The Power of Representation
Growing up, I didn’t see a large part of myself represented in the world — in pop culture, movies and TV shows, music, books, or anything else. I firmly believe that if I’d been exposed to more authentically portrayed queer identities, I would’ve accepted myself and come out much sooner. You see, white, cisgender, hetero people have a level of privilege that they don’t even acknowledge. Every movie and book and character they come across tells their story, portrays their identity, validates their experiences. They’ve never longed for someone like them to be respectfully and authentically portrayed, never desired to read a love scene of a gay couple in a novel or witness queer characters in media.
As young as I am, I was never exposed to diverse identities in literature or media or education. I never saw myself on the page or on the screen and to so many gay kids out there, that leaves a transcription on your soul that something is wrong with you, not the media — that they’re sharing the only valid identities and ignoring yours because you’re not the norm, because there’s something wrong with you. After I came out, I began to discover the queer identities in literature that had mostly all been released at the end of my time in high school or after I graduated. With my gay identity buried so deep in my subconscious during college, I never even thought to look toward new writing to connect with a character. Shortly after coming out, I placed an order on Amazon for as many LGBTQ books I could find at the time. I ordered the first books from Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli, immediately devouring the stories that finally made me feel heard, seen, and understood.
As I finished the first selection of books and placed another order, I stumbled across a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Representation in literature, in particular, is a concept that wasn’t given much validation for far too long.
A movement by writers and publishing agents beginning by a #OwnVoices tweet marked the start of a new generation of authors, making room for diverse authors to tell diverse stories. And this conversation has often come under scrutiny because of the question of whether diverse authors are the only ones capable of writing authentic diverse stories. At first, I believed they absolutely are the only ones capable of writing authentic stories about characters that undergo the same trials and hold the same identities as the people who give them life. A gay author is going to be able to give an authentic voice to a gay character where a straight person won’t be able to, a Black author is going to be able to give the most authentic voice to a Black character, and so on and so forth. By the time I finished writing this article, my opinion on this changed quite a bit. Emerson is right that being yourself in a world constantly trying to make you something else is a powerful thing, but it makes it incredibly more meaningful when you feel seen and heard and represented. Just reading a story about a character that matches your identity is something that is more profound than I could’ve possibly imagined, sparking possibilities and dreams and hopes that might never been unlocked without reading that story.
I’m not the only one who sees the need for more queer representation in media — particularly in literature. For this article, I spoke with Jules, more commonly known as the Instagram Book Blogger @ataraxiareads on Instagram. I asked them a few questions about inclusivity and representation in literature.
Why is LGBTQ-focused literature important to you?
We live in a world where being different is difficult. Being different from the “white cis straight” norm is difficult and even dangerous sometimes. Reading LGBTQ+ books is a way to feel less lonely, to know that you are not alone in this situation and that other people feel that way too. Being LGBTQ+ is a shared experience and that’s what makes us a community and you can feel all of this when you read a good LGBTQ+ book. All of this is important to me — It’s important to know that there are people out there who not only understand me but really get me because they experience what I do. And that’s the best feeling in the world.
What LGBTQ book has impacted you most?
Many LGBTQ+ books have impacted me — it’s like every single LGBTQ+ book I read has an impact on me. But I will always remember what I felt when I read I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver for the first time. It’s a masterpiece of a book about a non-binary teenager Ben, who is kicked out of their home by their parents and goes to live with their sister. First of all, it’s an amazing book — I can’t shut up about it, I can’t recommend it enough. But the book was even more important to me on a very personal level because when I read it for the first time, I had just came out as non-binary to myself a few months before, and I felt validated. It was like what I felt was really real and other people felt that too. I didn’t feel alone in my transness anymore and I’ve never felt so seen than when I read this book. And that’s something I really needed at the time. Even now, I still need that feeling of not being the only non-binary person on the planet and LGBTQ+ books with good representation is a way to connect with other people.
With the #OwnVoices movement in publishing taking root, why is it important to you for queer/LGBTQ books and characters to be written by queer/LGBTQ authors?
The #OwnVoices movement is a tricky thing. On one hand, it’s important to have books that feel authentic and real and that’s why it’s important that LGBTQ+ books be written by queer authors. On the other hand, some queer authors that are not out to the world or even to themselves navigate their queerness by writing queer stories and sometimes these stories get published and are considered “queer stories written by a cis straight author.” Sometimes, labeling a book as #OwnVoices means the author needs to come out before they’re ready to. And of course one of the most obvious examples of all this that comes to mind is Becky Albertalli. Many people belittled her stories, saying they were just queer stories written by the typical straight woman and it’s the constant pressure and harassment that forced Albertalli to come out.
People say too many queer stories are written by white cis straight authors and that’s true and I think all of this would be less of an issue if the publishing industry gave the same opportunities they do white authors to marginalised authors (especially BIPOC and disabled authors).
Obviously there is plenty of work left to be done to have more inclusive literature. What are some things publishers and society as a whole can do to improve and expand inclusivity in literature?
Publish more marginalised authors. Promote those books fairly. Publishers also need to treat their authors better. It’s not easy being an author, you don’t have any laws protecting you because of the nature of the job. It may be naïve of me but I think writing a book and publishing it shouldn’t be that hard — especially for BIPOC and disabled authors.
I personally didn’t have LGBTQ books growing up. Did you? Either way, what do you think reading queer books can do for young kids — particularly LGBTQ kids?
What you see, watch, read when you’re a child fundamentally shapes your own vision of the world and therefore it’s very important to see yourself — to know you do have a place in that world. For most of us, we’ve seen this heteronormative, white norm pushing us down since we were little and making us feel different. And we are different — that’s true — but that doesn’t mean we’re worthless. And that’s what queer books would give kids: the reassurance that you may be different but you’re just as important. Seeing happy queer stories is also very important because in films, TV shows, books, etc., queer people often die and/or have a very sad storyline and eventually you begin to think your life can only be sad. Queer kids should know they can have a happy life and thrive just like the others.
As Jules alludes to, the #OwnVoices movement in publishing has the potential to be incredible. Their mention of Becky Albertalli as a flaw in the #OwnVoices movement is something that I hadn’t quite pieced together until this conversation. Albertalli’s profound Medium article addressing this can be found here. In this article, she writes one of the most impactful quotes I’ve read: “But labels change sometimes. That’s what everyone always says, right? It’s okay if you’re not out. It’s okay if you’re not ready. It’s okay if you don’t fully understand your identity yet. There’s no time limit, no age limit, no one right way to be queer.” Albertalli dives into the frustration of the movement in her case specifically and how toxic every community can be — even the queer community. Some parts of #OwnVoices has morphed into a twisted form of cancel culture in which any authors who aren’t out or don’t identify a certain way are essentially censured from within the diverse community. It’s a balancing act to make sure that more diverse, marginalized authors are published but also allow room for diverse stories from authors who aren’t out in the LGBTQ+ community.
For Jules, myself, and so many other young LGBTQ+ people, identifying with queer characters and queer portrayals in media are just a form of validation of our own worth, a validation of our identities. The basic idea of being accepted and validated is so underrated by a lot of cis, straight, white people because they’ve never not felt seen. Every love story, every character, every portrayal is a cis, straight, white person and LGBTQ+ people, BIPOC, and so many other marginalized communities have to fight for every bit of representation.
Senator Tammy Baldwin once said, “There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are.” As unfortunate as it is, it’s up to LGBTQ people to fight for representation until we get it. It’s not a fair fight, and the odds are stacked against us. But as we’ve proven time and again, we will not be silent until our voices are heard, our identities are seen, and we are fully represented.
Movies and TV shows are making progress, but it’s happening more slowly than in literature. Producers often claim to be so worried about pissing off conservative viewers that they avoid producing queer content much of the time, but as I’ve explained before, discrimination comes in many different forms. Not producing queer content is a choice. Love, Simon and Love, Victor and Call Me By Your Name are beautiful movies and shows, but placed against the backdrop of hundreds of movies each year with straight characters, they don’t hold weight against the face of discriminatory censorship.
Being queer isn’t an aberration. It’s not a sin, it’s not something wrong, it’s not something to fear. This is where I could go on a tangent about how LGBTQ people have been present but essentially censured for the past 5,000 years — and I promise there will be an article about this at some point — but I’ll save all of that for another time. I know it’s easier said than done, but we have to continue to passionately and fiercely be our authentic selves and refuse to accept anything less than equity, equality, and representation in all spaces. We’re your children, your siblings, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors — and we’re not going away.
Don’t forget to follow Jules on Instagram to keep up with the latest queer book reviews! @ataraxiareads
*I wholeheartedly plan to write a number of LGBTQ+ book reviews in the coming months, but for now, please check out my list of incredible LGBTQ+ literature and LGBTQ+ authors here. This list will be updated as I come across more inclusive lit!**
