Book bans are nothing new.
The first known book ban occurred in Massachusetts in 1650, when William Pynchon published a pamphlet called The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption. Deemed heretical by his Puritan contemporaries, copies of Pynchon’s work were subsequently burned and the pamphlet banned. This set the stage for a long and complex history of book-banning across America.
In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ‘local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in the books.’ But censorship continues to be a major problem in the States and, increasingly, in other Western nations too.
Erasing Left-Wing Voices
According to PEN America, a non-profit organisation that was founded in 1922 to protect freedom of expression within literature, the number of book censorship cases has spiralled since the pandemic. The group reports that over the past five years, there have been nearly 23,000 book bans in public schools in the United States. Between July 2021 and March 2022, there were over 1,500 book bans across 26 states. Texas led the way with over 700 bans, almost double that of any other state. Recent research from the American Library Association (ALA) paints an ever more damning portrait: 4,235 books came under fire last year — the second highest number of novels targeted in three decades.
The most banned title in the U.S. is Gender Queer, a memoir written by a non-binary author, and books like All Boys Aren’t Blue and Last Night at the Telegraph Club are increasingly being challenged. Meanwhile, in the UK, novels like This Book is Gay, Heartstopper and Julián is a Mermaid have all been targeted. The obvious common denominator is that they all feature queer characters. Clearly, this fact is influencing the curation of library shelves. According to the ALA, marginalised communities are often the most affected, with 39 per cent of U.S. bans last year aimed at books reflecting the lived experiences of LGBT+ people and people of colour.
And it’s not just fiction which is coming under fire. Twenty-nine per cent of bans concerned the nonfiction genre. Over half of these were on the subject of activism, but it is important to note this category also includes history, health, biography and general knowledge. Evidently, pressure groups are not just trying to expunge left-leaning novels on the subject of social justice or queer fiction from school libraries. They are also trying to erase unbiased, research-led books too. These groups, whether they be disgruntled parents or Republican politicians, are ruthlessly reducing people’s access to knowledge about the world around them. They aim to camouflage history when it doesn’t align with their moral or political agenda. I don’t need to explain why this is problematic.
‘Any move to censor books in school libraries, based on misinformation and fearmongering, should ring alarm bells,’ Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, told the BBC. ‘Children’s access to a wide range of literature is a fundamental good that the NEU is proud to defend.’
Librarians across the West are sounding the alarm and calling out threats to ‘intellectual freedom’ from ‘the far right.’ But those who refuse to bow to the pressure are being punished. For example, Luanne James, formerly the Head Librarian in Rutherford, Tennessee, was fired for refusing to move 130 LGBT+ books to the adult section. This issue is not confined to the U.S., either. In 2025, a librarian at the Lowry Academy in Salford resigned after being threatened with disciplinary action for refusing to remove certain titles, including Queerly Autistic and 1984. It is frightening to think of how many librarians across the West are being forced to stay quiet about suspected censorship just to keep their jobs.
Censoring Right-Wing Voices
Whilst the vast majority of banned books deal with left-wing issues often associated with marginalised communities, the recent wave of censorship is also affecting right-wing writers. Numerous bookstores across America and Australia have pulled J.K. Rowling’s novels from their shelves, as well as titles written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Rowling’s controversial views on gender are likely the reason behind this move.
One of her latest fiction novels, Troubled Blood, features a cross-dressing serial killer who uses their fluid approach to gender and fashion to evade law enforcement. Critics have argued that such depictions could perpetuate negative stereotypes of certain communities.
As well as this, Rowling’s past comments about transgender people have ruffled quite a few feathers online. In 2020, the Harry Potter author called out an article that used the term ‘people who menstruate’ for omitting the word ‘women.’ She has since openly sided with feminist figures who believe gender is determined by biological sex and has offered financial support to numerous people who face legal action over alleged transphobia.
As such, a growing number of booksellers are refusing to stock her novels.
Jarek Steele, owner of Left Bank Books in Missouri, who is transgender, says that because Rowling ‘uses her extensive platform to deride the humanity of trans women … we no longer feel comfortable giving her shelf space.’
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Sam Baker, owner of Rabble Books in Perth, shared a similar sentiment, declaring that he will ‘not put books by transphobes on the shelves.’ When questioned about whether his decision was a form of censorship, he replied, ‘It is not for us to tell people what to read or what not to read.’
Rowling’s non-fiction writing also features in the anthology The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheest, a collection of gender-critical essays, which was originally removed from the National Library of Scotland because staff were concerned that its ‘polarised’ views on the gender debate would cause ‘harm.’ It was later readmitted in September 2025 following an outcry from the public. Whether or not you agree with Rowling’s stance, the erasure of her work from libraries and bookshops demonstrates that censorship works both ways in these turbulent political times.
Book bans arguably represent a dangerous precedent. They are a sign of ‘anti-intellectualism’ and a confirmation of our inability to tolerate beliefs that radically differ from our own. A society that shuts down debates, that denies its citizens the chance to consume a wide range of perspectives, can never truly thrive.
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