[in the era of Section 28] Books about people like me, the LGBT+, were banned in school libraries and nowhere to be found in my local library.
The censorship of books and reading material deemed as ‘promoting homosexuality’ was common. There were thousands of books that represented heterosexuality positively but far fewer books which explored homosexuality in a positive light. Public libraries felt increasingly under pressure to remove all homosexual content from their shelves, putting copies of books and LGBT press behind the counter and or ‘out of sight’ of children.
Out of sight of children is not nowhere to be found.
Liz Kessler: Why my first novel lay in a drawer for 15 years
From 1988 until 2003 it was illegal to ‘promote homosexuality’ in UK schools, which effectively meant a ban on LGBT books for children and young people.
Not the same thing, is it?
The Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail are currently campaigning against books in school libraries that mention LGBT+ people. Just two weeks ago, the Daily Mail ran a double-page spread – “Do YOU know what’s in your child’s school library?” – claiming that “violent and pornographic sex education books are available to 10-year-olds”. The accompanying photo strongly suggested that those books were two trans memoirs, Gender Queer and Beyond Magenta.
Oh aye Cary?
Since 2021, its inclusion in American libraries, particularly school libraries, has been frequently challenged by parents, based on the presence of some sexually explicit illustrations.
Hmm.
There’s a lot of vicarious victimhood going on with Our Carrie. He spent most of his life living as a middle class, white, heterosexual man in a prosperous first world country. By his own declared belief system, that’s a kingly ransom of privilege. Scrooge McDuck would’ve scooba’d in it.
He now seems to want people to believe he was secretly denying his True Self™ the whole time. Not at all enjoying manly things, such as drinking beer, doing techy stuff, and shagging his wife? Not sure. But something along those lines… “my secret pain UwU” and all that. The kind of headline you see on those supermarket magazines with pictures of a haggard looking Jennifer Aniston on the cover.
Which is what I, too, would want people to believe. Because it puts other people on the psychological and emotional defensive. Like one of those disabled parking badges, except stapled to your forehead. It’s the “my gran died :(” of homework excuses.
“W-what… you’re not going to doubt My Secret Pain, a-are you? You’re not… some kind of… intolerant bigot?”
So maybe (probably) I’m the arsehole, because I don’t believe Oor Gaz was suffering with the terrible burden of living in the 90’s. Nuh uh.
There’s a reason the bad guys want to ban or burn books
What, like The Bell Curve? Or Harry Potter?
So I didn’t read all those John Varley books in the library in the early 1980s?
There’s a lot of vicarious victimhood going on with Our Carrie.
Carrie’s living a second-hand life as it is, so second-hand victimhood seems appropriate.
My fun fact whenever Section 28 is brought up is to say that it never applied in schools
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/848847.stm
Section 28 did not apply directly to schools, but it applied to local authorities which provided funds to schools, so could easily have had effects on schools because of that or by other indirect mechanisms. And, of course, it’s intended purpose was to promote bigotry and prejudice against homosexuality.