The Federal Court of Australia has ordered the Classification Review Board to revisit it’s decision to allow the book Gender Queer by author Maia Kobabe to be viewed by Australian audiences.
Conservative activist Bernard Gaynor has been campaigning to have the book removed. Since he first raised objections the book has been given a classification by the Australian Classification Board who ruled in April 2023 that the graphic novel should be given a rating of Unrestricted, with consumer advice of ‘M (Mature)—Not Recommended for Readers under 15 Years’.
That decision was taken to the Classification Review Board who upheld the decision to give the book its assigned rating. That decision has now been challenged in the Federal Court with Justice Ian Jackman finding in Gaynor’s favour.
In his ruling Justice Jackman said the Review Board had erred when it described the public submissions against the book as “overwhelmingly anti-LGBTIQA+”.
The were 611 public submissions to the review, and the court heard that only 35 submissions were supportive of the book, and only 52 could be classified as being 52 could fairly be described as anti-LGBTIQA+. The Minister for Communication has also passed on 14 additional public comments, of which only 14 could be classified as anti-LGBTIQA+.
Justice Jackman found that the Review Board had not given the right weighting to the submissions and has ordered for the book to be reclassified, and for the government to cover Gaynor’s court costs.
Bernard Gaynor has welcomed the decision.
“Today ordinary Australians have won a great victory. It is first time that Classification bureaucrats in Australia have ever had a decision overturned. And I believe that it marks the end for Gender Queer.
“There is still work to be done but we are well on the way to having this book taken off every book shelf in every library and bookstore in Australia for good.” Gaynor said after the ruling was handed down.
Gaynor has previously been a political candidate for the Bob Katter party, and also stood for the short-lived right wing party Australian Liberty Alliance. Back in 2014 he shared his views on homosexuality, telling OUTinPerth he was in favour of public displays of homosexuality being made illegal.
In recent year’s he turned his attention to monitoring Australian book stores and libraries for content that he feels should not be available to Australian audiences. Recently he’s served as a mentor to the Albany based group Keeping Children Safe Albany who have been pushing for sex education books to be removed from their local library.
Gender Queer is one of the most banned books in the USA
Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel memoir is one of the most challenged books in the USA in recent years. Complaints about the novel largely focus on one panel in the story.
It shows Kobabe, lying down, fully clothed, with hands played over eir abdomen. A thought bubble appears overhead depicting a fantasy which is similar to a depiction on an ancient Greek vase.
When the Classification Review Board considered this section of the work they said that the colour and framing of the image indicated that it “is a stylised depiction of the flat, inanimate pottery art, and sets the artwork within its historical context”, and that while clearly a historical artefact and not real characters from within the narrative of the memoir, the image “likely depicts a sexual encounter between an ancient Greek scholar and his student”. They did not believe that this was enough reason to ban the book across Australia.
