Milwaukee City Wire

The Milwaukee Public Library carries a book that features pornographic cartoon illustrations depicting gay oral sex, according to a review of Wisconsin library catalog records by the Milwaukee City Wire.

Aimed at teenagers, Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe, features comic-book style images of two male teenagers performing oral sex upon one another, using sex toys and masturbating, drawn by Kobabe.

According to the Milwaukee County Federated Library System online catalog, the Milwaukee Public Library has copies of Gender Queer, as do the Bay View, Central and East Branch libraries.

Libraries in North Carolina, Florida and Texas have removed Gender Queer from their catalogues on account of its pornography.

St. Louis-based Lion Forge published Gender Queer as part of a series of "graphic" cartoon books aimed at teenagers and pre-teenagers, encouraging them to ignore their biological sex. The publisher says its mission is to create characters that appeal to children who might want to cross-dress, or have sex change surgery.

Kobabe, a biological woman who claims to now be neither a woman nor a man, says she uses so-called "gender-neutral pronouns," to refer to herself.

In a December 2021 profile on Kobabe in her hometown newspaper, the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat, author Matt Villano referred to her by these "gender neutral pronouns."

"When e got eir first period at age 11, however, everything changed. E felt betrayed by eir own body. E became unhappy and confused by societal expectations and norms. E withdrew and turned to reading and sketching to cope with feelings of depression and dysmorphia," Villano wrote, comparing Kobabe to "Harper Lee, J.D. Salinger and Mark Twain" as authors who have "penned banned books."

Left-wing activists have sought to ban Lee's “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Salinger's “A Catcher in the Rye” and Twain's “Huckleberry Finn” for using language they say is "offensive" to Blacks and women. None of the three books includes any pornographic cartoon illustrations depicting gay sex.

Milwaukee Public Library Board of Trustees members include Michele Bria, Chris Layden, Jennifer Smith, Joan R. Johnson, Milele Coggs, Nik Kovac, Matthew Kowalski, Teresa Mercado, Michael Morgan, Marcelia Nicholson, Mark Sain, Erika Siemsen and JoCasta Zamarripa.