On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, PEN America recognizes the voices of trans and other gender nonconforming authors and the stories they contribute to the world. Today, and every day, gender expression is free expression.
In recent years, the trans community has been subject to an ongoing silencing campaign that continues to gain momentum. In schools and libraries, trans voices and stories have been a consistent target of those trying to ban books. In its 2023-2024 book ban report, PEN America found that a quarter (25%) of all banned titles included LGBTQ+ people or characters. Of these titles, over a quarter (28%) feature trans and/or genderqueer characters.
In 2025, the targeting of the self-expression and representation of trans people has grown in severity. At the federal level, President Trump’s anti-trans executive order in January has since sparked a range of repressive restrictions on trans individuals, including the removals of trans content from schools and libraries. One Tennessee library closed its doors for a week to “adhere to Trump[’s] ‘gender ideology’ order” and the DoDEA pulled hundreds of books from military school shelves. At the state level, laws across the country are stifling speech affirming students’ chosen names and pronouns; one South Carolina library used an anti-trans law there to justify removing a book, too. In Florida, meanwhile, a tweet from the Education Commissioner was enough for a superintendent to remove trans books from school shelves.
And today, the Alabama Public Library Service Board is set to vote on changes to the state library code, which would “force libraries to remove and ban books with ‘positive portrayals’ of transgender people, gender nonconformity, or more than two genders.” While it remains to be seen what happens with this vote, it is yet another alarming bellwether in the growing campaign against trans stories.
The effect of all these actions is to significantly chill gender expression in schools, libraries, and beyond. As PEN America wrote in 2015:
“The heart of free expression is self-expression. This includes the right of individuals to inhabit and represent their own authentic identity, and to share their experiences with others. The right to make free, open choices about how to live and how to identify oneself publicly is central to individuals’ ability to advocate for their own rights and take part in political and social debates that affect them. . . . Laws that ban the expression of one’s own identity, or support for others who do so, stifle democratic debate and the free exchange of information and opinions.”
PEN America President Jennifer Finney Boylan opened the 2025 PEN America Literary Gala with the following remarks:
“There are still transgender people in this country, and we are real. And there are queer and nonbinary people in this country, and they are real… Every last soul in America is real. No one can be erased just because others close their eyes, or, worse, attempt to ban the books that contain the stories about their lives…”
In the face of continued hate towards trans and gender nonforming people in the United States, PEN America affirms our commitment to our trans community members. We are proud to fight for the freedom for all to express our true selves in the world without fear of censorship or violence. And when the powers that be threaten that right, we will fight back.
