If you’ve been on BookTok in the last few days, I’m sure you’ve seen the several few accounts talking about how we should keep politics out of the BookTok space. I won’t give you their account names, their full arguments, because frankly they don’t deserve the time of day, but I want to be crystal fucking clear: Reading is political. It has always been political.

Anti-literacy laws made it illegal for enslaved and free people of color to read or write. Between 1740 to 1867, it was illegal to even teach POC to read or write.

Why? Because to read is to inform. To learn. To uplift and expand. To liberate. Literacy and education was, and still is, a threat to white heteropatriarchy.

In 2023 alone, the American Library Association (ALA) tracked 4,240 unique titles of books that faced censorship attempts, a 92% increase from the year prior. This does not include what’s called “soft censorship,” where “books are purchased but placed in restricted areas, not used in library displays, or otherwise hidden or kept off limits due to fear of challenges illustrate the impact of organized censorship campaigns on students’ and readers’ freedom to read.” This is just the tip of the iceberg, because many book challenges are not even reported to the ALA.

Of these 4,240 books, “titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.”

47% PERCENT. The most challenged reportedly being the incredible memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kebab.

Project 2025 holds extreme views about book bans. It is an extension of arguments we've already se en: that all LGBTQ content is pornography; that all the people who make it are pedophiles; that the teachers and librarians who allow kids access to LGBTQ books are groomers. This is where those arguments lead. First Amendment rights will not apply, meaning we will no longer have freedom of speech to protect us.

According to the New York Times, researchers surveyed 1,300 U.S. library workers in 2022, who reported that they had "experienced more than 8,000 incidents that the researchers labeled traumatic, such as threats, assault or harassment. The library workers also cited other stressors that made their jobs more difficult, including conflicts with library administrators, aging buildings and the fallout over book bans."

**Libraries are meant to be a safe space, but because of book bans and budget cuts (hello Eric Adams!) our libraries are threatened. **Brooklyn Public Library founded Books Unbanned in 2022 to support the rights of teens nationwide to read what they like, form their own opinions, and work together with peers across the nation to defend and expand the freedom to read. Student aged (13-26) U.S. residents can get digital library card full access to a number of libraries so they can read banned books no matter where they live.

In publishing Sapph-Lit books, in sharing sapphic stories and celebrating queer joy and supporting LGBTQIA+ authors, we are engaging in a political act.

Below are some of my favorite banned books. Which is your favorite?

1. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
2. Beloved by Toni Morrison
3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
4. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson
5. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
6. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
7. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
8. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silver
9. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
10. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
11. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
12. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
13. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
14. Critical Race Theory by Kimberle Crenshaw
15. Persepolis by Maryjane Satrapi
16. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
17. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
18. Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
19. Red at the Bone by Jaqueline Woodson
20. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas