Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Books about the lives of queer people are

often the ones targeted by conservative groups. Of course, that's never the stated reason in a bit.

We'll hear from Maya Kobe, whose book Gender Queer is one of the most banned books out there.

One of the reasons, on paper at least, is for its sexually explicit material.

We'll hear more about it in sec. But first, Beyond Magenta by Susan Cucklin takes a more

anthropological approach to teens and gender identity. For her book, she talked to young

trans teens and crafted a candid and genuine look at their lives. And Cucklin tells NPR Steve Inskeep that most of the complaints about the book aren't about

gender identity, but will be about someone, say, talking about how they were sexually abused

and so the book gets deemed as explicit.

And it's interesting to hear her talk about a story that she took as an inspiring message

of survival and see it get twisted into something else.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of

real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and

methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. We've been reading some banned books.

There works that people try to get out of public schools and libraries. In our coverage, we've heard from school boards and parents and now, we've been reading some banned books. There works that people try to get out of public schools and libraries.

In our coverage, we've heard from school boards and parents, and now we're hearing from writers.

Photojournalist Susan Cookland wrote a book that has banned in 11 school districts and has been challenged or debated in more.

I've always been interested in topics of social justice. I've been writing about these things for years. I've written about immigrants and teen pregnancy and teenagers on death row and human rights and prejudice. So this was sort of a natural evolution into a need that wasn't talked about at the time.

The need she perceived a decade ago was to understand young transgender people.

So she found and interviewed six young people about their lives.

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