The Australian classifications review board has been ordered to review its assessment of the book Gender Queer, after the federal court found the board had ignored, overlooked or misunderstood public submissions for it to be censored.
Last year, the Classification Review Board rejected calls to restrict access to a memoir about gender identity that was the target of conservative campaigns to have it banned in the US, and found the content was appropriate for its intended audience.
Rightwing activist Bernard Gaynor had applied to the board early last year to review the classification of the graphic novel-style memoir about gender identity by writer Maia Kobabe.
Complaints about the book – which details Kobabe’s experience coming out as non-binary – are focused on the cartoon images of sex scenes, one of which has been described by critics seeking a ban as “pornographic” and “paedophilic”.
After a review of the classification last year, including seeking comment from the public, the board kept the original classification as unrestricted, with the consumer advice of “M – not recommended for readers under 15 years”. Gaynor appealed against the ruling to the federal court.
Gaynor’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, argued there was a “broadbrush dismissal” of submissions the board claimed were anti-LGBTQ+. Walker said many of them objected to what they saw as depicting a man having sex with a minor – referring to an image portraying Plato’s Symposium.
Walker said many of those objections did not refer to the gender of the image’s subjects, just that it appeared to depict paedophilia.
In his ruling quashing the board’s decision on Monday, Justice Ian Jackman agreed with Walker’s argument.
“The fundamental flaw in that submission is that, as I have said above, the Review Board’s description of the public submissions overwhelmingly being ‘broadly anti-LGBTQIA+’ demonstrates that the review board ignored, overlooked or misunderstood those submissions,” he said.
“In light of that finding, the review board’s view that the submissions contained little or no evidence that the writers had read the publication, understood the content within the context of the publication, or failed to demonstrate engagement with the publication also proceed from, and are infected by, the review board having ignored, overlooked or misunderstood the submissions.”
Jackman said only 66 of the 576 submissions opposing the classification “can be rationally treated” as anti-LGBTQ, and that was not an overwhelming number as the board had said.
“Only about 11.5% of the public submissions by number, and less than 1% of the individuals who made submissions, can thus be described as ‘broadly anti-LGBTQIA+’ … The majority of the review board whose reasons were published in the decision cannot have read and understood the public submissions in expressing the view that they did.”
Jackman ordered the previous classifications decision to be quashed, for the review board to reclassify the book, and for the government to pay Gaynor’s costs.
In the US, Gender Queer is one of the most challenged books in libraries. Kobabe told the ABC in May that the US push to ban the book had been frustrating and that the depiction of Plato’s Symposium had been included as it was the only gay-themed texts Kobabe had encountered in college.
Kobabe had said that the book would likely have been challenged even without the images that were the focus of this case.
“I think that the challenges are coming from a place of people just trying to limit queer, trans and non-binary voices in the public sphere,” Kobabe said.
“And I think the fact that my book has the title Gender Queer, I think the fact that it’s a comic, I think the fact that it’s won several major literary awards in the United States, and also that it is a happy story.
“It is a story of acceptance. It is a story of coming out. And in the story, I face no negative consequences to coming out.”
