The tattoos on Jen Cousins’ arms speak to literacy and how books can take us on trips across strange and extraordinary universes: an owl for wisdom, a drawing from the novel “Wonder,” multicolored glasses from Harry Potter and a saying from one of her children: “The world is only what you shape it to be.”
But as any Hogwarts wizard knows, and as Cousins, a mother with a defiant streak, was quick to discover, many forces are conspiring to shape the world.
At a school board meeting here two years ago, her ideas clashed with those of conservative parents and a Proud Boys member who called for “Gender Queer,” a graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe about sexual identity, to be pulled from library shelves.
“This is the 21st century. We don’t ban books, right?” said Cousins, recalling that day when school board members “freaked out” over the memoir’s depictions of sexual acts that she said were taken out of context. “It was even more personal to me because my child, who was 12 at the time, had just come out as non-binary. I gave them ‘Gender Queer’ after that so they could find acceptance and confirmation and know they were not alone.”