Modern-Day Book Banning: At the Intersection of Childhood with Race, Gender, and Sexuality

• In Event: 40206 - Childhood at a Crossroads: The Battle Over Children’s Innocence and Agency

Abstract

Since 2020, each subsequent year has brought with it increasing numbers of book challenges or book bans since the American Library Association (ALA) started keeping records twenty years ago (ALA 2024). These ban attempts overwhelmingly target "books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community" (ALA 2024; Friedman 2022; Meehan et al. 2023). Though national conservative rhetoric certainly lumps race, gender, and sexuality together under the specter of "diversity, equity, and inclusion," it remains unclear if the everyday people involved in their communities are drawing the same connections between race, gender, and sexuality compared to the national rhetoric surrounding books. Drawing on data from recorded library and school library board meetings in which over 800 community members speak about potential book bans, I analyze the process through which contemporary narratives and rhetoric constitute race, gender, and sexuality are treated as discrete or interconnected issues. Further, I ask how ideas about children and childhood impact this process of constituting race, gender, and sexuality as an issue. Initial themes suggest that race is treated differently from gender and sexuality, especially with regards to how childhood innocence is used to challenge books. Analysis for this project is still preliminary, and future coding will attend to the intricate connections community members draw between these topics.

Author

• Elizabeth Moison, University of Notre Dame