How Do I Promote Queer Books in an Age of Book Bans?
I can't promote queer books without simultaneously putting them in danger.
One thing you need to know about this era of book bans is that its home base is online. Specifically, book banners of today work off ever-growing, mutating lists of “dangerous” books. These spreadsheets and lists and links get forwarded, amended, added to, and forwarded again, soon growing to hundreds of titles. They’re a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, losing context each time.
Where are book banners getting these books from? They’re certainly not reading hundreds of books in their entirety before they ban them. The information is second-hand at best — when it’s not third- fourth- or 18th-hand — or relies on out-of-context excerpts. Let’s face it: the ones banning these books aren’t generally people who read a wide variety of books. In the vast majority of cases, they’re not just encountering a book in the wild and then deciding to challenge it. They’re getting books from these lists, printing off excerpts they’ve seen on social media, and parroting the same talking points in school or library board meetings.
These book lists copy from each other, but someone has to be the first to add a title to the list. Because they’re likely not scouring publishers’ catalogues or reading hundreds of new releases every month: they rely on other people to do that labour. People like me.
I am writing the Our Queerest Shelves newsletter to uplift queer voices, to try to make the world more accepting of LGBTQ people.
And I am writing knowing that my work can be used for the opposite purpose.
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