In the fall of 2021, Maia Kobabe, a cartoonist and author of the 2019 graphic memoir Gender Queer, came upon a paragraph in a report by the American Library Association (ALA) on banned books. Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, says this was eir first inkling that the book was facing challenges. It was, in fact, the most challenged book that year by the association’s count.
“Very shortly after that issue was released, a parent in a Fairfax, Virginia, school district loudly challenged my book and shared excerpts in a school board meeting which was filmed and went viral on social media,” Kobabe tells The Independent in an email. “This challenge was the first spark of a chain reaction which hasn’t slowed down to this day.”
