Censoring Trans Books is a Violation of Human Rights

The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. 

This latest attack on the right to read has to be understood as... an attack on the human rights of LGBTQI+ people as individuals and as a group.

Shortly after the 2026 State of the Union Address—which featured misleading claims about gender-affirming policies in schools—a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives taking aim at trans inclusion in school libraries and curricula (HR 7661). Crying obscenity, it actually targets identity, defining any book that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism” as sexually oriented by default.

On Monday, March 17, the bill advanced out of its House committee. The debate touched on community self-determination, government overreach, and the very real harms to transgender students that too many in the United States seek to ignore. But there is a more fundamental idea underlying all of these points, which we ignore at our peril: the right to read.

The right to read is a human right. This latest attack on the right to read has to be understood as such, an attack on the human rights of LGBTQI+ people as individuals and as a group.

The Right to Read is a Human Right

The right to read is implicit in the right to free expression, a right fundamental to the core documents of global liberalism, including the U.S. Constitution, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

The latter articulates the “right to freedom of opinion and expression” to include the right to “receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (emphasis added). We must also add: regardless of identity. PEN America data has shown consistently in recent years that book bans in schools and public libraries target books with LGBTQ+ characters and/or characters of color—in recent years, 39% and 44%, respectively—far greater than the portion of published books featuring characters of those identities. It appears that the fundamental right of freedom to transmit and receive information equally depends, in practice, on who you are.

Human rights are inalienable, but no more guaranteed than civil rights. Both have to be demanded and protected. To articulate a human right is to articulate an ideal for civil rights to live up to. Like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the right to read can be impeded by law or force—as these rights were by those U.S. founders who professed them for themselves while denying them to those they enslaved. 

The idea of a “protected” or “suspect” class is one way of aspiring in law—in civil rights—to the equal affordance of human rights. Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute defines a suspect class, in reference to the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as “individuals…so disfavored and out of the political mainstream that the courts must make extra efforts to protect them, because the political system will not.”

Unfortunately for trans Americans, the court has made very little “extra efforts to protect them.” Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurrence in U.S. v. Skrmetti, at least, declined to consider transgender people as a suspect class, citing lack of de jure evidence of a history of discrimination. Instead, the recent Supreme Court decision Mahmoud v. Taylor opted to interpret transgender inclusion in literature and curriculum as a violation of the rights of another suspect class. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito strongly implies, if not outright asserts, that any children’s book containing a positive depiction of LGBTQI+ life is de facto a violation of religious liberty. The rights of religious parents to convey an anti-LGBTQI+ message, he claims, are “undermined when the exact opposite message is positively reinforced in the public school classroom at a very young age.” 

It appears that the fundamental right of freedom to transmit and receive information equally depends, in practice, on who you are.

No thought is given to the rights of children with trans parents, or children with a non-normative gender experience, to see their lives represented. The only “protected class” given consideration here are those offended by LGBTQI+ life and transgender existence. Where the right to express and access information is concerned, it is impossible to argue seriously that trans-inclusive books are measured by the same standard as others.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are due all people, regardless of age or identity. To have access to books and other media featuring characters who share one’s experience—especially for young people despairing at their chances of being accepted—supports all three. These books let trans students see a vision of people like themselves living their lives, exercising their liberty, and pursuing their happiness.

Protect the Public—And the Private

If we want to make sure books with transgender representation are available for whomever wants or needs them, we have to support gender-diverse representation in the public sphere. But we also have to bolster the parts of the private sphere that provide a safety net for book access.

Those claiming book bans are a “hoax” like to claim that a book isn’t banned if you can still buy it in a store. The argument ignores the fact that, for many, buying books is not a financial option. Perhaps most importantly, it distracts from the deeply worrying precedent set by school and library book bans targeting books with trans themes. 

It is a short step from a “Don’t Say Trans” bill in schools to targeting transgender teachers and students. It is a short step from there to targeting transgender people from other spaces where children are, and a short step from there to targeting transgender parents. A few more short steps lead to targeting healthcare and non-cisgender gender expression in public, and steps beyond that don’t bear consideration.

The struggle for access to LGBTQI+ representation in books is also a struggle for LGBTQI+ existence in public life.

This is why the conversation about trans representation in books cannot be understood as only about books. The struggle for access to LGBTQI+ representation in books is also a struggle for LGBTQI+ existence in public life.

So, to the extent that “parents who want these books can get them at the store,” we have to add “for now.” And even now, books should be accessible to all equally, regardless of means. 

But the private sector, particularly independent bookstores, does have an important role to play. Indie bookstores host book fairs in public schools, collaborate with public libraries, and mutually support a culture of reading in both. And in the past year, where social programs have wavered or weakened, many indie bookstores have stepped up, even becoming food donation centers when SNAP benefits lapsed last year. They do the same thing for schools and libraries, supporting and supplementing literature programming for kids.

These programs aren’t replacements for public schools and libraries. But they show that small businesses—truly small businesses, what politicians like to call “Main Street”—can bolster the safety net when holes in it appear. And they can do so while helping to patch the holes.

To Support Trans Rights, Read Trans Books

With trans rights under attack, trans literature has never been more important. That is the logic behind the Trans Rights Readathon, a movement encouraging supporters to read trans books while supporting trans rights. This year’s Readathon started March 17th and runs through Trans Day of Visibility on March 31st. 

Trans rights are human rights. The right to read is a human right. Reading trans books is an expression of both. The best way to protect these rights is to exercise them.