Gender Queer cover

Gender Queer

by Maia Kobabe

A graphic memoir about not fitting. The most banned book in America.

For you if

you are somewhere on the spectrum of not-quite-fitting the gender you were assigned and need to see someone map that territory

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Kobabe grew up not knowing the words for what e was — the memoir traces eir path from childhood through discovering the terms nonbinary and asexual and finding, in language, something that fit. Kobabe uses comics to tell this story because the visual form lets em show the interior experience of gender in ways prose can't quite reach. The most banned graphic memoir in America — which tells you everything about who it threatens and why. A dispatch from inside the experience of gender nonconformity that is warm, specific, funny, and completely honest about the confusion that precedes clarity.

In effect right now

Somebody decided you shouldn’t read this. Read it this week.

It only works if nobody notices. Get a copy, pass it on, and tell the people who made the call that you did.

#1 most challenged book in the US for four consecutive years (2021–2024). A genderqueer coming-of-age memoir with clinical illustrations of puberty and a sexual health appointment. The threat isn't the illustrations — it's a book that shows a queer person finding themselves and being okay. The book teaches kids that who they are is okay. That's what's being banned.

The record

  • Iowa

    2023

    Removed statewide (state law or state board rule) · Iowa K–12 school libraries

    Public libraries

    Initiated by: government or statute

    In effect nowLast verified Oct 2, 2026Source ↗

Where This Book Lives

Setting
North America
Voice
Written by a North America author

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