Commentary: National Council of Teachers of English Hosts Seminar on How to Teach ‘Gender Queer’

Maia Kobabe

The National Council of Teachers of English, a professional development organization, hosted remote training to instruct K-12 teachers on how to teach the controversial book “Gender Queer” in their “classrooms, libraries, and communities.”

The NCTE, which boasts 25,000 members around the United States, hosted a panel including “Gender Queer” author Maia Kobabe and an “LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee” to discuss how to incorporate the pornographic book into school curriculum.

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Public Library Moves Sexually Explicit Book to Adult Section After Community Backlash

A New Jersey public library moved a pornographic book out of its young adult section following community backlash, according to Northjersey.com.

Cedar Grove Public Library displayed “Gender Queer,” a book that contains cartoon images of masturbation and oral sex, as a part of its Pride display in June where it was available to children, according to Northjersey.com. Following community pushback to the display, the library took the book off the Pride exhibit and moved it from the young adult section to the adult section.

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Pennsylvania Lawmaker Proposes Bill to Inform Parents of Sexual Content in Schools

A lawmaker is urging his colleagues to back a bill he is sponsoring to ensure Pennsylvania parents get notified when sexually explicit content is distributed in their children’s K-12 schools. 

State Representative Russ Diamond (R-Jonestown) announced he will introduce a companion bill to a Senate measure authored by Senator Ryan Aument (R-Lititz). The legislation would mandate that schools note sexually explicit texts and other media assigned or displayed as part of students’ coursework. The bill would further instruct schools to tell parents when a book their child accesses from their school library features sexually frank content. 

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Columbus School District Bought Controversial Gender Books for its Libraries

The Columbus Public School District purchased many controversial books on gender in 2022, including “Gender Queer,” a novel at the center of a national debate on what is being presented in public school libraries to children.

The Center Square submitted a public records request for the books the district purchased in 2022, and the list included: “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” “Beyond The Gender Binary,” “Gender Queer,” “New Queer Conscience”, “My Rainbow,” “Sparkle Boy” and “They, She, He, Easy As ABC.”

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Commentary: The Confused ‘Gender Queer’ World the Left Is Making for Children

One of my favorite current sources of unintentional humor, NPR, provided another comedy jewel the other day.

It was an interview with Maia Kobabe, the author of Gender Queer: A Memoir, a book NPR describes as a “graphic memoir” (meaning it includes illustrations throughout like a comic book). This book has been getting critical attention from some groups, including concerned parents, who are not entirely ideologically on board with current woke protocols on gender and sexuality. And, indeed, considering the book contains pornographic images, it is alarming that it can be found in school libraries.

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Minnesota’s Hastings Public School Children Have Access to Sexually Graphic and Illustrated ‘Gender Queer’ Book

Children in the Hastings Public Schools district can easily get their hands on a book titled “Gender Queer” that includes illustrations of sexual acts, a school board member said.

In an interview conducted by Minnesota Senate candidate Tom Dippel, Hastings school board member Carrie Tate confirmed that the controversial graphic novel by Maia Kobabe is available to schoolchildren in the district. The book depicts oral sex and masturbation.

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Del. Anderson Wants General Assembly to Create Book Content Ratings

Delegate Tim Anderson (R-Virginia Beach) wants to create a ratings system for books sold in Virginia, according to comments he made after a court dismissed an obscenity lawsuit against Barnes and Noble and Virginia Beach Public Schools.

“Every other medium has ratings associated with them, such as movies, music and video games,” Anderson said in a Tuesday statement. “Creating a rating system that warns purchasers and consumers that books contain strong sexual content will be a first step for the legislature to look into and I intend to start that conversation next year.”

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Del. Anderson and VA-02 Candidate Altman Seeking Injunction Against Barnes and Noble

Delegate Tim Anderson (R-Virginia Beach) is seeking an injunction against Barnes & Noble because the retailer doesn’t limit access to books with mature content. On Wednesday, a judge found probable cause that Gender Queer: A Memoir and A Court of Mist and Fury are obscene as part of a lawsuit seeking to have the books removed from Virginia Beach Public Schools. “The book [Gender Queer] may be appropriate for adults and might even be appropriate for some minors, but the lawsuit was to determine whether they were appropriate for minors to view unrestricted,” Anderson said in a video update Thursday. In the lawsuit, Anderson is representing Tommy Altman, a candidate for the GOP nomination for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District. “The next step is to ask now for a restraining order against distribution of these materials to minors, so we asked for restraining orders against the schools and against Barnes and Noble,” Anderson said. “We specifically went after Barnes and Noble because both of the books were purchased at the local Barnes and Noble right here in Virginia Beach. So we got the books there and there’s no restrictions against purchasing these books.” The Virginia Beach School Board has already decided…

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