Trans Author Jennings' I Am Jazz Is One of the Most Banned Books in the U.S.
The book may never achieve the cultural recognition of some other top censorship targets, but the fight over I Am Jazz symbolizes America's trans moral panic.
I Am Jazz is a 32-page children's book describing the childhood of co-author Jazz Jennings. Jennings, now 21, is trans, and her book, first published in 2014, attempts to explain to a young audience what that means.
"I have a girl brain but a boy body," I Am Jazz reads. "This is called transgender. I was born this way."
The book describes Jazz's frustrations when her parents made her wear "boy clothes" when they went out in public. Eventually it covers her first visit to a doctor, who explained to her parents that she was transgender. It also briefly discusses frustrations with being told to use the boys' bathroom in school and to play on the boys' soccer team. In real life, Jennings challenged the U.S. Soccer Federation's rules to be allowed to play on girls' teams. These days she's a YouTube star with a reality show on the cable channel TLC.
Though I Am Jazz doesn't delve into the psychological or medical treatments that are often part of trans therapy, the book hit enough buttons to fuel demands that it be kept away from children. The American Library Association listed I Am Jazz as 13th among the top 100 banned and challenged books of the past decade, just above The Perks of Being a Wallflower and To Kill a Mockingbird. Other books that introduce LGBT issues to young people are also high on the list, including And Tango Makes Three, a children's book illustrating the true story of two male penguins raising a chick together in New York City's Central Park Zoo.
In 2015, the Mount Horeb Area School District in Wisconsin canceled a reading of I Am Jazz after an attorney with the evangelical group Liberty Counsel threatened to sue teachers and school district staff for "violation of parental rights."
In April, following the passage of a bill in Florida that restricts discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools, I Am Jazz was yanked from libraries in the School District of Palm Beach County along with Call Me Max, a similar children's book about a trans boy. The book may never achieve the cultural recognition of some other top censorship targets, but the fight over I Am Jazz symbolizes America's trans moral panic.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "I Am Jazz."
