My books have never been banned as far as I know, only because I’m too small a fish in the publishing pond. My books all have LGBTQIA+ themes, so they would be banned if they ever caught anyone’s attention. I should be so lucky?

The topic of book bans itself is fraught. Google the term and you’re as likely to find outrage that some right-winger’s books are banned as you are Malinda Lo’s National Book Award–winner, Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

Free speech is not a partisan issue. It is personal. It is political. I can censor you. You can censor me. But the government cannot.

My point, specifically, is that this week and every week I stand with sapphic writers like myself and those who publish our works. We write to bring our stories into a world that in my lifetime suppressed or censored what we could say. The post office, the government, would not mail queer books that were positive. Ann Bannon was among the first writers to say her lesbian stories would not follow publishers’ rule that the lesbians could not have a happily ever after. In fact, if in the end one didn’t die or go to an insane asylum or go straight, it was unlikely to get published.

Thankfully, those days are past. In my youth, as a clueless latent lesbian, I never saw myself in the stories I read. Not until I was an adult and found Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, Nancy Garden’s Annie on My Mind, Isabel Miller’s Patience and Sarah. And, yes, Ann Bannon’s Beebo Brinker series, even though they were published long before my time. I now have a bookcase full of sapphic fiction.

I came out in the era of Naiad Press and furtively exploring gay and women’s bookstores in the Boston area. Even in these friendly places, I was terrified. Of what? Myself. Scared silly, I nevertheless went back for more. Sarah Aldridge (The Latecomer), Katherine V. Forrest (Curious Wine), Lee Lynch (Sue Slate: Private Eye), Jane Rule (Desert of the Heart) are all on my bookshelf. Then the World Wide Web exploded sapphic writing, especially fan fiction for Xena: Warrior Princess. Suddenly we were everywhere!

Writing and publishing are rarely lucrative. We don’t get rich as authors or as publishers. We do it because we exist and our stories matter and reading stories that reflect who we are helps shape us, and our readers, comfort us, and our readers, and show us, and everyone, that we are not alone.

According to PEN America, one in four books banned in schools during the 2023–2024 school year had LGBTQ+ characters.

If I had been able to read about people like myself when I was in school, I could have been saved from years of depression and a lifelong struggle with anxiety and low self-esteem. I don’t wish for any young person to experience the terror and self-loathing I felt. It’s a waste of human potential.

The ideal America is a place where everyone can be their best self, achieve what they want if they are willing to work for it. It’s what we say we are, and what we want, but is often impossible for many based solely on their race, religion, ethnicity, class, gender, or sexual identity.

We can do better.

Don’t take my word for it.

Read a book and find out.

Resources

PEN America’s analysis of books banned in 2023–2024.

In Her Words: 20th Century Lesbian Fiction, an excellent documentary. The trailer alone is worth viewing!

Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS)

Sapphic Action Support Squad (SASS) is on Facebook and Instagram

Read some banned books:

American Library Association

PEN America