Something troubling is happening to our collective memory. While we debate which books belong in schools and libraries, entire swaths of human experience are vanishing from the literary record. The recent passage of HR 2616 — a federal "don't say trans" bill — represents just one front in a broader war over whose stories get to survive.
But this isn't just about politics. It's about the fundamental question of how literature preserves human experience across time, and what happens when those preservation systems start breaking down.
Look at what's actually being preserved versus what's being erased. Project Gutenberg continues to digitize works like Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Moving the Mountain" — a 1911 feminist utopian novel that imagined radical social change. Meanwhile, contemporary voices documenting current struggles face systematic removal from educational spaces.