Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms

About this book

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleading squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend Bebe is a people-pleaser, a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life in order to maintain their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped-up social pressures (not to mention microaggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.

Censorship history

In 2024, "Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms" by Crystal Frasier faced bans at the school level across several districts in the United States due to its LGBTQ+ content. Notably, in states like Texas and Florida, school boards voted to remove the book from libraries and curricula following complaints from parents and advocacy groups opposing its themes. These actions reflect a broader trend of censorship targeting LGBTQ+ literature in educational settings, with many schools citing concerns over appropriateness for students. The bans have sparked ongoing debates and challenges, with some districts still contesting the removals.

Bans

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