Posted in: Comics, Oni Press | Tagged: gender queer, police

Republican Candidate Reported To Police Over Possessing Gender Queer

Published Thu, 01 Sep 2022 07:58:14 -0500

Rayla Campbell, is the Republican candidate who is in the running to be Secretary of State for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Like a number of Republican candidates, as noted by CBLDF's Interim Director Jeff Trexler, she has been using the possibility of the graphic novel Gender Queer and other books concerning sexuality and identity being in high school libraries as a call to arms, whether it has anything to do with her campaign or not.

Last week, Rayla Campbell took that campaign to a "Back the Blue" rally in Plymouth, Massachusetts. During the event, she brandished the graphic novel Gender Queer and called it child pornography.

And it seems that as a result, someone in the crowd decided to cause a little mischief and reported Rayla Campbell to one of the many police officers in attendance for possessing child pornography. The video of a police officer checking it out, while she is being jeered, made it to TikTok. Because of course it did.

@marcusjohn_
Is a transphobe and homophobe running for office in MA #massachusetts #raylacambell #ma #politics #police #predator #backtheblue #blm #liberal #creep

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The Plymouth police department told Newsweek "an anonymous person accused her of holding a book containing child pornography. Officer asked to view it and she showed him the book. Officer found no child pornography in the book. She was not detained nor was she or her car searched." So according to the Plymouth police department, Gender Queer is not child pornography. That could be useful to someone. Especially anyone going up against Rayla Campbell over this.

Previously, Campbell protested a drag queen story hour held in library in Holbrook over the Gender Queer book, and filmed it on Facebook, as parents and activists trying to shield children from her. Rayla Campbell is the only Republican on the ballot for the upcoming primary this week. she is expected to run against the incumbent Democrat candidate William Galvin or his Democrat challenger Tanisha Sullivan.

Last year Bleeding Cool began reporting on challenges being made to public libraries and school libraries over the stocking of Gender Queer: A Graphic Memoir by Maia Kobabe, which have since spread across the country. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's current Interim Director, Jeff Trexler stated that challenges to this comic had become a hot point and were being weaponised for political gain. He told ICV2; "I mentioned the parent in Virginia who went viral after talking about this. Then, that became the heart of the Youngkin campaign. One could say that the protest of Gender Queer became the hub or the foundation of a movement that ended up getting the Republican Governor of Virginia elected". Since then, obscenity lawsuits against Oni Press and Maia Kobabe have been filed by lawyer Republican Virginia assembly delegate Tim Anderson on behalf of himself and Republican congressional candidate Tommy Altman citing an obscure state obscenity law, though were recently dismissed. There are still plenty of challenges and pushbacks across the USA, and a number of Republican candidates are using the graphic novel as a hot-button discussion point.