presenting realistic, positive
representation of queer youth. “Rainbow Boys” is about three high school boys dealing with the struggles of homophobia, sexual identity, and first loves. The book has been challenged in multiple schools, with one complaint citing the book as too sexually explicit and promoting homosexuality.
In the early 2000s when “Rainbow Boys” was most popular, silent censorship was more frequent than book banning. Instead of books being removed from shelves, schools or libraries just wouldn’t order the books that they disagreed with or feared would be challenged.
According to Sanchez, when the sporadic challenges came up, they would usually be dealt with within the local community. “I think probably in most cases, the librarians were able to defend the book because the support wasn’t there for book bannings the way it is now,” Sanchez says.
Like Sanchez, author Trung Le Nguyen wanted to contradict the trope of equating coming out with trauma. “The Magic Fish” is a young adult graphic novel about a young Vietnamese American boy who uses fairy tales to navigate his identity and come out to his mother as gay. Nguyen wanted to give young queer readers a story that told them it was okay to expect their family to still love and protect them after they come out.
“It was sort of a counterbalance. I want people to heighten their expectations and to be appropriately angry if they missed out on that experience because their parents weren’t mature enough to love them for exactly who they are,” Nguyen says.
Nguyen wrote the book aware of how LGBTQ+ books are often challenged on the basis of sexually explicit or inappropriate content much more frequently than books with straight or cisgender characters. He made sure the book had no swearing and no sexual content. There is one kiss in the book, which Nguyen described as “very chaste,” similar to a Disney movie kiss.
“I did it that way because I wanted book banners to admit that the reason why the book was banned was because the book has LGBTQ themes in it, not because it was inappropriate, not because it was violent, and not because it was inappropriately sexual,” says Nguyen, “And it ended up happening.”
In 2021, a Moms for Liberty chapter in Indian River County, Florida submitted a list of 156 books to the school board that they wanted removed from school libraries. They claimed that all the titles on the list were inappropriate for children due to sexually explicit or pornographic material. Soon after, former Texas representative Matt Krause presented a list of 850 books for schools to review, claiming he wanted to audit books that might “make students feel discomfort.” “The Magic Fish” was present on both of these lists
Some of the additional books included on former representative Matt Krause's list for schools to review.
Having a book banned is often framed as a badge of honor for authors. This detracts attention from the plight of targeted authors.
“Whenever one of my books gets banned, which happens quite a bit, it sucks. You get a stomachache. It feels bad to have people mad at you,” Hartinger says, “It’s not a good feeling, but on the other hand, it can be a good thing because it forces a debate and a dialogue about these really important issues.”
During Hartinger's time working with a gay youth group he once spoke at a school board meeting on the issue of gay teens. Afterwards he approached the church leader on the opposing side of the debate and tried to shake his hand. He hoped to find common respect and at least agree to disagree on the issue.
Hartinger recounts, “He wouldn’t shake my hand. Somebody spit on me. It was really awful. You can't even meet me halfway. I'm literally reaching out to say we're both just humans here trying to figure out what's going on.”
Hartinger preaches the acceptance of differing opinions. In a pluralistic society, everyone is allowed to participate and express their beliefs. The debate that may ensue isn’t inherently bad.
“You have your religion, and I have my husband, and we all coexist, and that's the message.”