diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index 8d8f784..4ea2f59 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ jobs:
   build_asan:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     env:
-      PYTHON_VERSION: "3.8"
+      PYTHON_VERSION: "3.12"
     steps:
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@v4
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
-        python: ["3.8", "3.9", "3.10", "3.11"]
+        python: ["3.9", "3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
         os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-13, windows-latest]
     runs-on: ${{matrix.os}}
     steps:
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 4994637..e2cfa21 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ classifiers = [
     "Topic :: Text Processing :: Linguistic",
     "Typing :: Typed",
 ]
-requires-python = ">=3.8,<3.12"
+requires-python = ">=3.9"
 readme = "README.md"
 
 [project.urls]
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ name = "Max Brunsfeld"
 email = "maxbrunsfeld@gmail.com"
 
 [tool.ruff]
-target-version = "py38"
+target-version = "py39"
 line-length = 100
 indent-width = 4
 extend-exclude = [
diff --git a/tree_sitter/binding.c b/tree_sitter/binding.c
index 427a75b..a12fd14 100644
--- a/tree_sitter/binding.c
+++ b/tree_sitter/binding.c
@@ -102,14 +102,6 @@ typedef struct {
     PyTypeObject *lookahead_names_iterator_type;
 } ModuleState;
 
-#if PY_MINOR_VERSION < 9
-static ModuleState *global_state = NULL;
-static ModuleState *PyType_GetModuleState(PyTypeObject *obj) { return global_state; }
-static PyObject *PyType_FromModuleAndSpec(PyObject *module, PyType_Spec *spec, PyObject *bases) {
-    return PyType_FromSpecWithBases(spec, bases);
-}
-#endif
-
 // Point
 
 static PyObject *point_new(TSPoint point) {
@@ -2933,10 +2925,11 @@ static struct PyModuleDef module_definition = {
     .m_methods = module_methods,
 };
 
+// TODO(0.24): drop Python 3.9 support
 #if PY_MINOR_VERSION > 9
 #define AddObjectRef PyModule_AddObjectRef
 #else
-// simulate PyModule_AddObjectRef for pre-Python 3.10
+// simulate PyModule_AddObjectRef for Python 3.9
 static int AddObjectRef(PyObject *module, const char *name, PyObject *value) {
     if (value == NULL) {
         PyErr_Format(PyExc_SystemError, "PyModule_AddObjectRef() %s == NULL", name);
@@ -3011,9 +3004,6 @@ PyMODINIT_FUNC PyInit__binding(void) {
         goto cleanup;
     }
 
-#if PY_MINOR_VERSION < 9
-    global_state = state;
-#endif
     return module;
 
 cleanup: