The most banned author in America refuses to be silenced

When U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican, read a graphic passage from All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto aloud during a 2023 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing — using his Southern drawl to recite lines about lube and sex in a tone somewhere between theater and scorn — he may have thought he was embarrassing George M. Johnson. But Johnson, the author of one of the most-banned books in America, saw something else entirely.

“It affected me, sure,” they say. “But it also put the book in places it never would’ve reached. Someone out there saw that clip, ordered the book, and found a story they didn’t know they needed.”

Published in 2020, All Boys Aren’t Blue was always meant to be more than a memoir. It was, as the subtitle declares, a manifesto. “I knew it was special,” Johnson says. “But I couldn’t have predicted it would become the center of a national conversation about censorship, education, and the erasure of queer Black truth.”

'Boys Aren't Blue' by George M. Johnson

The backlash was swift and relentless. But it didn’t stop Johnson. Last September, they released Flamboyants, a vibrant reclamation of Black queer historical figures who have too often been remembered only in part — if at all. “It was exciting because I got to find heroes for myself,” Johnson says. Johnson discovered people they didn’t learn about while growing up “because their queerness was erased.”

Flamboyants is rooted in the rich, radical legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, a period too frequently flattened in textbooks and stripped of its queer brilliance.

“Black queer people shaped the Harlem Renaissance,” Johnson says. “They were in the music, in the fashion, in the literature, but history sanitized that part.”

From Josephine Baker to Gladys Bentley, Langston Hughes to Jimmy Daniels, Flamboyants celebrates what Johnson calls “our Avengers” — a lineage of Black queer luminance too powerful to ignore. Daniels, a less well-known cabaret performer and actor of the Harlem arts scene, left the most profound impression on Johnson. “He wasn’t the first or the most famous. But he opened doors,” Johnson says. “So much of what I’ve been able to do was made possible by people the world never knew. That’s what he represents.”

'Boys Aren't Blue' author George M. JohnsonVincent Marc

Seeing elements of that legacy reimagined recently at this year’s Met Gala in May under the theme of “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” — elements like Bentley’s tuxedo or Baker’s curls — felt like a moment of affirmation. “It felt full circle,” Johnson says. “And I get to help people understand what they’re seeing.”

That sense of lineage, of memory recovered and futures reimagined, is at the heart of Johnson’s work. “There’s no point in telling the past if you can’t connect it to the present,” they say. “And no point in talking about today if you can’t offer a vision for what’s next.”

Johnson isn’t naïve about the moment we’re in. As a nonbinary writer, they’ve watched in real time as the Trump administration and its allies attempt to strip nonbinary and transgender people from federal recognition entirely. “It’s strange,” they say. “Erasing an identity doesn’t erase the person. They don’t even seem to understand what they’re fighting — just that they hate the word.”

Yet for Johnson, hopelessness isn’t the end. It’s fuel.

“Hope can be passive. Hopelessness forces action,” they say. “Stonewall didn’t happen because people hoped it would get better. It happened because they knew it wouldn’t — unless they did something.”

With that philosophy and purpose, Johnson continues to write. To remember. To reclaim. Because no matter how many lawmakers try to silence them, they’re not going anywhere.

“They can ban the book,” Johnson says. “But they can’t ban the story. And they damn sure can’t ban us.”

This article is part of The Advocate's July/Aug 2025 issue, on newsstands now. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader.