Calls to remove Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and Push by Sapphire have hit public school libraries across the country including at Lucia Mar Unified School District, which rejected the appeals.
“I cherish the First Amendment, and I believe in the experts on the Library Review Committee,” Lucia Mar board member Colleen Martin told New Times after the Nov. 18 school board meeting.
With two separate votes—one for each book—the board voted 4-3 to keep Gender Queer and Push at the Arroyo Grande High School library. Board members Mike Fuller, Eilene Pham, and Andrea Naemi-Vergne dissented.
Two community members, Paul Masters and Gary Adams, appealed the library committee’s decision to continue stocking the books in the high school library. According to the district, the library purchased a copy of Gender Queer in 2022 and a copy of Push in 2019. Gender Queer has been checked out three times. No one had borrowed Push.
“While addressing LGBTQ-plus and gender identity issues, the sexual content is pervasive, graphic, and potentially vulgar,” Masters, of Home Masters Realty, wrote in his appeal of Gender Queer.
Adams, who works with the San Luis Obispo County Republican Party’s communications team, filed the appeal against keeping Push in the library.
“Its graphic sexual content, depictions of incest, and violent themes raise serious questions about suitability for the emotional and social developmental stage of students who have access to it, its appropriateness for these students, its ability to enrich the curriculum, or its alignment with other district standards,” Adams wrote.
According to Marshall University Libraries, Gender Queer—a graphic novel exploring the author’s journey from adolescence to adulthood while dealing with gender identity and sexuality—was one of the 10 most frequently challenged books in 2024-25.
This year, Purple for Parents Indiana, the Geneva County Republican Women, Intercessors for Children, and Alabama State Rep. Rick Rehm challenged keeping Gender Queer in public school libraries.
Push is a 1996 novel about a 16-year-old HIV-positive Black girl who lives with her abusive mother and bears children as the result of being raped by her father. The novel was adapted into the Academy Award-winning 2009 film Precious.
In 2022, Push was listed among 52 books banned by Utah’s Alpine School District after the implementation of a state law about “sensitive materials in schools.”
At the Lucia Mar meeting, 41 people spoke both in favor of and against retaining the titles at the high school library. One of them was Arroyo Grande High’s Young Progressives Club President Bibi Shah.
“The books that are at stake of being censored tonight are two perfectly good examples of what it means to get out of our comfort zones and learn what experiences people in our real world can face,” she said at the meeting.
Shah told New Times prior to the meeting that she hadn’t read the books, but their themes are similar to Laurie Halse Anderson’s young adult novel Speak, which she had to study in freshman year.
“I also know that the pictures that they’re [Masters and Adams] presenting are taken out of context because the pictures they’re presenting mainly are teaching about the topic of consent when you’re in an intimate relationship,” Shah, a junior, said. “[Speak] was really important to learn about because it shows how a lot of people our age experience this and it’s not a rare occurrence.”
South County Democratic Club spokesperson Virginia Roof told New Times that she had purchased copies of the books when she heard about the appeals.
“I have one child that does identify as part of the LGBTQ-plus community and one of the titles, Gender Queer, is specifically an inclusive book for that community,” she said. “Push is a story told from a Black perspective, and San Luis Obispo County is not the most diverse place. There’s a large white population, and I just feel really strongly that we should be learning about all communities, and everyone should have a voice.”
Parents who don’t want their children to read those books need to have a conversation with them instead of trying to ban the books outright, Roof added.
The South County Democratic Club alleged that Harvest Church is behind the book appeals, even though Masters and Adams filed the documents as individuals. Roof shared pictures of flyers circulated in the Nipomo area urging residents to speak out at the school board meeting against the books.
Harvest Church, Masters, Adams, and the dissenting board members didn’t respond to New Times’ requests for comment by press time.
Though the school district confirmed that it’s never received appeals regarding library books until now, Roof pointed to a past incident when former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate Gaea Powell walked onto the high school campus to investigate library books.
Powell, who’s facing charges from the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office for alleged election fraud, told New Times she complained to the temporary librarian when she allegedly found sexually explicit books in the library.
She added that she wasn’t involved with the appeal, and she attended the meeting after being invited.
“I do not care what flags fly on private properties or nor do I care what consenting adults [do],” Powell said. “But these books are not age appropriate for children, as they cannot give consent.” ∆
This article appears in Holiday Guide 2025.
Why does some rando get to determine what is age appropriate? And what do you mean children can’t give consent? Unless things have changed since I was in school, a student at the library can choose whether or not to check out a book. Is that not consent?
Why does society want to sexualize our kids?
As a gay parent, I ask this sincerely. I would never write a book describing my own sexual experiences, desires, or trauma for a minor to read. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I cannot even imagine putting those graphic details in front of children under the banner of representation or identity.Yet somehow, society expects us to believe that it’s normal, healthy, or educational for minors to read books with explicit sexual acts, graphic descriptions, and adult-level themes that most grown adults would feel uncomfortable saying out loud. That’s not inclusion, that’s not diversity, that’s crossing a line.
Children are not emotional dumping grounds for adult issues.
Children do not need explicit content to understand compassion.
Children do not need graphic sexual narratives to understand identity.
Children do not need to process adult trauma before they even understand themselves. If someone wants to defend these books being in public schools, that’s their right, but defend them after you’ve read them. Not the summaries, not the talking points read the pages yourself. Then ask honestly whether you believe a minor, any minor should be absorbing that kind of imagery or emotional burden. This is not about banning adults from reading what they want. This is not about erasing anyone’s existence, this is not about targeting any group, it’s about one simple boundary and that is sexually explicit material does not belong in children’s spaces period. As a parent, and as someone who has survived the dark side of what happens when boundaries aren’t protected, I will always stand on the side of shielding kids all kids from content they’re not developmentally prepared to handle. That’s not politics or prejudice, that’s just basic responsibility.