By Matt Lavietes -
NBC News
As the country's culture wars rage in classrooms and libraries, attempts to ban books have reached record numbers, with LGBTQ-themed titles remaining top targets.
In its annual report on book censorship, the American Library Association (ALA) documented 1,269 challenges to more than 2,500 books in 2022, the highest number of book ban attempts since the association began follow up in 2001. It was a 75% jump from 2021, which held the previous record.
Of the 13 books that appeared on the ALA's
Most Questioned Books
list last year, seven titles -- including three of the top four -- were questioned for having LGBTQ content, according to the association.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, noted that the list with a high LGBTQ content "sends a message of exclusion."
“It's a way of telling gay and transgender youth that they don't belong in school, that they don't belong in the community,” he said.
“It sends a message to the LGBTQ community as a whole that they are not considered full citizens with full rights to participate in community institutions like the library,” she added.
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The ALA reported that, prior to 2020, the “vast majority” of book challenges were made by individuals seeking to restrict access to a single book their child was reading.
But the group found that 90% of the challenges last year were directed at various books and almost a fifth of them were made by "political/religious groups."
The association cited this finding as “evidence of a growing and well-organized conservative political movement, whose goals include removing from America's public and school libraries books on race, history, gender identity, sexuality, and reproductive health that do not have your approval."
Display of banned books at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Pittsford, New York, in September. Ted Shaffrey / AP
In recent years, conservative lawmakers and activists have banded together to limit the teaching of LGBTQ issues in schools, the display of queer symbology in classrooms, and the participation of transgender athletes in school sports.
Last week, the Florida Board of Education approved Gov. Ron DeSantis' request to expand the so-called Don't Say Gay
law , which restricts the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in the state's public schools,
to all grades .
Previously, the law only explicitly applied to children in preschool through third grade.
[More than 100 bills target LGBTQ rights so far in 2023]
The most challenged book last year was the award-winning memoir
Gender Queer
, which also topped the ALA's 2021 list of most banned books.
The Illustrated Memoir - chronicling non-binary author Maia Kobabe's journey of self-identity - has faced unprecedented pushback in recent years from school boards and conservative activists across the country.
Florida relied on this law to create the controversial 'Don't Say Gay' legislation
April 20, 202300:21
A representative for Kobabe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, sister network to Noticias Telemundo.
In an earlier interview with NBC News, Kobabe acknowledged that some parts of his memoir might not be appropriate for elementary school children.
However, the author said that the direct accounts in the book could be used to show readers an experience of growing up outside of cisgender and heterosexual norms.
[A public agency in Texas threatens to fire those who do not dress according to “their biological gender”]
“It's very hard to hear people say, 'This book is not appropriate for young people,' when I was a young person for whom this book would have been not only appropriate, but so, so necessary,” Kobabe said.
“There are a lot of people who question their gender, their sexuality, and who have a hard time finding honest accounts of someone else on the same journey.
There are people for whom this is vital and for whom it could even save their lives,” she added.
Other titles topping the 2022 list include
George M. Johnson's
All Boys Aren't Blue
, Toni Morrison's
The Bluest Eye , Mike Curato's
Flamer
,
John Green's
Looking for Alaska
and Stephen Chbosky's
The Perks of Being a Wallflower .
Caldwell-Stone said the group of books - like all books - should remain on the shelves without "fear or favor."
“Everyone has the right to find books that reflect their interests, their experiences, their origins, their identities on the shelves of a publicly funded library that is there to serve everyone,” he said.