The story of a trans person cannot be told without censorship having a starring role. That is the reality of a trans person in 2026.

Even as I write this article, I am editing myself. Every word is measured against the risk of backlash, hate, slurs, and threats to my safety. Being asked to tell this story was an honour, but not a simple yes. For trans people, speaking publicly is never without cost. It is a calculation. Stay visible and become a target or stay silent and protect your peace.

Censorship is not confined to literature. It edits itself into the lives of those society has deemed undesirable. It shows up in the choices we make to soften our words, shrink our identities, or disappear altogether. For a long time, I chose silence because it felt safer. But silence is not freedom. When trans identity is edited out, by fear, by pressure, by design, it does not just change the story. It shapes how we can move through the world

“Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father. So, they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in and lay with her father.” (Genesis 19:32-33)

“Some people are born in mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow.” (Kobabe, 156)

Placed side by side, these passages expose a contradiction in how ‘appropriateness” is defined.  One depicts abuse and coercion, yet comes from a text that is widely accepted, distributed, and taught without question. The other offers a metaphor for identity, belonging, and the reality that some people must navigate the world differently to live authentically, and it is this kind of story that is challenged and removed.

If book bans and challenges were truly about protecting readers from mature or difficult content, then many foundational texts, religious, historical, and literary, would be treated the same way. They are not. Instead, certain stories are defended, while others are deemed unacceptable.

Are there mature themes in “Gender Queer?” Absolutely. But calling it “too mature” avoids the real issue. The question is not what is in the book, it is whose story is being told, and who is uncomfortable by it.

When similar themes are accepted in one context and condemned in another, the standard is no longer about content, it is about control. It reflects which identities are affirmed, and which are pushed to the margins.

If we look throughout history at the books and messaging that has been banned or censored, we see a clear pattern. Across time and place, censorship has been used to suppress ideas and silence people who challenge dominant norms. Allowing knowledge to be restricted, banned or destroyed has only helped the oppressors.

When I am targeted at work by a known hate organization and I am told that a public statement of support is “not our policy,” it sends a clear message. It tells me that maintaining comfort matters more than standing up for the people being harmed. It tells me that my safety, and the safety of trans people like me is negotiable.

Institutions of learning have an obligation to not just stand up for the rights of every individual that exists in their community but to celebrate the diverse and unique lives that make up their demographic. Especially when we are talking about a group of people that are invisible until they themselves feel safe enough to make themselves seen. Every queer child who hides themselves is not just harming their self-esteem, their self-identity, and their self-worth but we know that they are the population that is most prone to taking their own lives. When we censor the stories of queer adults, we take away the possibility for our children to see a future for themselves, one where they are more than a target, more than something to be reduced or misunderstood.

When educators fear for their jobs because a parent might object to something as simple a story about a family that looks different than their own, we lose more than a book. We lose opportunities to build understanding and empathy. For many students, school may be the only place they encounter stories about asexual people, trans people, or same-sex families. Without those stories, empathy has fewer places to grow.

When I am told that silence is meant to “protect” me from what is being said, let us be clear, I already hear it. I am called a groomer, a predator, and worse regularly, and without consequence. Silence does not shield me from harm. It shields the harm from accountability.

This is not happening in isolation. Book challenges in Canada are rising, and many are not random, they reflect coordinated challenges targeting books that include 2SLGBTQIA+ identities and experiences. As noted by Canadian School Libraries in “Censors are Targeting Schools: Hardly New, but Deeply Troubling” (2023), these efforts often follow recognizable patterns, with the same titles and themes being challenged across different communities.  These patterns point to something larger than individual concern. They reflect organized efforts to decide which identities are acceptable, and which stories are allowed to exist.

I am not a victim who needs to be hidden or protected. I am a human who needs the space, support, and tools to stand up for my right to exist.

At the beginning of this school year, I was given an opportunity to leave my role as an educator in a school to work as a 2SLGBTQIA+ youth counselor. I turned it down because I wholeheartedly believed that I was in the right place. I believed that my understanding of faith, one rooted in care, dignity, and love for all, was shared by the system I worked within.

This year has tested that belief. The challenges I have faced have strengthened my personal faith, but they have also led me to question for the first time whether the values of the institution that I work within truly align with my own.

The individuals I work with have always been accepting, supportive, kind, and respectful. But individual support is not enough. What I really need is clarity at the institutional level because when institutions remain silent, the loudest voices are often those that spread hate, discrimination, and condemnation. Those are the voices that our children are left to navigate.

They are the same words I heard as a child growing up and the most damaging part is not just being exposed to them, but how they become to take root. Over time, those voices stop sounding external. They become internal and your own.

I remember, vividly and viscerally, believing that my only options in life were to either sell my teenage body on the streets because at least then I would not have to hide or to take my own life. I chose the latter. I am here now, and I am blessed with every day that my story did not end. No young person should ever be made to feel that those are their only options.

If we do not change the message that this next generation hears, that will become their story too. Not the ones that I had to fight so long and so hard to learn for myself, that you can be Trans and still be faithful, that you can be Trans and still be a positive impact on the world, that you can be trans and still be happy, and most important, that you can be trans and still be loved.

In the end, censorship reveals far more about those who enforce it than those it tries to silence. In real life, it looks like people being forced to erase parts of their own stories and identities.

WORKS CITED

Bannings and burnings in history. Freedom to Read. (2024, July 4). https://www.freedomtoread.ca/resources/bannings-and-burnings-in-history/

Gender Queer: A Memoir – Maia Kobabe

Bible