Two younger women or older teens stand with their arms around each other, holding small rainbow flags. The person on the left is Black, the one on the right is Asian.
By LightFieldStudios at Envato Elements.

Banned or not, books should have queer and trans characters that reflect some of the following diversity:

  • Sexual orientation
  • Gender identity
  • Race and ethnicity
  • Class
  • Age/ generation/ life stage
  • Education level
  • Geography (including local community, state, country, and rurality/ urbanity)
  • Disability
    • Developmental
    • Mental
    • Physical
    • Mental health status
  • Neurodiversity
  • Nationality
  • Immigration status
  • Language(s) spoken
  • Political affiliation
  • And on and on.

There are great book suggestions in the adult resources section and more recommendations in the youth resources section.

"It became even more difficult to explain to my family about transgender individuals, and coming out to them was rough when the terms used in the queer community did not exist in the language my parents spoke. There was also discussion of whether or not I was only trans because I was too 'Americanized.'"
"Being LGBTQ+ doesn't protect me from Asian-related discrimination within the LGBTQ+ community. Being Asian doesn't protect me from experiencing transphobia/ homophobia from other Asians. And not being Christian also adds to feeling excluded from other Asians because there's many Asians in my community who go to church; enough so that there's many churches that are specific to an ethnicity (ex. Vietnamese churches, Korean churches, etc.)."
"im a mixed latino (mexican dominican) nonbinary lesbian, i constantly feel like i dont belong anywhere, and yet thats all the more reason to realize 'hey, i can literally fit in everywhere.'"

"I am fat, which affects the way my gender is perceived as well as how I express it. Fatness is treated as a 'wrong' way for a body to be, which means I will always be performing gender somewhat 'wrong'. In addition, fat people are often not considered attractive unless they are performing hypermasculinity or hyperfemininity, which I do think on some level affects my presentation.

"I am also neurodivergent. The arbitrary constructs and rules of gender don't really make much sense or map onto how I naturally exist in part because of my neurodivergence."