I’m no stranger to the experience of having your work banned. Many would remember when my first film Gayby Baby was banned from schools in NSW by the then New South Wales education minister Adrian Piccoli. As is often the case this created the “Barbra Streisand effect” and provided a great spotlight for the launch of our film.
So I met this week’s headlines about Western Sydney Cumberland city council’s decision to ban books with same-sex/queer families in its eight libraries with some familiarity, frustration and also a little bit of gratitude. Just as our families were fading away in the monotony of the mainstream, the council’s ban has made us radical again.
But I know a book ban is not something we can simply spin as good publicity. These bans come from a rightwing playbook designed to continue a culture war against LGBTQ+ people that chips away at fundamental human rights protections in policies. These attempted bans – whether they are upheld or not – do real world harm to members of my community.
I was raised by lesbian mums – I actually just turned 36, so that happened a long, long time ago. Queer families are old news and banning our families from existing on the shelves of a few libraries is not going to stop kids from seeing us or being in communities with us. Queer identities, culture, marriage, the proliferation of kids, and the visibility of queer families has hit the hallmark of normalcy. We’ve been on Playschool since the 90s.
Banning books encourages the fallacy that books are what lead the minds of innocent children and families to be gay/queer; that mere exposure will suddenly produce bursts of glittery children from the doors of libraries – led astray into the arms of queendom. Books are not for “conversion” they are simply offering children a decent learning foundation where we see ourselves and our families in pages and feel affirmed and validated. If it wasn’t for this banning, the city council members’ children would likely never pick them up. These books were not made for you Steve, they were made for those of us with queer families that would like to have one or two books out of the thousands of books for kids that reflect some semblance of our families. The beauty of a library is that you can choose not to read the books that do not interest you.
However, having recently had a child (my lesbian mothers are now very proud grandparents!) I do understand the deep drive to protect children from violence, including sexual violence, cruelty, abuse, war and conflict. The notion of protecting children is often weaponised by this playbook and distracts us from the real harms that are affecting kids now; for instance children being bombed and dying of famine in Gaza, while closer to home children are being locked up in youth detention aged 10, or the many kids who are victims of domestic family violence. Imagine if we spent this airtime mobilising to protect these children. As my daughter grows up, I want to expose her to all the wonder and diversity of the world. I want her to see and understand First Nations, migrant, Jewish, Muslim and Christian families – I want her to know that the world is wide, diverse, beautiful and is safely available for her to explore.
A library is a place of intellectual expansion. It is a public place where everyone is welcome, books can transport us to worlds that are not our own, we must defend them. It’s a place to read, say, The Little Refugee by Anh Do and Suzanne Do about the experience of seeking asylum in Australia or Wrestle, a book I co-authored with Gus Skatterbol James and Charlotte Mars, about a kid with two mums exploring gender stereotypes. Importantly, libraries are a place of democracy – and one of the few sanctuaries where we can see a cross-section of society living, being, reading, studying, playing peacefully beside one another. To censor, we cut off from one another and invite totalitarianism.
When we restrict and control we fill our children with fear, and leave them ill prepared for the world they will inherit.
If anyone would like to watch my film Gayby Baby about kids in queer families that got banned in 2015 – DocPlay is offering it for free until 24 May.
Maya Newell has made award-winning short documentaries and is the director of Growing Up Gayby (2013) and Gayby Baby (2015), In My Blood It Runs (2019), The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone (2022)
