Key Points
- Gender Queer's classification review is on hold indefinitely.
- The book was under review from the classification board.
- A large numer of community submissions were sent in.
Award-winning memoir as a review of its age restriction is postponed indefinitely.
The Classifications Review Board confirmed on Thursday that a second review of the controversial graphic novel has been delayed due to a large number of community submissions.
"Due to the volume of submissions received, the convenor of the Classifications Review Board has determined that the review is sufficiently complex that it can not be concluded by 22 June," a spokesman for the board told AAP.
Gender Queer: A Memoir is the first literary work in ten years to be referred to the Classification Board for review.
Maia Kobabe's illustrated memoir was initially classified as "unrestricted" by the Classifications Board in April with advice that it was not recommended for readers under 15 years of age.
"The Board noted that some content within this autobiographical text may offend some sections of the adult community and may not be suitable for younger readers," Director of the Classification Board, Fiona Jolly said in a statement.
Despite this decision, conservative commentator Bernard Gaynor has lobbied for a total ban of the book.
"Gender Queer promotes and depicts paedophilia. Under existing interpretations of Australian law, the only option is for this book to be refused classification," he said.
"This book is not appropriate for anyone, let alone 15-year-old children."
There is no suggestion the book promotes paedophilia.
Its critics have singled out images representing the author’s evolving understanding of gender and sexuality as a teenager and young adult, including a drawing of them and a girlfriend experimenting with a strap-on sex toy, and another of them fantasizing about two men having sex.
Gender Queer is banned across conservative parts of the United States.
The memoir joins the ranks of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and Dave Pilkey's Captain Underpants series, earning the American Library Association's title of Most Challenged Book of 2022.
The Classifications Board will hand down a final decision later in the year.
Gender Queer has won the 2020 ALA Alex Award and a 2020 Stonewall Book Award.
“When you remove those books from the shelf or you challenge them publicly in a community, what you’re saying to any young person who identified with that narrative is, ‘We don’t want your story here’,” Kobabe told US media about the book's controversy there.
The author is now "deeply worried about the rise of fascism in our country".
"Whenever people start to ban books, especially by minority voices, that’s a warning sign, a canary in the coal mine of dangerous political times."
In Queensland, Gender Queer has been removed from shelves in Logan City Council libraries, following a similar appeal from councillor Scott Bannan and commentator Mr Gaynor.
Mr Gaynor claimed the book was pornographic and said he would succeed in having it "removed from Logan City Council libraries altogether."
