On writing LGBT YA books

In every area of writing, you find things that you shouldn’t do.  My specialty is young adult, specifically writing YA novels with protagonists who are on the LGBT spectrum.  The internet has created a bigger literacy of the terms among people who aren’t on the spectrum.  There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and the focus of this article isn’t on the allies but on writers in general.

What shouldn’t you do when writing a novel that has an LGBT lead?

Well the things vary.  LGBT stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender” which are all different experiences a human can have, even if the first three might seem the same to some.  Like any human experience, though, no two people going through the same one are going to have the same story.  What one person sees as stereotypical and degrading, another finds as their truth.  Stereotypes do often come from (stretched) truths at first, and to dismiss someone’s experience is to do them a disservice.

There are butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, bisexuals who enjoy a life of sex with both men and women, and transgender people who follow all the usual tropes of “feeling different” from a young age.

But that shouldn’t be all of who they are.  It’s true that many people with differing sexualities and gender identities participate in pride parades, in gay-straight alliances, in rallies for their country’s government to give them the same rights that are afforded to everyone else.  However, have you honestly ever met someone whose entire existence revolved around being different?  What a boring existence that would be, though I suppose this is where a hipster joke would go, huh?

Just because a character is different doesn’t mean you have to make them dwell on it the entire book, putting every free thought and moment into pounding it into our heads that they’re trans* or bisexual or anything.

With the uprising of self-publishing, you find more and more books with main characters who are on the LGBT spectrum, and that’s a good thing.  Commercial publishing houses aren’t always willing to take the risk of straying too far from the norm, not because they don’t want to, but they don’t have the faith that they’ll sell enough for it to be worth putting all the effort a commercial publishing contract entails just for one book.  Any company’s bottom line is its profit, after all, and in a society that is progressively becoming more accepting, the story of a white, straight girl falling for a handsome guy who sweeps into her life sells better.

I’m not saying issue books don’t have their places.  But we as a society are never going to get past seeing other sexualities and gender identities as different if that’s all that’s portrayed in fiction, which is more readily accessible to us than real life examples; only about one in ten people are gay, which is quite a high number in the big scheme of things, but statistics don’t tell us the whole story. You could have a whole town made up mostly of those groups of nine people, especially here in Maine where some town populations barely reach a thousand.  And while it’s true that sexuality is fluid, you’re more likely to meet an openly bisexual or gay person who admits that than someone secure in their heterosexuality.  Gender tends to be less so, from a combination of society’s expectations and how a person feels about it themselves.

Teenagers are more accepting of things that their parents and grandparents will shun.  While not all know exactly what to do or how to voice this, there’s still the chance in there to let them know that being accepting their gay friend or their trans* friend is okay, and doesn’t need to be a big deal.  Someone being on the LGBT spectrum doesn’t stop them from doing anything their friend who’s not can do.  So why aren’t there more books where an LGBT teenager worries about college, or is suffering a broken heart, or tries to mend their life after the death of a close friend or family member?  Why aren’t there more books where what they do is more of important than who they are? 

My guess is that it’s because with all the hoopla about gay rights and marriage and the effort to suppress them, society has shown us that it DOES matter that we’re different.  It extends everywhere, from looks to body type to things you have control over, such as your past times.  Comic book conventions aren’t seen as a gathering of people who appreciate the arts, but as a smelly, geekish festival to be mocked and avoided.  I would, personally, love to go to Comic-Con.  I pity the soul who wouldn’t! Comic book fans might get ferocious, but they have just as much excitement in their eyes when they meet Stan Lee as a teenage girl might get if they had the chance to go backstage with One Direction, or any other singer or band that’s popular right now.

People might be different from you, but they still enjoy doing things.  They’re not trying to oppress you by being LGBT or black or a comic fan.  They’re happy being left alone so they can live their lives as they see fit.  And that more than likely involves wondering what to have for supper more often than “What gay thing can I do today?”

Just think about it next time you read a gay YA book and have to consider how realistic you think it is.