What’s Really In That ‘Bestselling LGBTQ-Themed Book’ A Teacher Was Disciplined For Presenting to Middle Schoolers
An ominous NBC News headline suggested censorship — and even attempted criminalization — of the LGBTQ community in America’s schools over an Illinois controversy about a teacher, a book, and a call to authorities.
“Parents file a police report after teacher offers LGBTQ-themed book to her middle schoolers,” NBC’s article and tweet blared.
In March of this year, Sarah Bonner, an Illinois middle school teacher, “held what she calls a ‘book tasting'” for students during which she presented them with a number of books, one of which was Juno Dawson’s This Book Is Gay. “We just read and celebrate books,” explained Bonner to NBC.
Later that week, a parent filed a police report against her for child endangerment. Shortly after that, Bonner was put on paid leave by the district. She decided to resign her post instead of suffering that indignity.
“The notion that I was putting children in danger because of books — I didn’t feel safe. I knew I couldn’t go back,” said Bonner, who characterized her inclusion of the book as an attempt to “support” students and the challenge to it as a “message to the LGBTQ+ community in my room and in my district that they’re ‘less than.'”
NBC issued an implied endorsement of Bonner’s case, explaining that minors themselves believe it’s “important to read books from a range of backgrounds” and that they enjoy reading “stories with characters ‘who are different from them.'”
But in truth, This Book Is Gay is not merely a story that includes gay characters, it’s a nonfiction ‘How To’ manual on sex and sex apps that also includes assertions like “gay men have slightly longer and thicker winkies. Excellent.”
It provides advice on how to provide a “A GOOD HANDIE” instead of “A BAD HANDIE.” It explains that “sex doesn’t begin and end with your d***. Be creative.” It promotes the ease and convenience of sex apps, noting that “the app works out your location” by itself and that “because they are near, it is easy to meet up with them.”
Its glossary provides the much-needed definitions for the sexual terms for eating poop and peeing on/being peed on by others.
This Book Is Gay is not an inclusive story following diverse characters, it’s an explicit book that few — regardless of political or sexual orientation — would argue is appropriate for middle-schoolers. One need not be a homophobe to object to children reading about “DIY colonic irrigation,” or “sliding your mouth up and down the shaft of his c***.”
NBC’s article elides this truth using lies of omission and implication. How is it that a featured article published by a legacy news organization didn’t bother to describe the controversial contents of the book in question?
The answer is an ironic one. “Our students deserve to be seen as thinkers and as people who can think critically — they need the ability to ask questions,” argued Bonner close to the story’s conclusion. Yet those responsible for the story didn’t even deem their own audience as deserving of an opportunity to think for themselves. Instead, NBC did their thinking for them.
Acting as activists rather than journalists, those behind the story obscured the issues at hand for fear of persuadable readers siding with the “wrong” people: The stiff, intolerant parents whose grievances led to Bonner’s ouster. The real facts might have led them astray, so NBC helpfully, if mendaciously, helped guide them down the “right” path, misleading readers into perceiving the challenge to the book as a threat to LGBT students, critical thinking, and free expression. A noble lie, if you will.
In the name of open-mindedness, NBC has implicitly smeared those who dissent from its perspective. In the name of opposing censorship, it’s concealed crucial facts. That should raise questions not just about the merits of its argument about the story, but about its fidelity to those principles.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
