Not all anti-gay sentiment comes as blatantly and proudly packaged as Orson Scott Card’s bigotry. Much of it is more subtle and less personal. “I’m sure I don’t have problems with gay people, but we both know we have to deal with people who aren’t so enlightened.” Or something.
Whatever it is, authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith have just had a run-in with it over a young adult novel they wrote together.
Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki’s romance, like the heterosexual ones in the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.
An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us.
The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation.
Rachel replied, “Making a gay character straight is a line in the sand which I will not cross. That is a moral issue. I work with teenagers, and some of them are gay. They never get to read fantasy novels where people like them are the heroes, and that’s not right.”
[…]
LGBTQ teenagers already get told this. They are four times more likely than straight teenagers to attempt suicide We’re not saying that the absence of LGBTQ teens in YA sf and fantasy novels is the reason for that. But it’s part of the overall social prejudice that does cause that killing despair.
We wrote this novel so that the teenagers we know – some of whom are gay, and many of whom are not white – would be able, for once, to read a fun post-apocalyptic adventure in which they are the heroes. And we were told that such a thing could not be allowed.
What they did afterward was pretty epic. First, they modified the book to add more gay. Then, they set out to determine how widespread the problem is in publishing. They are collecting author stories of similar treatment, pseudonymously as necessary, since publishing is such a tiny business. And they offer suggestions for editors and readers who want to counter the idea that they don’t want gay in their YA.
Go find out what you can do to help make sure the gatekeepers know they’re not speaking for you.
Lets see – first characters who posess characteristic “X” portrayed in a positive light are excluded from a literary genre. This means that those who enjoy seeing characteristic “X” displayed in a positive light will find their enjoyment of this genre diminished and over time will have less to do with the genre. This then justifies the continued exclusion on the grounds that there is just no demand …
Thanks for pointing this out – totally going to get involved!
Good to hear, James.
The extra stupid thing about this, Didaktylos, is that we’re talking about young adult fiction. That would be the demographic that is most accepting when it comes to LGBTQIEtc. They’re going to be least turned off to books with gay characters and most upset that books don’t reflect the world they know.
I gotta say, my VERY FIRST exposure to homosexuality was in a Mercedes Lackey YA novel. (well, ok no. I grew up in a theatre company. But it was the first time I saw it in literature). It was incredibly eye opening (also I loved the Vanyel trilogy! I have no idea if it’s still as good as I remember), really challenging all the stereotypes that were being flung my way from growing up in the Southern middle of nowhere. It’s important to keep characters of all types, all races, all sexual orientations and identifications in YA lit, not just for LGBTQ (though they certainly need it most), but for all young adults. I find it really sad that publishers would do stuff like that.
I want to read that book!
I got the feeling, as a teenager, that YA fiction was concerned about what the kids’ parents would think when they read the back of the book. Even the books that were about queer issues, like Blue Lawn and Trying Hard to Hear You, didn’t usually mention it in the blurbs on the back or inside flap, or show anything romantic on the cover. Mind, these are books you are never going to like, or read past maybe chapter 2, if you have a problem with teh ghey. They have no reason to hide from their readers. In Lackey’s Vanyel books, for example, Van’s love interests Tylendel and Stefan don’t appear on the covers or in any plot summaries, even though the books are more a love story than a fantasy adventure. If you were actively looking for LGBTQ books, like I was, you had to get really good at spotting the subtle hints of what the book was going to really be about.
I loved The Last Herald Mage trilogy. One of my all time vavorite stories. A far better love conquers all story than most of the schlock you find.
[…] Unfortunately it is apparently not so acceptable for heroes who are stricken with Teh Gay; […]
The adding more gay part is my favorite bit here. ^_^
Silent Service, I just reread all my Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey. (Had time on my hands, recovering from surgery. Needed light reading.) She has gay characters throughout those books, always presented in a non-judgmental way, working through complex and ordinary relationships just like the straight characters.