Stereotypes
It wasn’t long ago that you’d be hard pressed to find a YA book with a gay character in it all. We’ve come a long way. Yet there’s still a long way to go.
While gay characters are represented in YA fiction, far too often they are stereotypes, there to provide an appearance of diversity without actually being fully realized characters. How often does a female YA protagonist have a quirky, funny, gay best friend? This is a great character because it’s a male presence, but one without any threat associated with him. Then there’s the sporty lesbian, another stereotype that is overused in YA fiction. The gay boy in musical theatre… The list goes on.
It’s important that we move away from casting gay characters into these roles. There are as many different gay characters as there are straight characters, and just like straight people, gay people don’t want to be defined solely by their sexuality.
Because YA literature deals with that messy, awkward, uncertain period of life where you’re discovering yourself and making choices about who you are and where you fit into the world, sexuality does play a big part. This is the time in life where you start having sexual feelings and experiences. It’s a time for experimenting and figuring out. So it’s no big surprise that the bulk of YA stories that deal with gay characters are coming out stories.
There is definitely room for more of these stories – my own book is one – but at the same time, I think it’s important that we see stories with gay characters where the focus is not on their sexuality exclusively. Stories where it’s incidental that our protagonist has a same-sex partner.
As we move into a time where homosexuality is more accepted and where gay people have the same legal and social rights as everyone else, I hope these books will start showing up on shelves. It would be nice to read a book with gay characters where their sexuality is not remarked on or their behavior judged by other characters.
YA books are so important because they provide a window through which young readers can see themselves and people like themselves. So let’s give these readers real, wholly realized characters who live their lives and face their problems without remarking on who they slept with last night.
An Unstill Life
Things at home are rough for fifteen-year-old Livvie Quinn. Jules, her beloved older sister is sick again after being cancer free for almost ten years. Her mom becomes more frantic and unapproachable every day. School isn’t much better. Just when she needs them most, her closest friends get boyfriends and have little time for Livvie – except to set her up on a series of disastrous blind dates.
Livvie seeks refuge in the art room and finds Bianca, the school ‘freak’. Free-spirited and confident, Bianca is everything Livvie isn’t. Shaken by her mom’s desperation, her sister’s deteriorating condition, and abandoned by her friends, Livvie finds comfort and an attraction she never felt before with Bianca.
When their relationship is discovered, Livvie and Bianca become victims of persecution and bullying. School authorities won’t help and even forbid the pair to attend the Winter Formal as a couple. If Livvie defies them and goes, she risks expulsion and further ridicule from her classmates. At home, her mother’s behavior escalates to new levels of crazy and Jules is begging for help to end the pain once and for all.
While searching for the strength to make her life her own, Livvie must decide how far she’s willing to go for the people she loves.
Available NOW! Amazon, Musa Publishing, Smashwords, Nook
About The Author
Her short stories have appeared in Halfway Down The Stairs, A Fly in Amber, Daily Flash Anthology, The Barrier Islands Review, Everyday Fiction, Death Rattle, Drastic Measures, Cutlass & Musket and Residential Aliens, among others.
She has written eight contemporary YA novels, five of which other people are allowed to see. She has also written one very bad historical romance. She is currently working on a new YA novel that is still looking for a title other than its Twitter hashtag, #juvvielesbian.
Author Links Website: http://katelarkindale.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vampyr14
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4086706.Kate_Larkindale
Authenticity and the Coming Out Process
AUTHOR GUEST BLOG: J. Lee Graham
The coming out process, for people of all ages, always and forever will be, a transformational and sacred journey. It is not a one-time event. It is not always a giant party nor is it always a dramatic Act Three denouement. Often I see our society responding to splashy headlines of a celebrity who decides to come out and the tendency is to assume that that is all that ‘coming out’ means: a Public Relations moment that creates a five minute discussion at the supper table. By morning, all is forgotten.
I don’t believe that. Coming out is a lifelong exploration. It’s not a lifetime struggle or a lifetime millstone around one’s neck. It is a glorious unfolding that occurs again and again as we grow into our own authenticity. It empowers us. It unites us.
As a professional astrologer (www.mysticalisle.net), I have sessions with clients ages 16-82. Using the profound and beautiful metaphorical language of astrology and the archetypes they embrace, the client comes to uncover his own sense of authenticity. Gay or Straight, the ‘coming out’ and overcoming of one’s own limitations or perceived fears is a tremendously freeing experience. For my LGBT clients, the added benefits of discussing their own coming out stories, again, regardless of age, dovetails mystically with the new layers of authenticity they discover.
In my practice as a Reiki practitioner, the struggle for one’s authenticity can be found most strongly in the third Chakra. Using the parlance of Eastern Teachings, the different chakras have a different color associated with each and together they reflect the colors of the rainbow. The Third Chakra’s color is yellow and it is here, like the Vision Quest of the Native American, where we learn to become our own ‘warrior’. We define ourselves as separate from others and we step out into the world with a very healthy sense of security and confidence. Much research states that this third chakra is healthfully established during our teen years.
But what if it isn’t? What if, for reasons of fear and persecution or ridicule and shame, the chakra does not develop maturely? The coming out process does, in so many cases, strengthen our third chakra. We don’t have to be a teenager to do this. Often, we are older, but the illumination is the same. Somewhere, we stopped growing in this area. The coming out process, the journey to the light of authenticity is ongoing and glorious. We are given the chance to define our code of honor and our own integrity.
In my novel THE PROMISE OF LIVING, 16-year-old Ryan Colton lives in rural New Hampshire and has his own coming out experience and I wanted to create a dual path: having Ryan discover his own sexuality as well as his own authenticity. It is not an easy path, but the strengthening that occurs, like the strength he feels in his body when he works on a farm, is arduous yet life-giving. Ryan’s journey is our journey.
What code of honor do we choose to create? What, as LGBT youth and adults, is our definition of integrity and how do we express that in our day-to-day lives? I wanted Ryan’s journey to be ongoing, for the coming out process not only emboldens us, but allows us to find our gifts and bless them, and, like the warrior on his Vision Quest, ultimately, bring them back and share them for the benefit of our mystical, powerful tribe.
THE PROMISE OF LIVING by J. Lee Graham can be found on Amazon and on Smashwords. Follow his blog at ww.jleegraham.blogspot.com
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YA Latina Lesbians: On Mayra Lazara Dole’s Down to the Bone
by Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez
Indeed, this is the case in Dole’s novel. Laura’s mother is particularly aggressive about not accepting Laura as a lesbian. The resistance and aversion that Laura feels from her mother, however, is very much tied to their Cuban-American culture. Because Laura sees her mother as an embodied representation of her Cuban-American heritage at the beginning of the novel she associates her mother’s homophobia with everything Cuban-American. In other words, the only way Laura knows how to escape the homophobia she experiences is by attempting to abandon her Cuban-American traditions. Throughout the novel there is definitely tension between Laura’s sexuality and her culture; her frustration stems from not knowing how to reconcile both parts of her. Interestingly, Laura’s mother uses the tradition of women needing financial security from men in order to justify her behavior towards her daughter. At the beginning of the novel, Laura remembers that as a child she brought home a book about two young girls that could potentially grow up to be romantically involved and her mother threw it away fear that Laura might be influenced by those ideas. Laura’s mother says: “Authors like these plant seeds in girls’ minds about choosing different lifestyles when they’re all grown up. Girls can do anything they set their mind to. You could be president, but no one will hire you for the job if you turn into a woman uninterested in men. I don’t want you transforming into one of those.” (11)[3] For Laura’s mother, gender is not an impediment for success; however, a woman’s sexual orientation can determine her access to things like employment. Again, it is important to point out that financial security is what matters to Laura’s mother. In this case, the homophobic arguments have little to do with procreation and religion and instead highlight issues of class and class mobility. The relationship between class and queer identity is something that also arises in other novels and films that center young adult Latina lesbian experiences.
What Night Brings (Curbstone Books, 2003)
In Carla Trujillo’s What Night Brings, for example, class plays a significant role in how eleven year old Marci understands her queer identity. Her father is an alcoholic and is physically abusive to his family; however, because they are financially dependent on him the mother refuses to leave. Marci is aware of the power dynamic between her parents and how her father yields more because he is the breadwinner. The violence that Marci witnesses and experiences at home happens simultaneous to her exploration of her sexuality. Marci knows that she likes girls but lacks the vocabulary and resources to understand that she does not have to be a man in order to legitimately do so. However, because of this lack of information she prays that God give her huevos, slang for male genitalia, so that she can defeat her father.[4] In other words, Marci sees huevos as an opportunity to have the power she sees men exert and in this way she will deconstruct the hierarchies that exist in her family due to their class status and ultimately be able protect her mother and finally be able to openly love women.
Mosquita y Mari (2012)
Similarly, in Aurora Guerrero’s film Mosquita y Mari[5] (2012) Mosquita and Mari’s relationship is threatened when Mari engages in intercourse with a man for money in order to help her mother pay the rent. The relationship between class and queer identity, in this case, is further complicated by the fact that Mari and her family are undocumented. Mosquita, unaware of any of this information, understands Mari’s actions as a betrayal of their relationship and she decides to date the young man that has been pursuing her. Mosquita and Mari’s relationship is a tender, intimate, and passionate friendship. Both of the young women are in a stage of self-discovery and find solace in on another and the special bond they have created. However, the innocence in their relationship and love for one another is quickly soiled by the realities and responsibilities their class statuses impose. Her family’s survival becomes Mari’s priority and she decides to do whatever she must in order to help them. Mosquita also finds that dating a young man comforts her parents and her friends, who were becoming resistant to her friendship with Mari. The various pressures of their class status in addition to Mari’s lack of class mobility collide with the young girls’ expression of their queer identity.
As Down to the Bone develops, it becomes more evident that class is something that significantly impacts the characters’ construction of their queer identity. Marlena, Laura’s (ex)girlfriend, is married off after her parents learn about her relationship with Laura. The marriage is understood as one that will financially protect Marlena as will cure her of her deviancy. Laura momentarily dates a young man and is invited back home by her mother. However, Laura realizes she does not want to engage in a false relationship in order to feel like she belongs and she is kicked out of her home once again. Overall, the novel presents an opportunity to create conversation about the experiences of young Latina lesbians. The novel reveals that class, as exemplified by the need for financial security, plays a substantial role in the construction of young Latina lesbians and the development of their queer identity. Down to the Bone also demonstrates that class issues vary within Latina/o communities. Laura, Marci, Mosquita, and Mari do not experience class in the same ways. That is to say, that just because the characters are all Latinas does not mean they experience the world in the same manner. These differences is one of the reasons why there is a dire need for more Gay YA novels that center Latina lesbian characters.
Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of California Riverside doing research in Latina/o Children’s and Young Adult Literature. When she’s not reading or writing about Latina/o kids lit she spends her time reacquainting herself with her home city of Chicago. She is also a contributing blogger for Latinos in Kids Lit. Follow her on twitter @mariposachula8
[1] Lazara Dole is the author of Drum, Chavi, Drum! (2003), Birthday in the Barrio (2004), and several short stories.Down to the Bone was first published in 2008.
[2] Other young adult books with Latina lesbian characters include Ellen Wittlinger’s Hard Love (2001) and Love & Lies: Marisol’s Story (2008) which describes Marisol Guzman’s tribulations with friendships and love. While Carla Trujillo’s What Night Brings (2003) is not a young adult book it is narrated by a queer Chicana child, Marci Cruz. The main character in self-identified white-Mexican E.E. Charlton-Trujillo’s Fat Angie (2013) is a young adult lesbian but her race or ethnicity is not clear. Finally, Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street (1984) is not a young adult novel but young Esperanza’s relationship with Sally has often provided queer readings.
[3] Dole, Mayra Lazara. Down to the Bone. NYC: Harper Teen & Bella Books, 2012. Print.
[4] Further discussions on What Night Brings are needed in order to talk about Marci as possibly being a transgender character.
[5] For more information on the film check out the film’s website at http://www.mosquitaymari.com/
[6] Image of book cover from http://mayraldole.wordpress.com/ [7] Image of What Night Brings from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/574267.What_Night_Brings
Industry Week Guest Blog: Anna Mickelsen
I’m not a young adult librarian, but I’m a longtime reader of young adult fiction, particularly stories that feature lesbian characters. As a reader, I can confirm that we’ve come a long way since the days of having to (as recently described by Mary at Queer Books Please) scour mainstream books for some hint of queer content. My coming of age and coming out was largely done in pre-internet days, when often the best you could do was manufacture your own subtext. Although it’s still inconsistent and problematic, YA fiction is increasingly diverse. According to the book Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Teens, five to six percent of American teens identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and eighty percent of teens know someone who does. For questioning teens, the public library should be a safe space in which they can to find stories and resources to help them articulate their identities.
Unfortunately, librarians have not always made it easy to find information. Censorship–in the form of simply not purchasing materials that might be considered “controversial”–has always been a problem. People often take it upon themselves to challenge books with any queer content in the name of protecting “the children,” which can bring negative publicity to a library. In addition, catalogers have the option to make items more or less discoverable in a library catalog, depending on the subject headings they choose to add to an item’s record. For teens, who are among the least likely to approach a librarian, being able to find books for themselves is extremely important. Items having to do with sex and sexuality are often among those that are used (not to mention stolen) anonymously at the library–read clandestinely and not necessarily checked out.
I don’t mean to sound as if the situation is dire and there are no LGBTQ resources to be found in most libraries. However, I do believe that there is more that librarians AND library patrons can do to improve the quantity and visibility of these materials in library collections.
For everyone:
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Use your local library!
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Request materials. Let your librarians know–through purchase requests, in-person recommendations, or even through the items that you are getting via interlibrary loan–that there is a demand for these materials.
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Donate your old, unwanted, and duplicate copies of LGBTQ fiction and other materials.
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Give someone a gift by donating a book to the library in their name. A friend of mine donated a copy of Leah Petersen’s book Fighting Gravity to my library to thank me for something I had helped her with. You can support both the library and worthy authors this way.
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Participate in library events, such as the summer reading program.
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Support your library if and when it becomes involved in a public book challenge. Write an editorial to your local newspaper, if you have to!
For librarians:
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Order those materials! There are plenty of well-reviewed, award-winning books that you can purchase for the library. Purchase items to meet a variety of needs and interests, even if you haven’t seen any evidence of them. These teens may not speak up, but they exist in your community, and the materials should be there when they look for them.
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Create displays that showcase the items in your collection, making it clear that the library is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQ teens. Actively solicit suggestions for purchases of new materials.
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Read some of these books! If you don’t have the time to read, check out reviews here at Gay YA or at other sites like I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I Read?, Queer YA, and Rainbow Books. Be prepared to offer recommendations.
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Have your policies and your Request for Reconsideration form ready to meet any challenges. Train your staff on how to respond to complaints. Preparation and justification is the best defense in a challenge situation.
Public librarians have a professional responsibility to make these materials available to everyone, not just the at-risk teens who need them the most. Community members with an interest in having these materials available to teens have a responsibility to let the library know that they’re wanted and needed in the library. Together we can make it happen!
Anna Mickelsen is a public librarian and enthusiastic reader. You can find her on Twitter (@helgagrace) or at her blog, Title and Statement of Responsibility. She also reviews lesbian fiction at The Lesbrary.