A new report on the “market for queer stories” reveals that both the president’s impact on the culture war and how pulling away the supports of indoctrination forced the industry into “stepping back.”
Fond of deeming government-run school-age appropriate library curation “book banning,” despite that content earning prime display space at major retailers, gender ideologues have been in the throes of despair since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Specifically, it appears the alphabet activist gravy train connecting publishers to schools and libraries has derailed.
“This is the first year in like a decade that I’ve had [rejection] responses from editors specifically citing that it’s difficult to place queer books in stores, and they’re being selective about acquiring queer stories,” Neighborhood Literary senior literary agent Rebecca Podos told The Hill as the outlet reported on the president’s impact on the industry via opposition to Marxist indoctrination.
Similarly, young adult (YA) novelist Dahlia Adler, who runs the website LGBTQ Reads, expressed, “[Publishers] are going to invest in books that are safely going to go on shelves, that are not going to get banned, that are not going to have this kind of controversy.”
“I just feel like they’re stepping back,” added Adler.
Author Adib Khorram attributed a 70% decline in royalties to so-called book bans and lamented that, “Many queer authors have had to diversify their writing and income stream in order to make ends meet in the last few years.”
Likewise, Levine Querido publishing house founder Arthur Levine inadvertently acknowledged that the market had been artificially propped up by those pushing indoctrination on school children, as he said the environment discouraging sales to their libraries “threatens entire lists.”
Within days of returning to the White House, Trump signed an executive order to end indoctrination in schools for grades K-12, asserting, “Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights laws in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority.”
🚨 President Trump has signed an executive order to end radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling and re-establish the 1776 Commission to promote Patriotic Education. pic.twitter.com/Ij58HCs4Qw
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 29, 2025
Little more than a month later, the president and First Lady Melania Trump released a statement marking National Read Across America Day that affirmed, “Literacy is a critical component of personal growth, success, and leading lives of happiness and fulfillment, which is why we are fully committed to promoting reading and ensuring America’s children receive the outstanding education they deserve.”
“This really feels like it’s been the first backwards step in terms of publishing, worrying that they can’t access enough readers because of sort of broad cultural concerns about queer content,” Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Vice President Jim McCarthy told The Hill.
“I can’t imagine that five or 10 years ago, I would have received a response like the one I received,” he said having expressed an editor had passed on a project because of decreased school library sales thanks to efforts like that of Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) who were at the front of the fight against indoctrination during then-President Joe Biden’s administration with the Parental Rights in Education Act.
Of course, known for toying with language to advance an agenda, ideologues appeared to be employing that tactic now as Adler expressed of the book promotions, “I think it’s less explicit, particularly in YA, when a book is queer, in the announcements.”
The novelist added, “I think that language is kind of being more intentionally left out to keep it from being a target,” and suggested,
“I think queerness in big books is very largely being buried by publishers, not necessarily by authors.”
“I feel like that’s kind of my biggest takeaway of this round of the Trump administration. [Publishers] are not necessarily being loud about the fact that they did buy them,” argued Adler, “and they’re letting people find out they’re queer in other ways.”
Reactions to the report saw through the sob story to dollars and cents and reminded, in part, “The books would do fine if people wanted to read them.”
The books would do fine if people wanted to read them.
But we don’t.
Can’t blame the industry failing on it no longer being propped up by activists using government funding & schools.— ann_onimous (@ann_omynous) January 11, 2026
Public funds should not be used on LGBTQ ideology. With the threat of not sending funds to schools that teach LGBTQ, then of course the book companies will stop printing them.
— Bigly47 (@bigly47) January 12, 2026
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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