"By removing 'Gender Queer' and 'Lawn Boy,' an isolating message is sent to Queer students, especially when countless other books depict heterosexual relationships and physical intimacy in FCPS libraries." Librarians 'Demonized,' LGBTQ Advocate Says "Given the elevated rates of suicide, depression, and harassment Queer students face compared to our non-LGBTQIA+ peers, positive representation in our libraries can empower, protect, and affirm the existence of scores of FCPS students," the Pride Liberation Project said in a statement. The Pride Liberation Project, a group that represents LGBTQIA+ students in Fairfax County, said it was disappointed to see FCPS pull "Gender Queer" and "Lawn Boy" from the shelves of the school district's libraries. In an attempt at self-arousal, Kobabe developed an "elaborate fantasy based on Plato's Symposium." In classical antiquity, writers such as Plato and others explored aspects of homosexuality in Greece. Within this context, Kobabe includes an illustration of a man and what appears to be a teenage male from Ancient Greece.
In "Gender Queer," Kobabe describes fantasizing about sex as a teenager by using Plato's "Symposium," a philosophical text, as a theme in those fantasies. I think what bothers these folks is that it happens to be two boys, and it occurs at a church youth group meeting." "Sexual experimentation in childhood has long been a common trope in YA fiction. "There is absolutely no pedophilia," Evison said.
The parent also claimed Evison's book "describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male." But nowhere in "Lawn Boy" is there a description of a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male, according to a Patch editor's review of the book.Įvison told Patch the book describes two fourth-graders experimenting sexually, "and the protagonist remembers it later in the process of his self-actualization." Second, a variation of the idea that people are born gay is that hormones control sexual attractions. A Patch editor read the novel and found it does not include any depictions of adults engaging in sex with minors.Īnother speaker at the meeting, a mother of a student at Fairfax High School, claimed "both of these books include pedophilia, sex between men and boys." People who consider themselves gay, lesbian or bisexual are being who they are and should not try to live in conflict with their sexual feelings, kind of like people who are left handed should not try to become right handed. The novel, however, does not include any depictions of adults engaging in sex with minors.