Virginia Court Rejects Effort to Ban Books Including Gender Queer
A judge in Virginia has rejected an effort by Republican politicians to have two books labeled as obscene and illegal to sell or lend in the state.The books challenged were Gender Queer, an illustrated memoir by nonbinary author Maia Kobabe, and A Court of Mist and Fury, a fantasy novel by Sarah J.
Maas that has some sexually explicit scenes. Gender Queer was the most banned book in the United States in 2021, according to the American Library Association.Former congressional candidate Tommy Altman and his lawyer, Tim Anderson, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, both Republicans, had sought legal action to make the books unavailable to minors.
The law under which they brought the challenge doesn’t have a category for minors only, though, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and its Virginia affiliate, which represented booksellers and literary groups in the case.
So it could have threatened distribution of the books even more widely, although Altman and Anderson argued that there should be separate standards for children and adults.The law “has not been used for decades” but “purports to allow any individual to file a petition claiming that any book is obscene,” the ACLU notes on its website.In May, Judge Pamela Baskervill of the Virginia Beach Circuit Court issued orders “finding probable cause the books could qualify as obscene,” the Virginia Mercury reported at the time.
