That image above is a panel from the kids' book Gender Queer. This is one of the tame panels; see others below. This is what many educators and other liberal elites want kids to be reading. In 2021, I wrote about how National Public Radio's show 1A deceived listeners about what people object to about Gender Queer. At least some decision makers at NPR believe the network cannot level with its listeners about what's really in the book, because to be honest is to endanger the Narrative.

They're still doing it. Going after NPR is the lowest of low-hanging fruit for Congressional conservatives, but I gotta say, David Marcus is not wrong here:

As House Republicans overcome their differences and take power in the chamber there is an issue that they should take up immediately: defunding National Public Radio. We all know that the taxpayer-funded, so-called news outlet leans farther left than a NASCAR racetrack, but this week they ran a slanderous and frankly disgusting essay by the author of the controversial graphic novel for kids, "Gender Queer," that should absolutely end their funding. 

The essay, written by Maia Kobabe, is a woe-is-me tale about her book being taken off the shelves of many school libraries, mixed with self congratulation for her supposed courage.  

What's not mentioned? Either in the essay itself or its brief introduction? That would be why the book has been deemed unsuitable for kids. The answer is the multiple extremely graphic drawings of sex acts, including oral sex, that it contains which are never even mentioned. 

Here's a link to the Kobabe essay. This core of it tells you how Kobabe frames the controversy:

In 2020, Gender Queer was given two awards by the American Library Association (ALA): a Stonewall Honor, and an Alex Award, which recognizes books published for adults that hold crossover appeal for readers "aged 12 to 18." We headed into a second printing, then a third, then a fourth. By the time covid shut down my comic convention touring, the book had been out for long enough that it was starting to get assigned in college classes. I spent much of 2020 and 2021 speaking via zoom to literature classes, gender studies classes, comic classes, and once a class on graphic medicine, a study of narratives of health and illness in comic form. I settled into the business of writing my second book, happy that my first one had been so well received.

And then, fall of 2021. A video of a parent railing against Gender Queer in a school board meeting in Fairfax, Virginia went viral and sparked an immediate series of copy-cat challenges elsewhere. Sometimes the challenges were overturned, and the book was returned to the library shelves. Other times the book was banned and removed. Several conservative politicians made book banning a major talking point of their campaigns. There were so many challenges in such quick succession before the end of the year that I literally could not keep track of them all. I was getting so many interview requests that I could easily have turned into a full-time public speaker with no time to write.

You see how this goes: Honored Queer Book That Makes Everybody Feel Good Is Pounced On By Conservative Haters. The clear implication is that conservatives hate queer people, end of story.

Kobabe is entitled to her opinion, but NPR running it like this is propaganda, for exactly the reason Marcus said. Here, in these images from the book, is why parents were, and are, outraged that this book is on school library shelves. I apologize for posting this stuff, even in slightly censored form, but if you are going to understand why NPR (and other major media) are lying to you about what's in these books, you need to see this:

Why do media outlets like NPR mislead listeners (viewers, readers) about what's in these challenged books? Because they are part of a cultural elite that believe they have the right to deceive parents for the sake of Progress. The contempt they have for normal people and their concerns is breathtaking. For example:

Here's a more readable version of that letter from a middle school principal to a parent who had written to complain about the book:

The parent had been complaining that the book -- which, among other things, teaches middle-school kids how to use apps on their phone to meet gay men for anonymous sex -- was inappropriate for children. I'm not making this up. From the book:

It is hard to fathom that this is the kind of information that middle schools give to kids now in the United States. But it is. And if you object to it, you're a hate-filled censor. I know because I read about it on NPR's website.

David Marcus quote:

Parents are furious and they should be. It is not the job of the state to teach our young children the proper way to suck a penis, frankly I can’t believe that this sentence has to be written. It also certainly not the job of taxpayers to fund propaganda in furtherance of this behavior.  

At some point, the public is going to have to start throwing stuff. Meaning voters are going to have to use the only tool they have -- pressuring elected politicians to change the way they spend the public's own money -- to fight back against the cultural elites who despise them, and who are corrupting our kids with this filth. The backlash is long overdue.