Skyler Swisher, Orlando Sentinel
Sun, November 21, 2021, 6:01 PM·4 min read
ORLANDO, Fla. — A memoir that explores race and sexuality has ignited a contentious debate over book banning with a Flagler County School Board member filing a criminal complaint that accused the district of breaking obscenity laws.
“All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto” is generating national controversy because of its sexual content. The memoir features author George M. Johnson’s reflections on growing up Black and queer.
School Board member Jill Woolbright filed a criminal complaint, telling a deputy that she thought it was “a crime to have the book in the [district’s] media centers” and demanding that the people who put it there be held “accountable.”
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office dismissed the complaint Friday, but the community remains embroiled in a heated debate over whether the book should be available in school libraries. It has sparked hours of back-and-forth discussion at school board meetings.
Johnson, who uses the pronouns they/them, said the memoir is geared toward 14- to 18-year-olds. While the work includes descriptions of oral sex, anal sex and masturbation, Johnson said they are in the context of consent, sexual abuse, gender identity, toxic masculinity, emotional trauma and other important issues facing teenagers.
Johnson said the book gives teenagers a road map for recognizing and dealing with trauma and abuse, as well as avoiding mistakes the author made growing up.
“My book is 320 pages, and everyone is pigeonholing it based on two excerpts,” Johnson said. “It is important that people realize that this book has a wealth of additional information that young adults will deal with and go through. This is a learning tool introducing heavy topics.”
School libraries should reflect the entire community, including the experiences of LGBTQ and Black youth, Johnson said.
“I am trying to communicate to young adults that I too have been in their shoes,” Johnson said. “I am hoping my book and my words give them the agency to name the things they have been through and prepares them for the things they are going to go through.”
The book was removed from circulation at Flagler-Palm Coast and Matanzas high schools, and a panel is being assembled to review its contents, said Jason Wheeler, a spokesperson for Flagler County Public Schools. The book was also briefly on the shelves at Buddy Taylor Middle School but was pulled following an internal review that predated Woolbright’s complaint filed with law enforcement, he said.
“We do not currently have a specific date as to when the review process will be complete,” Wheeler said. “All I can say is that a review team is in the process of being assembled and then they will begin their work.”
Investigators with the Sheriff’s Office determined that Woolbright’s complaint did not meet the “threshold of a criminal offense,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a prepared statement. Florida law specifies that materials must “lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value” when taken as a whole to be considered obscene.
“The Sheriff’s Office does not determine what material is appropriate for the students of Flagler County,” Staly said.
“All Boys Aren’t Blue” has been challenged for its descriptions of sex, but it’s also garnered literary praise, landing on best books of the year lists compiled by Amazon, the New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library.
Instead of harming teenagers, books with heavy topics give them the tools to understand issues they will face in life, Johnson said.
“It is not that young adults won’t experience this,” Johnson said.
Woolbright did not respond to a phone message and email seeking comment on Friday. She told deputies she raised her concerns about the book with the school superintendent on Nov. 2. In a school board workshop on Tuesday, Woolbright said she notified law enforcement because she didn’t think the matter was being adequately handled by school officials and felt “statutorily” responsible to report what she considered to be a crime.
“In my opinion, and I am not an attorney, it qualifies as obscenity, and if it qualifies as obscenity, it is prohibited,” Woolbright said during the meeting.
Earlier this month, Orange County Public Schools yanked another controversial book from its shelves called “Gender Queer: A Memoir” amid concerns over sexual images.
Johnson said efforts to ban books are only drawing more people to read them.
“Once you tell someone this is forbidden, it only tempts them more to want to read it, to taste the forbidden fruit,” Johnson said. “Their attempts to ban it are only tempting more people to want to read the book.”
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