Dear Reader,
Welcome to the first ever periodical issue of YA Pride! After being on a semi-hiatus for the past year, we are re-launching with a brand new format and clarified focus. Instead of our usual blog post format, we will be transitioning to a quarterly online periodical.
With the change in format comes a change in content. Instead of one-off pieces, we are shifting our focus to slower, long-form, in-depth journalistic pieces, that are based on reflection, community conversation, and research.
By switching to this type of content, we hope to continue promoting and discussing fantastic LGBTQIAP+ YA literature, while also connecting present-day issues to historic fights and a larger context. This new format will also be more sustainable for college kids and recent college graduates (which our current team is entirely comprised of!) to keep up with. We are SUPER excited for this change and to keep pushing for more affirming and inclusive content in YA.
We hope you enjoy our first ever periodical. Happy Pride!
-The YA Pride Team (Vee, Daisy, and Kaitlin)
Table of Contents:
- Letter from the Editor
- A Love Letter to Queer Young Adult Literature – Angel Daniel Matos
- Pride in Story: 8 Writers on What Pride Means to Them
- Queer Friendship in YA – Sophie Cameron
- Pride Month 2019 Book List: Recommendations from the YA Pride Team
- YA Pride Book Highlights
- Journaling Exercise: Reflection
- What’s Next…
Letter from the Editor
When I realized I was queer and transgender, I began to believe that I was unlovable. Nothing– including reading queer theory and attending Pride events– lessened this belief more than reading fiction. LGBTQIAP+ YA changed my life, and it is not going too far to say it saved it.
For a long time, this experience inspired all of my work on YA Pride. I desperately wanted to make sure other teens knew these books were out there. I am not alone in experiencing this motivation– many authors, editors, and other community members are inspired by not having seen themselves in fiction as teens. We don’t want anyone else to feel the way we did, and so we write, we create, we promote.
Within the past year, however, as YA Pride went on a semi-hiatus while my mother was in her last few months of life, I had a lot of time to reflect on what I want to see as a result of this work. The number of LGBTQIAP+ YA books published each year has increased dramatically since YA Pride launched. Because I was inspired by wanting to make sure teens could see themselves, I had expected my interest in LGBTQIAP+ YA to diminish as the number of published LGBTQIAP+ YA books went up, that the increase of books would signal a success, an end of a fight. While it is a cause to celebrate, I’ve found that the increase has only made me more invested in this work.
We are now at a new and exciting part of a long process. LGBTQIAP+ YA has gone from the scarce narratives of death and doom of the 20th century, to the moderate proliferation of didactic, identity-focused narratives written mainly by white authors in the 00s, to an energetic expanse in the last few years, characterized by an increasing diversity of authors, genres, identities, and narratives.
But this is not a simple narrative of progress– in fact, it is really important that we resist that story. Publishing has failed and hurt the LGBTQIAP+ community, and it is important to call out the wounds that we see: fetishization of white, gay men (usually by white women); sidelining of F/F relationships; racist practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people who have abused, bullied, and gatekeeped authors, editors, agents and other publishing professionals of color; the fact that white authors get to tell stories about characters of color, that cisgender authors get to tell stories about transgender characters, that able-bodied people get to tell stories about disabled characters, at the expense of people from those identities getting to write those stories; the erasure and stigmitization of asexual, aromantic, bi, and pan people. This lack of equitable representation and ability to share stories is a form of emotional and psychological violence. Many people with stories to tell have been unable to tell them. Many people desperately seeking representations of themselves have been unable to find them. This is something to grieve and fight against.
Importantly, these issues are not something to be pushed aside to deal with “later,” after we achieve equitable representation for white, able-bodied, middle class LGBTQIAP+ characters. Trickle down social justice does not work. These inequities must always be at the center of our work going forward.
At the same time, through the combined hard work of librarians, booksellers, and educators, as well as LGBTQIAP+ rights activists who have worked to destigmatize queerness, teens now have increased access to these books. That provides an opportunity we haven’t had before.
All of these things are true at once, and it is important to hold them in that complexity, resisting the urge for one simplistic “progress” narrative. Now, we have a collection of stories to build on, but the inequities, stigmatization, racism, and gatekeeping of publishing and the YA community are still active. And yet, we have an opportunity to provide teens with something that no generation in living memory has had: a place in which to playfully, joyfully, and safely explore and create themselves and their identities. LGBTQIAP+ YA is not just a random hodge-podge of books that happen to feature queer characters. It is a collection of stories that collectively provide teens with this place. Now, after building on decades of work, we are at the beginning of a new stage, with unprecedented possibilities for what we can include in this space. So what are we going to do with it?
That question is what our first few issues are going to be about. We’re going to ask: Where are we now? What do we want to create from here? What do we want to see as a result of this work? What are we doing this for? What stories do we want to make sure teens have access to?
This inaugural issue begins to explore these questions. Angel Daniel Matos takes us on a beautiful, reflective journey of his relationship with Queer YA that many of us will be able to connect to. We talked to 9 writers on what pride means to them and how it shows up in their work. Sophie Cameron tackles the elusive creature that is queer friendship in YA. Kaitlin and I give our own book recommendations, that embody the why of this work. We highlight two new releases that we LOVE and think you will too. Plus, a journaling exercise and a chance to share your reflections with the community and start a bigger, sustained conversation.
We decided to release our first periodical issue in June, for Pride month. In a happy coincidence, this year is also the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first YA book featuring a gay character. Within this issue, published at this historical moment, we want to provide a space to take a moment to breathe, and really feel this moment. Look around. Think about all that has come before this moment and all that has yet to come. And begin to ask that most difficult and exciting question: what comes next?
-Vee
—
A Love Letter to Queer Young Adult Literature
Angel Daniel Matos
June 7th, 2019
Queer Young Adult Literature:
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written a love letter. Frankly, I find this kind of epistolary to be a little too earnest, naïve, and at times, inauthentic. But the more I think about you, queer young adult literature, and what you’ve done for me, the more I realize that few other mediums can effectively convey the range of emotions you’ve made me feel for almost two decades. Why should I be ashamed of exposing my feelings for you? After all, you taught me important life lessons that I still hold dearly today. You taught me that it is okay to love in a way that is not mainstream, or that opposes ideas celebrated in dominant cultures. You taught me that cultural objects often viewed as “lesser,” “derivative,” “cheesy,” or “simple” have the potential to change our lives, and that the very reason that you are given these labels is because of the hierarchical, elitist, and normative ideologies that haunt our culture. You don’t deserve this. Many people might be hesitant or unwilling to acknowledge the cultural and emotional work that you’ve done for so many people throughout the years. But I refuse to be one of these people.
I’m writing to you because you’ve always been there for me in my moments of need. You’ve been there for me when I was lost, confused, and didn’t think life was worth living. I want to take a moment to briefly recall what you’ve done for me, and to thank you for how much you’ve changed my life. You provided me with solace when I was afraid. You provided me with a guidebook for queer living when I thought that no guidebook existed, and for that, I’m eternally grateful. You gave me the means to be proud of who I am. You gave me a purpose and a sense of direction in life. You also gave me the means to change the lives of those around me.
Do you remember the first time we met? I remember our first encounter like it was yesterday—an unexpected visit that completely shook my world. It was the night of December 26th, 2000, in Aguada, Puerto Rico. Everyone had gone to bed. My evening reading was accompanied by the gentle hum of my pedestal fan as it combated the warmth and humidity of my bedroom. The soft song of the coquí provided a melodious backdrop to this meditative state. You were at first quite unassuming—hidden within the confines of a neon green book titled The Perks of Being a Wallflower. And as I reached the end of Part 1 of your hiding place, you made yourself visible to me. I still remember my heart racing uncontrollably when two boys in this book kissed during a private moment in a bedroom. It was the first time that I had ever encountered queer characters in a book, let alone queer characters experiencing a moment of intimacy. I remember re-reading those pages over and over again, making sure this moment wasn’t a figment of my overactive imagination. But it was real. Those characters were real. You were real. I didn’t know you existed. But I found you. I remember reading Stephen Chbosky’s novel over and over again—its pages became yellow and musky over time, and they began to bend and crumple due to the effects of being hidden under my mattress. When the cover of this book began to fall off, I remember making my own custom cover out of neon green contact paper and stickers that I purchased from my local school supply shop. As you know, this book is no longer hidden under my mattress. I now have this very same copy of the book perched prominently on my office bookshelf.
We’ve had quite the love affair, spanning almost two decades at this point. My feelings toward you have shifted over time, and our relationship has also changed drastically. You’ve seen me transform from a meek teenager full of shame who used to hide your books under his mattress, to a professor who celebrates and teaches the knowledge and emotional dimensions that you foster through your books and pages. Through these texts, I ultimately developed such a vast and sophisticated understanding of the many forms that notions such as love, acceptance, growth, heartache, activism, pride, and shame can assume, and how these forms are connected to countless representations of young adult queer experience. You were also at the forefront of teaching me so much about gender, sexuality, and kinship! Did you know, for instance, that it was through you that I began to explore and understand notions such as gender performativity? Did you know that my first encounter with the word transgender, and with transgender characters for that matter, was through your books? Did you know that your books gave me the means to envision realities alternative to the ones I was experiencing as a Puerto Rican teen growing up in the Caribbean?
Your books introduced me to events and possibilities that were so different from my lived, everyday experience. In these stories, queer teens could hold hands in public, go out on dates, and develop meaningful relationships. In Puerto Rico, I grew up being taught that queerness, in all of its expressions, was wrong. This was a message that was transmitted to me in church, through many family members, and even though school. How could I forget, for instance, my elementary school biology class in which one of my teachers was lecturing us about the “gross” and “sinful” sex that gay men have? Or reading through the catechism and learning more about the so-called corrupt and immoral dimensions of queer relationships? Or having a group of boys throw stones at me in a school yard while calling me pato or maricón? Thankfully, you gave me a much-needed counternarrative that allowed me to critically think through these messages and events. You showed me a different path, one in which queer life does not necessarily correlate to doom, unhappiness, and despair. You showed me the various injustices present in our world and pushed me to imbue my work and writing with political activism. You taught me how to speak up and cope with the inevitable challenges that I would face as a queer Puerto Rican. Even when I was involuntarily outed to my mother at the age of sixteen, I felt like this experience would be bearable and survivable, mostly because I carried the stories of both fictional and real queer teens with me.
But I am not alone in this transformation. I saw you change in many ways as well! I remember how difficult it was for me to find you at first. You were so elusive and difficult to track down. I remember doing late-night research on the web using a not-so-trustworthy dial up connection, reading forums and doing my best to track down books where (or wherein) you lurked. I remember traveling to the now defunct Borders bookstore to special order texts that were not found on the shelves. I remember how limited your knowledge was, and how you first offered me and others an incomplete snapshot of what queer thought and experience looks like. For instance, while it was amazing to read various stories about queer teens, I couldn’t help but think: what about queer teens who were more like me and those around me? What about queer teens who are not white, who are overweight, who are poor, who are disabled, who don’t conform to gender norms? And now, look at how much things have changed! You have such a wide range of stories to tell! You still have much more work to do, but I’m glad to see that you are starting to change your ways. Your books now top bestseller charts, you are starting to become more intersectional in your explorations of historical and contemporary queer life, you have a range of websites devoted to your stories, and a robust body of criticism devoted to your cultural work has proliferated over time. You’ve introduced me to so many people and characters from different walks of life. You have developed, grown, and expanded so much that it is difficult to keep track of you. You are no longer a secret, nor is there any need for you to remain hidden. I now teach semester-long university courses devoted to exploring your history, your potentialities, your limits, and your transformations. Did you ever think this would be a possibility back in the early 2000s? Did you ever think things would change this much? Did you ever think that our relationship would be so meaningful, and so enduring?
I love you, queer young adult literature. I owe so much not only to you, but to the authors, readers, editors, publishers, scholars, educators, activists, and thinkers that made your existence possible. I can’t wait to see how our journey together will continue to unfold. I can’t wait to see how you change, and I can’t wait to experience the ways in which you will continue to change me (and change the lives of those who surround me). Thank you for teaching me what it means to be queer. Thank you for being mindful of the triumphs and heartaches that my communities and I have experienced. Thank you for introducing me to the joys, pleasures, and possibilities that are connected to queer thought and life.
Con mucho amor,
Angel
—
Angel Daniel Matos is an Assistant Professor of English at San Diego State University who specializes in children’s and young adult literature, queer studies, and screen cultures. His primary research theorizes the connections between time, space, emotion, and politics in queer young adult literature and media. His work has been published in academic journals such as Children’s Literature, The ALAN Review, Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking, and Research on Diversity in Youth Literature. You can access his Academia profile here, where he shares his work and various resources on queer youth literatures and queer studies.
Pride in Story
Charlie Jane Anders
I definitely think of pride as a matter of visibility and inclusion. I think that the stories we create help to shape how we view the world around us, and part of the quest of storytelling is to expand the frame until we can see a clearer picture of reality. And LGBTQIA+ people have been pushed out of the frame of most stories for way too long. I especially think it’s important for young readers to see themselves included in the stories they read and write. But more than that, we need stories that bust stereotypes and show LGBTQIA+ characters who are fully fledged people, with lives and feelings and unfinished business and quirks and bad habits. In my upcoming YA trilogy, I worked really really hard to include a variety of LGBTQIA+ characters who are all different and represent different approaches to gender and sexuality, but also to heroism.
The stories we create help to shape how we view the world around us, and part of the quest of storytelling is to expand the frame until we can see a clearer picture of reality. – Charlie Jane Anders
Camryn Garret
What does Pride mean to you?
I’ve actually never been to Pride, and that’s the first thing I think about when someone says it. I think about all these people in the street with the flags and makeup and the people they love. I think about queer families (actually my favorite part of Pride, honestly, seeing those pictures.) I think about all these young queer kids who know who they are and aren’t afraid to show it. And I think about the flag. All really good things.
I guess what it means to me is even deeper, though. I still connect Pride to the flag or to other outward signs of queerness, if that makes sense, so like people holding hands with their partners or holding signs or just saying that they are queer. I’m not out to everyone in my family, so I’m not always doing that. Even though the family members I’m out to are pretty supportive, sometimes they make comments about how I want everything to be gay or I only care about gay people or something. I feel like I can’t really talk about that aspect of my identity because they don’t want to hear it or they don’t really get it.
So when I see the Pride flag or a woman out with her wife or something, I feel this warmth in my chest, like “It’s okay, I see you,” even if it has nothing to do with me. It makes me feel validated. And I don’t feel so alone.
When I see the Pride flag or a woman out with her wife or something, I feel this warmth in my chest, like “It’s okay, I see you,” even if it has nothing to do with me. It makes me feel validated. And I don’t feel so alone. – Camryn Garret
How do you integrate Pride into your work?
It’s weird, because I feel like almost all of my characters are queer, and I remember wondering if that was okay. In my book coming out in October, I think the only straight characters are like background characters. My main character is queer and so are her parents and her friends. In my second book, my main character and her love interest are both bi. And in my third book, my main character is queer and so is his love interest. So it’s like… I always write Black characters, and now it seems I’m always writing queer characters.
It gives me a space to talk about queerness and also just have Black queer characters, because I don’t think we have enough. I also hope that seeing all these queer characters just being themselves makes readers feel the way I do when I see Pride flags. Like, “Ah, it’s okay, they see me,” you know? Even if it isn’t exactly articulated and it’s just a calm or this sense of feeling comfortable.
FULL DISCLOSURE also touches upon the AIDS crisis and queer history, which I think is really important. I wish we learned more about queer history in high school and I think adding what I did (even though it’s small) was also a “Pride thing.”
I hope that seeing all these queer characters just being themselves makes readers feel the way I do when I see Pride flags. – Camryn Garret
How do you see Pride integrated into others’ work?
In so many different ways. There are queer historians who cover history that isn’t as widely known or talked about, like WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER by Hugh Ryan, and there are queer women of color who are basically on the frontlines by themselves, like Cheryl Dunye, who was the first Black lesbian to direct a feature. I watched her movie, THE WATERMELON WOMAN, a few weeks ago and was pretty shocked at how much of myself and my friends I saw in this movie from more than twenty years ago, you know? And I was sort of seeing it for the first time. I think that’s a big part of Pride, like laying down the groundwork for those who will come after you. When I think of queer people, I think a lot of found families, like making families out of people and love and not necessarily out of blood. So I think about queer elders like Miss Major sort of like they’re family just because of what they’ve done for me and other queer people. I’m not sure if that makes sense.
When I think of queer people, I think a lot of found families, like making families out of people and love and not necessarily out of blood. So I think about queer elders like Miss Major sort of like they’re family just because of what they’ve done for me and other queer people. – Camryn Garret
Basically, I think of art where queer people are front and center, specifically Black and brown queer people. I was reading about how a lot of queer archives in San Francisco have so much about gay cis white men and not really about everyone else. It’s not bad, because we need those records as well, and it’s a result of so many people donating things from the AIDS crisis. But I think about how I didn’t really know what a lesbian was when I was younger, except that it was bad, because no one really… talked about them. You would’ve thought lesbians appeared years after white gay guys, because those were the ones who got attention.
And then I didn’t know what bisexuality was for a long, long time, or the fact that queer trans women of color started Stonewall, or even that trans women of color exist. So there’s definitely this idea of… not necessarily white washing our history, but that’s sort of the only word I can think of for it. Even now, I sort of notice that I’m not necessarily the same as cis white gay men, especially when you read articles about them voting for Trump or something. So I really cherish art like POSE that’s written and directed and starring trans women of color. I watch it and it’s so nourishing, you know? I want more of that. More brown and Black people being queer and living and being happy. We need that.
So I really cherish art like POSE that’s written and directed and starring trans women of color. I watch it and it’s so nourishing, you know? I want more of that. More brown and Black people being queer and living and being happy. We need that. – Camryn Garret
How can story give teens access to Pride?
By giving them our history. I think our history is so, so important. Reading about queer people who were around in the 1800s and 1900s, who were in different countries, who wrote and created art and survived, is extremely important to pass down, I think. It would be so cool if we had YA history books about queer figures or even periods where lots of queer people congregate together in one place. And I think being around other queer people is also super important. It’s important to me to be around queer adults and queer friends because I feel like I’m sort of letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I want everyone to have that.
Shaun David Hutchinson
Pride is a difficult thing for me to define because I spent such a long time not proud of being part of the queer community. When I first came out in the late 1990s, I thought Pride parades were basically rainbow colored orgy trains out to scream to the world that they were here, queer, and never going to disappear. Which was a shame, because disappearing was the only thing I wanted to do.
When I came out, I just wanted to move quickly to assimilation. I wanted to blend in. I wanted people to think of me just like everyone else. I wanted to be just like every straight couple out there but, you know, gay. Pride represented the antithesis of that. Pride wasn’t about fitting in. It was about standing out. Pride didn’t ask people to accept the queer community, it demanded acceptance, and it was willing to back up those demands with action if necessary.
I was not.
When I came out, I just wanted to move quickly to assimilation. I wanted to blend in. I wanted people to think of me just like everyone else. I wanted to be just like every straight couple out there but, you know, gay. – Shaun David Hutchinson
I worked hard to create an image for myself that was as unnoticeable and inoffensive to heterosexual society as possible. The goal, at the time, was to be seen as “straight acting.” I was terrified of any queer person who didn’t comfortably fit into the gender norms of heterosexual society— femme gays and butch lesbians and anyone who was outside of the gender binary—because I felt like they made it difficult for the rest of us to seamlessly blend in.
I was scared to appreciate others for who they were, and I was scared to allow myself to be who I was.
It took me a long time to realize how wrong my thinking was. It took me a long time to understand that acceptance shouldn’t come with conditions. To learn that queer people shouldn’t have to act a certain way in order to have a place at the table. To learn that I didn’t have to look or act a certain way. Every single person within the queer community is equally deserving of love and acceptance, and the only thing I’m ashamed of now is that it took me such a long time to understand that.
Every single person within the queer community is equally deserving of love and acceptance, and the only thing I’m ashamed of now is that it took me such a long time to understand that. – Shaun David Hutchinson
Pride to me now is about celebrating our differences. It’s about calling attention to the members of our community who are still targeted for discrimination and who are erased from the stories. It’s about raising up those who need our help year-round and not just during the month of June. It’s about celebrating our gay family and our bi family and our trans family and our non-binary family and our ace family. It’s about inclusion. It’s about taking a stand against ignorance and intolerance, and being willing to back that up with action.
I was too scared to do that when I first came out, but I’m not scared anymore.
Pride isn’t a month, it isn’t a parade, it isn’t a corporate-sponsored float. Pride is a sign, and it reads: All are welcome here.
Zeyn Joukhadar
For me personally, having pride in my work means bringing all of myself to the page. Being part of any marginalized community often means facing the burden of being the only voice in the room, or of being asked to represent one’s entire community. The more voices are out there, the more all of us will hopefully be free of that burden. I’m encouraged by the fact that we’re seeing more books with queer and trans characters who are of color, who are Muslim, who are disabled, who are immigrants, and so on; I wish there had been more of those books for teens when I was younger, when I needed them. For me, pride means writing stories with queer and trans characters for whom coming out is only one small part of a bigger journey. It’s my hope that the industry will invest more and more in books with queer and trans characters written by queer and trans people who have lived those experiences, too, so that teens can find themselves and their lives on the page in all the nuance, awkwardness, hilarity, and joy that come with being alive in the world and figuring out what that means.
It’s my hope that […] teens can find themselves and their lives on the page in all the nuance, awkwardness, hilarity, and joy that come with being alive in the world and figuring out what that means. -Zeyn Joukhadar
Brent Lambert
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride to me means planting your foot down and not letting the world tell you how you get to exist. I just actually attended Pride in LA this year and that message really hit home for me because I saw people across the LGBTQIA spectrum being themselves unapologetically. And not just being themselves but celebrating and loving each other. And I think it’s easy to forget just how dangerous those acts can be for so many members of our community. So Pride is truly an act of resistance.
Pride to me means planting your foot down and not letting the world tell you how you get to exist. -Brent Lambert
How do you integrate Pride into your work and/or see it integrated into others’ work?
As a writer, I think being authentic to myself, my vision and the story I want to see is the easiest way for me to integrate Pride into my work. Goes back to just being like a rock and not budging from your truth. And sometimes that truth is ugly. Sometimes is the most glorious thing ever.
Sam Miller, at least for me, is the writer I most think about when considering how to bring that kind of attitude into my work. He presents the lives of queer folks in such an unapologetic, but real way. He doesn’t back down from those truths and I desperately want my work to be as mature and assertive as his when it comes to the presentation of our lives.
Being authentic to myself, my vision and the story I want to see is the easiest way for me to integrate Pride into my work. -Brent Lambert
How can story give teens access to Pride?
Stories are such foundational devices for how we move through the world. I didn’t recognize it as a kid, but I think I was so drawn to mythology in my early years because there was a fluidity to it. So many stories there of people becoming different than what they were or allowing themselves to become what they’ve always been. I knew I was gay at the age of 9 and I think those stories subconsciously were giving me a means to believe who I was actually was ok.
And despite so much of the hellfire around us currently, this is a time of growing queer rep in media that I never actually thought I’d really see in my lifetime. We have a real opportunity to give a whole generation of young people a chance to maybe avoid the angst, get answers to the questions, and find happiness and pride in who they are.
This is a time of growing queer rep in media that I never actually thought I’d really see in my lifetime. We have a real opportunity to give a whole generation of young people a chance to maybe avoid the angst, get answers to the questions, and find happiness and pride in who they are. -Brent Lambert
C.B. Lee
Pride to me means celebrating the amazing and diverse community of people in the LGBTQ+ community, and for me personally, celebrating who I am and my identity. It means celebrating our existence, our survival, our persistence, and honoring the struggles of those who have come before to bring the community to where it is today. Pride is about being valid, in knowing that you aren’t alone, that you aren’t broken. Everyone’s journey is different, no matter where they are on their journey, whether they’re out or questioning or still learning more about themselves.
Pride is about being valid, in knowing that you aren’t alone, that you aren’t broken. Everyone’s journey is different, no matter where they are on their journey, whether they’re out or questioning or still learning more about themselves. -C.B. Lee
In the Sidekick Squad series, I very intentionally thread this celebration throughout the story. In many ways it can be just an adventure story about teenager fighting a corrupt regime, but it’s also about getting to see these characters existing, loving, getting to learn to be the best version of themselves. From confident to questioning, there’s room for them to learn who they are, to feel comfortable and valid and to show that affirmation through storytelling. Storytelling is one of the amazing ways teens can access pride; not everyone is able to attend events or can be out, but everyone has the ability to feel and experience through storytelling. I think it’s an amazing time for LGBTQ+ media, and we’re just getting more and more stories in so many different genres, and I think that’s wonderful. Stories are a way to experience something both new and familiar, to see new worlds and experiences but also to find yourself, to see yourself reflected and to know that you too, deserve a happy ending.
From confident to questioning, there’s room for them to learn who they are, to feel comfortable and valid and to show that affirmation through storytelling. Storytelling is one of the amazing ways teens can access pride; not everyone is able to attend events or can be out, but everyone has the ability to feel and experience through storytelling. – C.B. Lee
David Levithan
What does pride mean to you?
It means locating myself within the history of my identity and taking strength from that, and taking strength from all the people who came before me. It means finding kinship with the people who share my identity, and also making sure that I always tie it to the greater struggle for freedom for people of all identities. And, at a basic linguistic level, it is the opposite of shame, and is a device to change the shameful narrative of shame that has been imposed upon us for far too long.
At a basic linguistic level, [pride] is the opposite of shame. -David Levithan
How do you integrate pride into your work?
Boy Meets Boy certainly set the tone for the rest of my work — I wanted it to be an unabashedly queer romantic comedy, and the unabashedness was the (then) radical part of it. When that struck a chord, I decided to continue in that vein. Certainly, sometimes it’s a struggle to find the way to pride, as in Two Boys Kissing. But in other books, like You Know Me Well, which I co-wrote with Nina LaCour, the pride is always there — it’s the relationships, not the identity, that need to be navigated.
Certainly, sometimes it’s a struggle to find the way to pride, as in Two Boys Kissing. But in other books, like You Know Me Well, which I co-wrote with Nina LaCour, the pride is always there — it’s the relationships, not the identity, that need to be navigated. -David Levithan
How can story give teens access to pride?
Stories — fiction or nonfiction — can show readers all kinds of possibilities, and in seeing the possibilities within the books, we hopefully can see the possibilities for ourselves. We writers know that finding pride isn’t as easy as going into the Gap and buying a PRIDE t-shirt. So we get to show the journey, on the most human scale possible. And for me, we also get to celebrate our characters — and, by extension, our readers, whose lives may be very similar to the character’s.
We writers know that finding pride isn’t as easy as going into the Gap and buying a PRIDE t-shirt. So we get to show the journey, on the most human scale possible. -David Levithan
L.L. McKinney
What does pride mean to you?
For me? Pride means a number of things. I’m sure the obvious is it means being deeply satisfied with who you are, either in singular aspects or as a whole. Pride can be pieced out. I’m proud to be from Kansas City. I’m proud to be Black. I’m proud to be a geek. I’m proud to be an auntie. The list goes on. I’m also proud to be Elle, which encompasses all of those things. I’m proud of me! I mean, daily things try to take me out and—by the grace of God—I’m still here! I’m still kicking, and telling my stories. Speaking on the many reasons I’m proud.
Pride means being unafraid to occupy space. Now, let me be clear, a lot in this world scares me. There are many aspects of Elle lots of people and societies want to snuff out, simply because they exist. I’m terrified sometimes, and I’m eternally tired of fighting. But I will continue to occupy space. And I’ll continue to make room for others to occupy it along with me. That’s pride.
I’m terrified sometimes, and I’m eternally tired of fighting. But I will continue to occupy space. And I’ll continue to make room for others to occupy it along with me. That’s pride. -L.L. McKinney
How do you integrate pride into your work and/or see it integrated into others’ work?
I am unapologetic in who I am, so I make my characters the same way. I wasn’t always like this. I wanted to be something else, be someone else, for a long time when I was a kid. I didn’t really see anyone like me in the stories I liked. Black kids weren’t allowed to go on adventures. We couldn’t journey to Middle Earth or Narnia. We were barely allowed aboard the Millennium Falcon. No, I was relegated to stories of pain and struggle. Of slavery and Jim Crow. And while that is an important part of my history, it isn’t all that I am. It isn’t all that my people are. So I push back against the boundaries that have kept us out of genres like Science Fiction and Fantasy. I push back against the notion that we’re regulated to the sidelines or as props and tools. And I support other people who do as well. Dhonielle Clayton, Justina Ireland, Bethany Marrow, just to name a few. And of course, the indomitable Octavia Butler.
And how can story give teens access to pride?
Like I said before, I was ashamed of myself in many ways. I was finally able to shake that off when I saw someone else being bold in her fullness, her richness. This amazing Black woman who said I’m here and you don’t have to like it, but you are going to deal with it. I saw her occupying that space and I thought…I could do it too. And it opened my eyes to why I had been reluctant to even try for so long, and how wrong the world was for tricking me out of even making the attempt in the first place. Society has been lying to marginalized teens for so long, telling them they aren’t enough, they can’t do with or won’t be that. Stories can rectify those lies, counter those untruths, and lift teens up.
Society has been lying to marginalized teens for so long, telling them they aren’t enough, they can’t do with or won’t be that. Stories can rectify those lies, counter those untruths, and lift teens up. – L.L. McKinney
Caleb Roehrig
For much of my life, I lied about my identity because I feared rejection and violence if anyone found out I was gay; and even when I first came out, I did everything I could to cultivate traditionally masculine interests and behaviors, and to disguise any traits I had that aligned with gay stereotypes. Even if I wasn’t ashamed of myself for being gay, I had internalized the belief that being identifiable as gay was bad and embarrassing. What pride means to me is learning to love myself because of those traits, rather than in spite of them; it means celebrating every aspect of who I am, and refusing to accept the narrow-minded judgments of people who would look down on me, or shame me for being visible.
Even if I wasn’t ashamed of myself for being gay, I had internalized the belief that being identifiable as gay was bad and embarrassing. What pride means to me is learning to love myself because of those traits, rather than in spite of them. – Caleb Roehrig
When I write queer characters, I take the lessons I learned from my own process of self-discovery and the journey to self-love, and I put them into my work. I write queer characters who are unashamed of who they are, who live full lives and overcome obstacles, and who learn to accept themselves wholly as the only necessary version of who they are.
The very act of centering queer characters in books for young readers is one of resistance. The majority of queer youth grow up without access to community; sometimes, fictional characters are the first and only other queer people they’ll “know” for years. Stories that celebrate queer characters in the fullness of their identity can make teens feel less alone, it can make them feel seen and loved and valued, and it can teach them that they can be heroes because of who they are–not in spite of it.
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Queer Friendship in YA – by Sophie Cameron
Casting a few furtive looks around us, my friend and I shuffled towards the bar. It was a Tuesday evening, and the student union was quiet: a few girls playing pool in one corner, some guys downing pints in another. Behind us, seven or eight people were squashed into a booth, all talking animatedly.
“Do you think that’s them?” I whispered.
My friend quickly glanced over, then gave a slight shrug. “I don’t know. Go and ask them.”
“You go and ask them.”
“Why do I have to do it? You’re the one who made me come with you!”
This carried on for several minutes, accompanied by Wimbledon-style head movements towards the booth then back to the bar before any of the group could notice. Clearly we weren’t as subtle as we thought, because eventually one of them walked over to us with wry grin on his face.
“I take it you two are here for the LGBT society, then?”
This was my introduction to the place where I made my most long-lasting friendships at university. (We were, I should add, among the first to arrive – it was a lot bigger than the handful of people in that booth). This was the first time I’d ever been in a space where heterosexuality wasn’t the assumption or the norm; where the mention of anything gay wouldn’t be met with jokes, sneers, a debate, or worse. It wasn’t some idyll: the cliques and social hierachies sometimes felt like high school, and having both white and cis privilege, I can’t speak for people facing multiple marginalisations – sadly LGBTQ+ spaces are not always safe for people of colour or trans people. But I was 18 and had just moved to Edinburgh from a village in the Highlands, population 800. For me, being around people where I didn’t have to defend myself, or explain, or grit my teeth and laugh along, or lie… the main word I’d use to describe it would be ‘relief’. It was a relief.
Until then, the only places I’d seen queer social or friendship groups were Queer as Folk and The L Word – both pretty problematic TV shows, but ground-breaking in their acknowledgement that gay people do tend to gravitate towards each other. That’s certainly not something I was finding in books at the time. I was lucky enough to have access to libraries and to be able to order books online, but even then the gay characters I found were few and far between (and I was looking harder than Jessica Fletcher at a crime scene with a magnifying glass).
Of course, there were books like Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series, the first volume of which was published in 1978. But I was mostly searching in YA, where the few gay characters I did come across were pretty miserable – lots of bullying, self-harm, suicide – or completely alone. Even when couples were involved, the pressure to keep their relationship secret kept them isolated from support networks or the wider community.
The one exception to this was Geography Club by Brent Hartinger (2003), where the gay main character comes out to his female best friend to learn that she’s bi and has a girlfriend, before setting up a Gay-Straight Alliance at their school – both the first instance of bisexuality and of a queer community that I remember reading in YA fiction. The book doesn’t shy away from the difficulties the characters faced, but it also touches on the power of queer friendships and how vital they can be for so many people. Representations of LGBTQ+ love, sex and romance are hugely important, of course. But those aren’t the only parts of queer experience, and for many people they’re not the most important ones.
This was something I had in mind while writing my second novel, Last Bus to Everland. Inspired by portal fantasies and Scottish folklore, it’s about a gay 15-year-old, Brody, who is struggling at home and at school until meets Nico, a flamboyant aspiring costumer designer. Nico takes Brody to Everland, a magical dimension that opens up at 11.21pm every Thursday and allows them to have a night of adventures without even a minute having passed in the real world. Though Brody has feelings for Nico, their relationship is first and foremost a friendship, and Everland becomes the place where he can finally be himself. As he becomes more comfortable with who he is, he starts to make queer friends in the real world, too, and realises he’s not as alone as he thought.
YA has changed a lot in the past ten years, and happily friendship groups like this can be found in lots of recent novels. Pulp by Robin Talley, a dual-timeline story based around lesbian pulp novels, features a group of friends spanning the gender and sexuality spectrums. You Know Me Well is co-written by two giants of LGBTQ+ literature, Nina LaCour and David Levithan, and tells the story of a fast friendship between a gay boy and a lesbian set around San Francisco Pride. In Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s stunning graphic novel Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, 17-year-old lesbian Freddy is so surrounded by queer people that it becomes the rule, not the exception. And I’m excited to read Kings, Queens and In-Betweens by Tanya Boteju, about a biracial girl exploring her identity after becoming immersed in her local drag scene.
I don’t know about other authors, but I haven’t had any pushback from anyone in publishing on the number of queer characters in my books. It has evoked some negative remarks from a few readers, however. Some questioned the likelihood of Jaya, the lesbian protagonist of my debut Out of the Blue, just-so-happening to randomly meet and fall for a girl who turns out to be bi – as if that’s the most unrealistic part of a story about angels falling from the sky. Another reviewer recently bumped down their rating of Last Bus to Everland because they felt the number of gay characters was “totally unbelievable” – again, sort of ironic given it’s about a Narnia-type world where time doesn’t pass.
These relationships and friendships may seem unrealistic to certain cis heterosexual readers, but that’s down to their lack of experience and understanding. Lots of us live lives where many, if not most of the people around us aren’t straight and/or cis – so why should our characters? LGBTQ+ authors shouldn’t have to shape their stories to pander to other people. Nor should authors or colour, or disabled authors, or writers from any marginalised community.
YA still has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity, particularly regarding stories by and about QTPOC and other authors of colours. But while acknowledging that there’s still improvement to me made, I love that young readers now have multiple books where LGBTQ+ characters are thriving and surrounded by people like them. When people question how realistic that is… well, my response is mostly just to roll my eyes and bump up the queer quota of my next book. I hope other authors will do the same.
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Pride Month 2019 Book List: Recommendations from the YA Pride Team
Happy Pride, readers! This month, we’re switching up our usual themed book list to bring you personal recommendations from Vee and I! Make sure to tag us with your Pride recs on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram!
Vee’s Books
I have favorite books for so many different reasons. But when I think about the ones that have changed how I think about queer literature, the ones that have freed me from shame, suffering, and isolation, helped me dream up new worlds and new ways of being in the world, these are the ones that come to mind.
Dream Country by Shannon Gibney
My Year Zero by Rachel Gold
Brave Face by Shaun David Hutchinson
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee
You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina Lacour
The Unintentional Time Traveler by Everett Maroon
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki
Kaitlin’s Books
Each of my favorite books can be encapsulated with one word: strength. Whether these teens are leading a revolution or getting ready for college, they each demonstrate how courageous it is to explore your identity and chase after your goals. These are the types of characters I looked up to on my journey of self-discovery as a teen. These are the types of characters I want to get into the hands of teens today. There is amazing strength in exploring your identity, going after what you want, and being you.
We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Running With Lions by Julian Winters
Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
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Reading When Aidan Became a Brother was indescribable. It was the first time that I saw what I should have had access to as a kid: picture books in which trans kids are fully fledged individuals, living through and experiencing a million different stories. Aidan is trans– that fact isn’t dodged around or turned into a metaphor or used as a lesson. His transness is centered but not dramatized. And he is a kid who is learning about himself and is excited/worried about being a big brother. Aidan’s transness is allowed to be part of him and part of the story without becoming the story. I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about representation intellectually, but it’s a whole different experience to actually hold a book that you know will change lives in your hands.
Vee: What do you want kids to know or better understand after reading Aidan?
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is another triumph from Mariko Tamaki. Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s illustrations bring the characters to life in vivid, dramatic detail. This graphic novel tells the story of Freddy, who is in an on-again off-again relationship with Laura Dean. And the rest I have to say about this is in the questions!
Vee: Your work, from She-Hulk to This One Summer resists simplistic narratives, capturing instead the depth and complexity of human experience. I feel like your stories always provide room for people to breathe and feel into all the nuances and contradictions of life. Is that something you do intentionally? And if so, what kind of space did you want to open up for readers in Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me?
Mariko: I think one of great things about graphic novels is how they let you show, rather than explain, what is happening with a character. Like rather than talk about someone feeling sad, or nervous, you can place them in a moment. You can create a context and then just let your reader be with your characters. At the same time, like any story, I think you need to be specific about who your story is about, which is about the supporting characters as much as the main characters. I think as soon as you get into tropes anywhere in a story, it starts to simplify things, and “real” stories are rarely simple, the way life is rarely simple.
Of course the key to this is the fact that this is a story told with words and pictures, with illustrations that work with text to create these impactful moments. Which is to say that none of this is possible without my co-creator, illustrator Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, whose work in this book is truly stunning.
In terms of this story, I wanted to tell another story about being in love, a story that’s not about finding love, but maybe letting it go. Romance stories are generally stories about finding your soulmate, but being a teenager isn’t just about the love of your life. It’s about a lot of people who aren’t the love of your life, or people who seem that way and then…they’re not.
V: Laura and Freddy’s relationship is toxic, manipulative, messy, and really really familiar to many queer young adults. It’s also one of the few established queer relationships in teen fiction– most stories revolve around characters getting together at the end, which only tells part of the story. Did you begin this project knowing this was the story you wanted to tell? Or did it develop as you wrote?
M: I knew I wanted to write a story about this sort of endless break up, like a break up that’s so long, it’s sort of a relationship in and of itself. The rest of the story developed as that story started to unfold. The stories of the supporting characters definitely developed as I started writing.
V: What do you see and hope for Freddy’s future, and for the futures of other teens who have been in similar relationships?
M: I don’t tend to think beyond what’s happening in the story itself. I wanted to leave Freddy, at the end of this story, in a better place. I don’t think you can necessarily say that a character has learned their lesson, they won’t make that mistake again just because they’ve come out of something. I don’t think it’s possible to make those steps until you’ve looked at yourself, something my recent relationships have taught me. So I hope Freddy is able to do that. To find a bit of herself in all of this, something worth standing up for.
Journaling Prompt: Reflection
Instead of handing down directives of where we’d like to see LGBTQIAP+ YA go in the future, we wanted to make this issue a collaboration of multiple different perspectives. But this conversation doesn’t stop here: we want to continue creating a reflective, communal process. As such, I would like to offer a moment to take out a notebook and pen or voice recorder and record some of your thoughts, or just take a moment to feel into these questions and breathe. Feel free to share your reflections on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #YAPrideReflections.
What lessons were you taught as a kid/teen about what it meant to be queer? What would you have liked to been taught?
What kinds of stories do you want teens to have access to?
What kind of story would have changed your life as a teen if you had had access to it?
What do you want the future to look like, for youth and for all of us? What do you want to see happen in the next ten years, fifty years, five hundred years? Can stories help us get there?
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What’s Next…
Thank you so much for reading our first online periodical issue– we hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed putting it together! Please let us know what you think of the content in this issue and our new format on Twitter or Instagram, or via email (contact@yapride.org). This new format means less promotion from us, so please help us spread the word!
If you are interested in contributing something to a future issue, or collaborating on a project, please get in touch with us by email: contact@yapride.org.
We will be back in September, with an issue about sexual violence and healthy, communicative sex in LGBTQIAP+ YA.
Happy Pride!
-The YA Pride Team (Vee, Daisy, and Kaitlin)
