Home/Archive

Should I or Shouldn’t I? On Writing Trans Narratives Respectfully

By |2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 17th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: |

by John Jacobson Writing about yourself is hard. Writing about something, or someone, that you understand is hard. Writing about something or someone that is oppressed, stereotyped, and dehumanized by society is hard - especially when you don't understand that struggle on a personal level. Trans narratives are vital to the young adult book community. Trans teenagers often seek resources that can be found online, in libraries, and through other relatively quiet methods. Our voices as people outside of the gender binary are quiet when we're young because we're often met with varying degrees of unsafe environments. The [...]

Comments Off on Should I or Shouldn’t I? On Writing Trans Narratives Respectfully

Trans Representation in YA Is Only the Beginning

By |2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 16th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: , |

by Everett Maroon In the November 8, 2015 issue of The New York Times' Book Review, Malindo Lo opened a review of two novels with a note about diversity in contemporary YA fiction. It was an eloquent, simple summation regarding the ongoing conversations about representation: "[The] call for diversity has been accompanied by uncomfortable yet necessary debates about what constitutes quality representation, and few people agree on that." I'd like to focus on one very important word in her opening. Quality. Quality representation. Because while including transgender and gender nonconforming characters is an important shift in contemporary young [...]

Superheroes Saved My Life

By |2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 15th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: |

by Cheryl Morgan There are many things about the lives of trans kids today that leave me a bit misty-eyed. When I was at school hormone blockers were unheard of, and coming out as trans was liable to land you in an asylum getting electroshock treatment. YA wasn’t even a thing back then, so there was no point in asking for diverse characters. We did have books, though. Paper had been invented. Reading was pretty heavily gendered. I don’t think I could have got away with reading books like Little Women or Anne of Green Gables. I was [...]

Comments Off on Superheroes Saved My Life

Introduction to Transgender Awareness Week Series

By |2016-05-24T14:49:16-05:00November 15th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

Welcome to GayYA’s Transgender Awareness Week Series! In honor of Transgender Awareness Week, we’re featuring posts from trans and trans-spectrum contributors on various issues surrounding transness in YA. We have an AWESOME line up of contributors and posts, and we’re so excited to share them with you all! The Awareness Week series are something we’ve started doing for all of the LGBTQIA+ Awareness Weeks throughout the year. Though we hope to include everyone on our site at all times, we’ve found that dedicating a specific and concentrated space to a community to talk about the different ways their [...]

Comments Off on Introduction to Transgender Awareness Week Series

“Instant Attraction Can’t Be Real!” The Tale of an Angry Teenage Demisexual

By |2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 1st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: |

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 7 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters – Interview with Simon Tam – Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA - Being Ace: Cultural Differences and Progress by Morgan York I’ve been experiencing demisexuality since I was old enough to develop sexual feelings. But I didn’t know the word “demisexual” until I was 21. If I’d known the term existed as a [...]

Comments Off on “Instant Attraction Can’t Be Real!” The Tale of an Angry Teenage Demisexual

Being Ace: Cultural Differences and Progress

By |2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00October 31st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: |

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 6 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters – Interview with Simon Tam - Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA by Teresa Santos It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman must be in want of a husband. Except when they're in want of a wife. Or a partner. Everyone wants somebody, right? Mm, maybe not. If you have been paying [...]

Comments Off on Being Ace: Cultural Differences and Progress

Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA

By |2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00October 30th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: , |

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 5 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters - Interview with Simon Tam by Agent Aletha Hi, I'm Agent Aletha. I was kindly invited to write something for GayYA for Asexual Awareness Week! I read and review fiction with asexual spectrum characters on my tumblr Ace Reads and keep a database of all works with ace characters I can find on Tagpacker. The [...]

Comments Off on Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA

Interview with Simon Tam

By |2020-03-28T13:41:11-05:00October 29th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: , |

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 4 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual - 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters Hi! Welcome to the Gay YA’s Asexual Awareness Week! I’m interviewing Simon Tam, doctor aboard Serenity, the spaceship from the cult spacewestern hit TV show Firefly. In my headcanon, Simon is asexual and aromantic but just lacks labels. As someone who has changed her labels not infrequently in the last ten years since I came [...]

Comments Off on Interview with Simon Tam

5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters

By |2020-03-28T13:41:14-05:00October 28th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: , |

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 3 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series - Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table - Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual by Aisha Monet It is only a few weeks before NaNoWriMo, when writers all over the world will be cracking down to write a 50,000+ novel in the month of November, and I want to challenge everyone to include an asexual character in their novel this year. It’s so excruciatingly easy that I’m not even sure how to describe it. All you have to [...]

Comments Off on 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters

Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual

By |2020-03-28T13:41:14-05:00October 27th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: |

by JL Douglas I identify as demisexual. For me, that’s defined as “maybe I want to kiss and hold hands, but probably only after I’ve known the person for years.” I also write Young Adult romance. So far, none of my characters are demisexual. They get crushes, and sometimes they even act on them in ways that go beyond kissing and holding hands. Generally, their approach to romance is much more fast-paced than the one I know. They feel attractions, sometimes to people they just met! Lunaside, my first book, is in part about a girl dealing with [...]

Comments Off on Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual
Go to Top