There’s a significant difference between banning books and restricting books until the reader is an adult and can better assess the subject material.
On March 13, 2023, Sarah Bonner, 42, held a “book tasting” class for her middle school students. The purpose of the class is to celebrate literature. During these sessions, she often presents fiction and nonfiction works and calls it “Reading Monday.”
One of the “Reading Monday” selections by Bonner was Juno Dawson’s “This Book is Gay.” According to its Amazon promotional page, it’s “the bestselling young adult nonfiction book on gender and sexuality.”
Amazon calls the book suitable for ages 14-17 and is a quasi-instruction manual for those who want to come out as LGBTQ+.
When parents learned of the book’s contents, they filed a police report against Bonner for “child endangerment.”
NBC News reported on this teacher, along with the parent’s complaints and her book selection. Still, it failed to mention the sexually explicit details couched between the book covers in their report making it seem Bonner was a victim of book banning.
The book, complete with photographs, details explicit sexual positions, oral copulation, annal, kinks, bathhouses, fetishes, sex parties, and probably worst of all consuming feces.
Bonner defended her actions by wanting her classrooms to be open to all types of thinking and relationships. Bonner has a ten-year-old son.
She felt that to be a good teacher, she should include books that deal with Black themes, Indigenous people, and LGBTQ themes and characters.
As a result of the police report, the school district placed Bonner on administrative leave while the allegations against her by the children’s parents were under investigation.
The Illinois school accepted Sarah Bonner’s resignation after 20 years of teaching a few days later.
According to a PEN America report, a free expression in literature non-profit, 1,600 books were banned in the 2021-22 school year—over half the challenged or banned books dealt with LGBTQ themes.
