Index on Censorship reports that 53% of school librarians have been asked to remove LGBTQ+ books from their shelves.

In an Index survey of UK school librarians, 53% of respondents said they had been asked to remove books, with more than half of those requests coming from parents.

Of those, 56% removed the book or books in question. Titles included This Book Is Gay, by Juno Dawson; Julián is a Mermaid, by Jessica Love; and the alphabet book ABC Pride, by Louie Stowell, Elly Barnes and Amy Phelps, as well as plenty of other titles featuring LGBT+ content.

Manga comic books were removed in some schools because of the perceived sexualisation of characters, other books following complaints about explicit or violent content.

Books challenged in several schools – but ultimately not removed – included various Heartstopper books by Alice Oseman, which were accused of homophobic language, swearing and self-harm discussions. Young adult fiction also came under fire in many schools, with librarians usually able to hold firm in keeping their collections.

One was asked to remove a book for “racism against white people”. They did not comply with the request.

It’s a relatively small sample but it does demonstrate that yet another hateful right-wing US culture war tactic is crossing the Atlantic. And it’s a chilling echo of the 1980s, when a right-wing moral panic over a queer book resulted in the hateful Section 28, an anti-LGBTQ+ law that stayed on the statute books until the 2000s.