“It’s a free country” is a simple, casual phrase, usually used to justify something you were told not to do. It’s become commonplace in American culture, quoting the First Amendment freedoms as the rationale for our actions. Children say the phrase on the playground, even though they don’t really understand its meaning. It’s mentioned between friends before a poor — and likely avoidable — decision, and it comes from a bigot before something racist spews from their mouth.
Most of the time, it’s just a joke embedded with patriotic pride in the right to free speech, even though for some Americans, freedom is either out of reach or soon to be taken away. Censorship in the United States is nothing new, but in the current political climate, the word “censorship” is thrown around quite a bit. This upsurge in modern conversation on the subject brings into question what exactly censorship is and how it impacts the greater, national community.
Censorship is school boards and local governments banning books because of their LGBTQ+ content, the subject of five of the top 10 most challenged books of 2021, according to the American Library Association. Censorship is legislation that limits the expression of sexual orientation or gender expression, such as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Censorship is the restriction of certain forms of self-expression, such as the Kentucky bill that limits where drag shows can be held and the more than 150 other bills across 25 states that target people who are transgender.
The problem is getting worse. There’s a rising number of book bans across the U.S., and demands to censor particular books in libraries doubled from 2021 to 2022. Since the signing of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill a little over a year ago, similar legislation followed suit. The plague of censorship is following individuals from their classrooms to their workplaces to the city streets: It seems as if there is no place in American society free from these oppressively harmful political tactics.
Lawmakers, particularly Republicans, continue to push legislation that silences people in communities that they choose not to understand or listen to, a decision that directly impacts the sanctity of democracy. In using censorship as a political tool, such politicians are able to elevate their power over communities that are already systemically underprivileged, underrepresented and undervalued.
No one wins in that system. It doesn’t help anyone to create a society that is afraid to step outside of the box set up by those in positions of privilege and power. No one wins when people are afraid to fully express themselves. The censorship of marginalized communities, histories and livelihoods encourages rhetoric that is close-minded and breeds a population of people that are unwilling to experience societal change.
Due to these broad, negative social characteristics, more and more members of marginalized groups are being confronted by damaging speech or actions. In 2016, one in four people in the LGBTQ+ community reported experiencing some form of discrimination. Kids in the LGBTQ+ community are feeling erased in their classrooms, and the effects of discrimination are associated with harm to the physical and emotional health of LGBTQ+ people.
In 2020, about 72% of Americans responded that homosexuality should be accepted, an increase from 49% in 2007. A possible overestimate of the sentiments around the community was found in a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that the size of the LGBTQ+ population as well as the magnitude of anti-gay sentiment go underreported in data collection surveys, as some respondents will respond with the answer they think to be most socially acceptable rather than the truth. This failure to gain proper statistical evidence is not only harmful to social science literature on the issue, but also decreases the ability to approach the subject with its rightful care.
In order to decrease the amount of discrimination that members of the LGBTQ+ community face and put an end to the anti-gay rhetoric, censorship of this community, their literature and their lifestyles can’t continue. There has to be representation and the ability for self-expression so that people can learn and understand the community, rather than see it as something taboo.
One study estimates that 3.8% of adults in the United States identify within the LGBT community, which equates to about 9 million people. These are the people that end up losing out when we censor and hide certain content. They are the people that will continue to navigate a world where their existence is deemed inappropriate, as they are nine times more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime, a statistic that is not helped by legislation that paints the LGBTQ+ community as the villain.
It’s a free country after all, but only if you don’t say “gay.”
Jamie Murray is an Opinion Columnist that writes about American politics and interpersonal relations. She can be reached at jamiemu@umich.edu.