I taught the most banned book in America
What “Gender Queer” and graphic memoir can teach college students
By Ashlen Renner
In my first semester in my MFA program, I was browsing the “recommended books” section when one title caught my eye — Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. I checked the book out and proceeded to read it cover to cover in two hours.
Gender Queer is a graphic memoir — an autobiographical story including illustrations as well as text — that followed the author’s process of finding eir identity. Kobabe identifies as nonbinary and uses e/em/eir pronouns, and I enjoyed reading about eir process of queer discovery, as I was questioning my identity at the time.
Weeks later, I started seeing Kobabe’s book on the news, but not in a flattering light. As the 2021 school year began, schools across the country started banning the book, pulling it from library shelves, after several complaints from parents that the book was “pornographic.” The New York Times reported that Gender Queer had become the most banned book in America.
Ironically, the book that I stumbled upon in the university library was also being banned in public libraries across the country, including in my home state of North Carolina. As I planned my syllabus, I did not know until later that Fairfax County Schools was one of the first school systems to ban Gender Queer in 2021.
“Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth…”
Kobabe responded to the bans of eir book in an Op-Ed in The Washington Post:
“Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are. Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health.”
With my class mostly comprised of first-years and sophomores, I knew my students had been brought up in an education system that has been increasingly hostile toward queer kids, transgender people in particular. Rapid book bans, bigoted lawmakers, and the increase in divisiveness in identity politics were more of a reason for me to teach Gender Queer, not only as an introduction to new forms of nonfiction but to introduce students to new perspectives.
As an educator, I feel that my job goes beyond the course description of teaching students how to analyze texts. It even goes beyond introducing students to new genres. For me, it was important for students to see themselves through the autobiographical personal narratives they studied in my class. I knew not everyone would relate to Gender Queer in the same way as I did when I first read the book, but I hoped that the students would absorb Kobabe’s perspective — and others like em — seeing that we are all more alike than we are different.
Introducing Graphic Memoir as a Genre
Though there have been graphic narratives throughout history, growing in popularity with the birth of the comic strip, the term “graphic memoir” is fairly new. In the past, graphic memoirs have been categorized under the graphic novel umbrella, and are sometimes still called “graphic novels” today. In fact, there is no agreed-upon definition of “graphic memoir.”
The American Library Association defines graphic memoir as a subgenre of “comics or sequential art that tells an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical story.” This wide-reaching definition is fodder for various forms of creative expression. The rules of the genre are pliable, and often broken.
The majority of my students had never interacted with graphic memoirs before, with the exception of a few students who had read the graphic novel Maus by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, which depicts the author’s father’s experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor.
I had taught essays first in my class, so the students had a base knowledge of what a standard form of nonfiction personal narrative looked like. My objective was not only to introduce students to a new genre but teach them that the previous knowledge they had on textual analysis could be transferred.
I had the students do a discovery activity. I checked out all the graphic memoirs available in the university library and let the students pick from the pile. The students then had 15 minutes to peruse the book, getting the gist of what the memoir was about. We then came together in a class discussion. Each student presented their graphic memoir to the class.
My goal while teaching was to get my students to slow down, to really look at the illustrations in conjunction with the text. I often asked them “What does this page look like? What art style would you say this is? What does the text say? How are they connected?” One by one, each student gave their own descriptions of the artwork ranging from “This is super detailed” to “This looks like someone drew this in Microsoft Paint.”
This activity was an exercise of interactivity, getting the students excited to read a full-length graphic memoir in the following class sessions. Some students even approached me after class asking where they could borrow the book they had examined so that they could read the rest of it.
Incorporating Graphic Memoir in the Classroom
Scholar Adrielle Mitchell points out in her essay “Exposition and Disquisition: Nonfiction Graphic Narratives and Comics Theory in the Literature Classroom” that teaching visual texts such as graphic memoirs seem paradoxical in the historically “text-dominant environment” of the literature classroom.
Mitchell writes:
“The literature classroom does not easily or automatically incorporate graphic narratives in a manner that honors the full complexity of the form. Furthermore, the use of nonfiction in the literature classroom is relatively infrequent, limited to those texts which conform to certain standards of ‘literariness.’”
When I planned my class, I wanted students to come away with a broader idea of what is considered “literary”. Coming from a stringent education system hyper-focused on the English literary canon, these students often come into university Literature courses daunted and discouraged by past experiences. Many of my students admitted to being bored by reading.
“I personally thought reading could no longer be for me,” One of my students wrote. “I learned that there is more to reading than just long wordy novels and paragraphs on a page.”
This is why I tried to assign essays and books that had elements of pushing genres and pushing societal norms.
“I personally thought reading could no longer be for me. I learned that there is more to reading than just long wordy novels and paragraphs on a page.”
However, when I decided to assign graphic memoirs to my class, I knew it would be a challenge. Mitchell argues:
“Habituated to textual analysis, the reader may unwittingly elide important information contained in the panels, speed reading the text boxes, speech balloons, and voice-overs, forgetting to linger on the crucial data contained in the pictures”
Admittedly, some students found reading a graphic memoir as a chance to “slack off”, skimming through the text rather than really taking it in.
However, I recognize that reading in a form that is unfamiliar is frustrating and confusing. If I were to teach this course again, I would allot more time to teaching graphic memoir, perhaps even assigning a second full-length book to give the students more exposure to the genre.
In his homage to cartoonist-journalist Joe Sacco, author and literary critic Edward Said wrote that comics “seemed to say what couldn’t otherwise be said, perhaps what wasn’t permitted to be said or imagined, defying the ordinary process of thought, which are policed, shaped and reshaped by all sorts of pedagogical as well as ideological pressures.”
Why Graphic Memoir is Important
Dr. M. C. Jonet points out in their pedagogical essay “Our Graphics, Ourselves” that graphic memoirs and novels often are formed by spheres of people excluded from mainstream society. These graphic artists and authors have found ways to make themselves known and heard by creating alternative media for people feeling overlooked in standard textual narratives.
Jonet writes:
“It is relatively easy for students to connect to [a] personal, intimate story. As a result, it usually inspires points of discussion that would not occur otherwise”
This brings me back to Kobabe.
When I was browsing the library shelves, I too felt overlooked in both textual and visual media. This is why I decided to get my MFA in the first place — to write something I would have loved to read, something that I saw myself in. I saw myself in Gender Queer — unlike any book I have read before.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Kobabe explains the benefits of telling eir story in a visual form as a nonbinary author:
“I was writing a memoir in prose, the reader would be making their own mental image of what I look like — right? — as they read along the words. But in drawing it, I can say, ‘This is how I look’ or ‘This is how I want to look’ or ‘This is how I see myself.’”
In Kobabe’s case, a picture is truly worth a thousand words.
At the end of our discussions of Gender Queer, I asked my students how the book would have been different for them if it were a traditional textual memoir. The class was split. On one hand, text gives more opportunity for context, interiority in the narrator, and vivid descriptions. However, the majority of the class determined that Gender Queer was a narrative meant for a visual form.
Kobabe’s illustrations are both joyful and vulnerable, colorful and moody. E strikes a perfect balance of text to illustration to emphasize all the right things. It isn’t surprising that we could not fathom the book in any other form.
Conclusions
One student, who didn’t regularly participate in class, shocked me with their perspective in an email message they sent:
“I wasn’t really expecting much when it came to specifically graphic memoirs. It’s honestly been life-changing as I’ve picked up reading again and I actually enjoy reading these memoirs.”
I believe Literature courses, especially in higher education, should be less about what our society deems as “good writing” or “literary” and focus more on inquiry. How can the literary canon and its stringent rules of genres be broken? How can they be broken well?
I am excited to see the future of graphic memoir as a genre, what new stories can be told, and what new perspectives we can teach.
Unlinked Sources
Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives: Essays on Theory, Strategy and Practice (2012). Edited by Lan Dong. McFarland & Company, Inc.
Wham! Teaching with Graphic Novels Across the Curriculum (2009). William Brozo, Gary Moorman, Carla Meyer. Teachers College Press.
