LGBTQ+ manga banned in Florida county schools for being \u201cinappropriate\u201d CrunchyrollSasaki and Miyano, a popular queer manga, has been banned in schools in Brevard County, Florida, because the contents have been deemed not appropriate for young readers. Kicking off in 2016, Sasaki and Miyano has received 10 volumes so far, following the titular relationship between two teenage schoolboys. It comes from creator Sh\u014d Harusono, and has spawned one of the best LGBTQ+ anime ever. In a vote conducted on August 27, 2024, the Brevard County School Board chose to ban Vol. 1 of the manga from school libraries, on the basis the core relationship is \u201cinappropriate\u201d, and the manga format causes issues for one of the board-members. The book was tabled at the school board meeting for a discussion on its inclusion, starting at 47:40 in the above video, where District 1 representative and Board Chair Megan Wright voiced her opposition outright. \u201cThis book, it focuses on nothing other than a relationship that\u2019s inappropriate,\u201d she said. \u201cYou start the book, you read it backwards. I mean, when you start reading a book, which we\u2019ve been teaching our kids from day one, you start at the beginning and you read from left to right, bottom to top, not that book you don\u2019t.\u201d She added that she believes this isn\u2019t \u201cthe highest and best book that we can offer our kids\u201d, then expressing concerns over where the plot goes after volume one. Needless to say, Sasaki and Miyano isn\u2019t in any way special in how it\u2019s presented, manga and Japanese literature are simply written differently to the left-to-right, top-to-bottom format of European and American publishing. This is pointed out by District 5 representative, Katye Campbell. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a problem with it being backwards because it\u2019s Japanese, and it was a literal translation,\u201d Campbell stated, after adding that she wouldn\u2019t defend the manga either on the grounds that she thought it was \u201ckinda stupid\u201d. It\u2019s worth noting this was a split vote. Jennifer Jenkins, representative of District 5, disagreed with Wright\u2019s comments. \u201cI am not comfortable removing a book because we don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s being read in the opposite direction,\u201d she said, pointing a risk of potential legal blowback. In January of this year, a case was brought forward against Escambia County School Board, another part of Florida, for removing books in a way that violated First Amendment rights to free speech. PEN America, Penguin Random House, parents, and a selection of impacted authors are behind the legal action. Campbell argues the context is different in this case, and the motion goes through three votes to two. Jenkins expressed her unhappiness on X\/Twitter, writing: \u201cToday in Brevard County we banned a book because our chair couldn\u2019t understand why a Japanese translation was being read from right to left. Well that & she accidentally said the LGBTQ relationship was \u2018inappropriate\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LGBTQ+ manga banned in Florida county schools for being \u201cinappropriate\u201d CrunchyrollSasaki and Miyano, a popular queer manga, has been banned in schools in Brevard County, Florida, because the contents have been deemed not appropriate for young readers. Kicking off in 2016, Sasaki and Miyano has received 10 volumes so far, following the titular relationship between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}