Homosexuality in YA

"I would like to believe the Young Adult age group is more accepting than others, depending on how they're raised."

It isn't really the age group that you have to convince. Sure, they will be the ones who buy or don't buy the published book, but you've got to get past the guardians of decency that call themselves agents, editors, publishers, and booksellers. Frankly, I don't know what they are "buying" at the moment, but anything that is off the mainstream has a tougher go at getting published.

Part of the problem is the same that I have with Netflix. I watched, really enjoyed, and rated high "Brokeback Mountain." It was a great story, superbly acted. Since then, Netflix has "recommended" every gay movie in their library. You have correctly pegged it in your description above. It is not about being gay, it is about being a good novel. Get to that point and it shouldn't make a difference.

I am fervently against gay rights and homosexual marriage...personally. I believe it to be morally wrong and degrading to society, but that does not mean that I am puritanical when it comes to my writing. I am not afraid to include a homosexual relationship if the story deems it, although usually that relationship shall reflect my values. Still, from a purely literary standpoint, I think that your making the acceptance of homosexual relationships the focal point of some of your writing parallels rather curiously some of the 'preachy' fiction out there who focus on shoving the opposite message in our faces. From an Old South Christian heritage, and as a young adult myself, I would resist having the doctrine of tolerance beat into my face just as much as I resist Bible-thumping Baptist preachers screaming hell-fire and damnation. It truly depends on how and why you depict it. Regardless of how you feel about the subject, the fact about any moral issue is that you have to think about how your readers will react: regardless of what it is, no one enjoys being preached at. But, if you include a gay romance in your book that you handle with taste and literary finesse...hey, more power to you. Just know that in whatever you do you are going to alienate some potential readers, and unfortunately this shall be a greater problem in conservative America for you than for the writers who advocate heterosexual romances.

Homophobes are funny. You tell them to tolerate gays, and they tell you you're not being tolerant of their choice NOT to tolerate gays.

See, here's the thing, though. If you can't be expect to tolerate gay people, why should gay people -- and supporters of gay rights -- be expected to tolerate you?

As long as you portray it realistically okay, it's fine. As with all things, if you go into the territory of The Moral of the Story Is...you will lose fans, both gay and straight. (It's the reason I don't like most gay fiction--I am a huge Ally with a capital A, but most of the time it's gag-worthy-preachy.)

As you can tell by the answers to this thread, you'll have all sorts of people reading your novel. The best way to save your dignity is to make it a part of your story, but not the single most important thing. Put things into perspective--your whole life isn't about your sexual orientation, so why should your novel be? :)

I personally think that while Young Adult novels are completely blowing up right now, gay young adult novels are going to be the next genre to blow up with publishers. Niche markets aren't so niche anymore.

--=-="Later, Skater"=-=--
My 2007 NaNo WINNER
http://www.lulu.com/content/2360507

Does it happen in real life? Then it is perfectly okay to write about it.

___
a blind lover, don't know
what I love til I write it out.
- michael ondaatje

Well see, that's what I'm saying, and maybe I'm unconsciously doing something, feel free to point it out to me, but the fact that their gay really means nothing. I'm not trying to preach anything, it's just there. Just like heterosexual relationships in stories. I only do it because I can't work with it any other way. If my main character were to fall for his female friend, I as a writer, could not stand to do it.

I'm not trying to make it a big thing, I don't want to make it a big thing. And I'm not forcing anyone to read it, it's their choice.

To IAmQale: that's a funny thought but you know, I've kinda thought the same thing. I almost want it to happen; simply because I really need that option to be open for me when I go to be published. I mean something has to happen to change all the normal, old stories.

Boy Meets Boy was the first YA book I ever read that had a gay relationship, but even that was the focal point and that is just not what I'm looking for. I don't want the problem of the story to be "they're gay". There's simply no room for that. If someone were to get it out of the story, that would be their own personal problem, not mine.

I'm just thinking that this sort of thing really has not been done. Definitely not in mainstream fiction.

If I have to make my name mean something to this world, I will. If I have to seize the power, I swear I can. If that’s what it takes to build you up again, to make you perfect, I’ll unravel, I’ll tie up, I’ll destroy this world if you want me to.

I agree with those who say it's fine as long as it doesn't get preachy. I think the ultimate goal is (or should be) to get everyone to realize that gay people are just that: people. By holding it up as something ~*new*~ and ~*edgy*~ in a novel, I think that just strengthens the divide. Also, it comes across as really unnatural, and readers are going to be turned off by that regardless of their orientation or beliefs.

I don't have any gay main characters this go-around, but my MC has a lesbian aunt. She and her wife aren't really a big part of the story, they're mostly just lumped in with the other adults, but they're certainly around as members of his family and their son (my MC's older cousin) plays a large role in the plot.

I know, right? It's almost like they heard the part of what you were saying that they could use to make what sounds like a solid arguement and then stopped short of actually evaluating it logically. =)

To the original poster: I'm with you. I love YA fiction and some of my favorite YA includes gay characters or gay subplots but I usually don't read anything specifically flagged as "gay YA fic." It just seems like that market is so absolutely glutted with gay being the plot, whereas other stories just present it as a reality without turning it into a drama-magnet. Sort of like the difference between the Romance genre and romance within other genres (if I can use a really bad analogy).

No, I think your bad analogy makes a great deal of sense. Actualy I might have used it before myself =)

It gets rather annoying if the main problem of the story is them being discriminated against. That only reinforces the idea that it's never going to be completely accepted. However, fiction is fiction. And we must remember that it is fiction.

What I like to read are stories where the characters "just so happen to be" gay. Not "oh my lanta" they're gay.

If I have to make my name mean something to this world, I will. If I have to seize the power, I swear I can. If that’s what it takes to build you up again, to make you perfect, I’ll unravel, I’ll tie up, I’ll destroy this world if you want me to.

MC in my nanowrimo isn't gay, although some of his friends are (although he has a few 'moments' with them which kind of freaks him out, except for very different reasons than you might expect). He's not really straight either. Asexual, kind of. He has a very odd view towards sex, I guess.

and

... I think my brain just exploded.
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~ Kai

Nano 2008: AWAKENING
http://thecityofdis.livejournal.com

~ Kai

Nano 2008: AWAKENING
http://thecityofdis.livejournal.com

In my current YA book there are three gay characters. Two are a pair of "old married couple" lesbians who are major role models for my MC's. The other is the best friend of the MC's whose sexuality is intregal to the story. He's actually a reflection of my best friend from high school and how I wish he had been able to express himself (we went to a rural agricultural high school in the Bible Belt in the late 70's that should explain it). Because I believe that homosexuality is a valid and normal part of life, even, and maybe especially, for young adults, I wanted to include characters who could show homosexuality as just that: valid and normal.

Actually, I loved Boy Meets Boy, and David Levithan is one of my very favourite authors. The story definitely was about the relationship, but it was about the relationship the same way a hetero-romance would be. It wasn't about a gay relationship. It was about a relationship that happened to be between two boys. David Levithan, I find, does an exceptional job of using homosexuality as a character trait rather than a plot point.

In my NaNo this year, my MC's best friend is bisexual. I hope I've succeeding in presenting it as an off-the-shoulder kind of thing. It's long been the norm in the world of Hunter and Davey, and isn't questioned.

I think homosexuality in YA books is becoming more prominent (which it should). I live in a conservative area, so it generally is not accepted, but I don't think it would deter people from reading it. There are loads of (stereotypical) gay characters in movies that are widely watched, so why should books be any different? One of my characters turned out gay, and I'm not going to change her for fear that people won't read the book. But look at authors like Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (already mentioned) in Nick & Norah, and Maureen Johnson in the Bermudez Triangle and Libba Bray in The Sweet Far Thing. It seems like the majority of YA authors lean to the left--look how many are members of YA for Obama, for example. But in short, don't change your characters because you're worried some people won't like them. Because there always will be people out there who DO like them.

I have a FMC who just came out, and it has introduced another gay character. It is a big part of the novel, and not widely excepted by the other characters, but I feel that if anyone is upset by the fact that I have a good portrayal of gay characters, then they can just not read it. I am straight, but infuriated by people who are against gay rights, so this novel is a mouthpiece for my views. I thinks its fine.

I have no problem reading or writing about homosexuality. It's probably because I'm bisexual myself but that just comes naturally for me. A lot of times I'll put it in my stories without even realizing it.

Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle featured a relationship between two girls, and the context being their third best friend being the odd one out once the two girls hooked up, and the changes when a friendship becomes a relationship and all that jazz.

Her book was banned in a library because of the homosexual content.

Try reading her string of posts on the subject here for an idea.

She had a lot of supporters but for a lot of people the mere "homosexual content!! OMG!!!11" was enough for them to demand the book be removed, sight-unseen.

I certainly don't mean to discourage anyone by mentioning that but it's a reality if you're going to write on the subject.

In my novel, I have a character who's going to come out of the closet sooner or later... whenever he decides he's ready. And if someone wants to ban my book, if it ever gets published, well... go right ahead and try.

2008 - X-wing: Resistance

This was something that I was wondering about as well. There are two characters that I know to be homosexual - although their relationship hasn't actually come out in the story. There was one scene where I felt, as I wrote it, sexual tension between one of them and another character. I honestly wasn't sure if the next thing I'd type would be them kissing. O_o;;

I've written stories with homosexuals before, but those were for adult readers. I was very curious if it would be all right in a YA novel - especially since my novel is actually for middle age readers.

___

A few years ago, I wrote half a book and stopped. My main character's mother moves them back to her childhood home and the entire book is about the main character trying to make sense not only of the changes in location, but of the changes in her mother, the way she acts like a different person in West Virginia, the way everybody knows her there, but they know a different version of her than her daughter does.

Halfway through the book, I stopped and couldn't start again. I loved my characters and I was in suspense as to what would happen next, but the reason I had planned on writing for the mother's move back to her childhood home just didn't ring true and I couldn't force myself to write it. I grappled with what I knew was supposed to happen for a long time before I finally gave in and wrote it. Or, more accurately, it wrote itself, and a book whose first half had taken three months to write completed itself in less than a week.

It is now a finished, polished, and hopefully publishable middle grade novel in which a young character begins to grow up enough to know her mother as a person instead of just as her mother. One of the facts about that person is that, growing up, the mother was in love with the girl next door, which was the reason she left West Virginia and the reason she came back.

That was an extremely long-winded way of saying that sometimes characters are going to be themselves, just like real people, and it's best to let them do it.

“Oh, well, let’s see. Counting the one in Florida … the one in Illinois and the one in Timbuktu … I have no sisters.” -- NaNo 2008

^ I hope you do get it published some day. I think it's great that it's for middle grades. It seems like homosexuality is more prominent in adult and YA fiction, but not much younger fiction.

FINALLY. Somebody who thinks the same way I do. I am so sick of homosexuality BEING the story, rather than reading a story in which, oh hey, the characters are both the same gender and love each other. There are so few stories in this vein and it's sad.

I also have the same problem as you do. I have a hard time writing a female protagonist, or a male who falls for a female. I'm just so tired of how those stories play out. They all feel the same. When I read typical fantasy fare these days, I find myself closing the book when the female shows up. You just KNOW she's there to be the main character's object of love and lust, and it's annoying. Plus, it's difficult for me to write about lusting after a girl when, you know, I haven't.

I really hope you end up getting published. Maybe we can all bring the genre to light.

Also, as for homophobes, I wrote entire essays on the subject and I'm getting so tired of it. There will always be bigots, no matter how "forward" thinking we become. And it's sad that it has to be labeled as "forward" when it should just be common courtesy.

I usually ALWAYS hate female characters, and going in with that opinion it's not really worth the read anyhow. That's why I stopped reading a lot of books and started focusig more on literary fiction works instead of cheesy YA romances. Some girls are alright (maybe two) . I love Austen's Lizzy, she's intelligent and I think, for her time period, she shows many masculine qualities, that also goes for Euripides' Medea.

Haha, exactly. Just isn't going to happen. Most of my female characters turn out awful, so I often look at it as "my male characters need someone worthy", so I'll create another male character that I actually like and can relate to.

If I have to make my name mean something to this world, I will. If I have to seize the power, I swear I can. If that’s what it takes to build you up again, to make you perfect, I’ll unravel, I’ll tie up, I’ll destroy this world if you want me to.

My MC's best friend is gay, and that actually ended up being the catalyst for the entire story -- her WILDLY overprotective mother walked in on her and her (male) best friend kissing, and sent my MC to stay with her aunt and uncle for the summer, but the very reason the two were kissing was because they had been talking about him thinking he maybe was gay, but he was still a little confused about whether he was, and -- well, kind of like in the movie SAVED, where they thought that "well, maybe if you try kissing with a girl maybe that'll let you know for sure."

I realize only in hindsight that it's a complete cliche for a female MC to have a gay best friend, and I'm cringing, but that's what came out of my head...he does have one of the best lines, though (and alas, it's something that I can't really quote without giving all the context).

Heh, I couldn't agree more. Lately I haven't been reading as much because I simply can't stomach the heterosexual romances anymore. It's not that I don't like them. It's just I'm really, really fussy about my female characters. So many of them seem to be carbon copies of each other, and I usually end up hating them because they are always shown as being perfect the 'love interest'. More often than not it seems like the only reason they are even there is to be lusted after. T.T

Male characters, however, tend to be written with less of a focus on romance than females are, so it's easier for me to see them as real people. And it's real people I like to see in romances.

As for actual homosexuality in YA fiction, I haven't actually read any... It's bloody difficult to find any books with gay characters because they all seem to magically not exist in bookshops around here. However, I will say one thing: Yay, Dumbledore.

Anyway. I have a series of stories I have planned that are YA. There are four main characters, two male and two female, and the two guys do end up in a romantic relationship. I don't plan to put any emphasis on the fact that they're both guys in their romantic sub plot, but rather on the fact that they are best friends, and while one of them has been pursuing the other for years, the other one is afraid of screwing up their friendship. But like I said, that's a sub plot, and they don't have much time for sappy moments when deranged vampiric corpses are trying to tear out their throats.... ^-^

I found in the "Black Magician's Triology", I skipped everything in that third book apart fromt he bits with Dannyl in; not because he was gay or straight... but because they were so much more interesting to read. It really depends..I am lucky enough to live somewhere where people are not completely homophobic (mainly, and I don't mean offence here, but it really is true, because I live in quite a secular area of the UK.)
If something is well written then the content really doesn't matter to any teenager I know. Books have been used to further tolerance and understanding within this genre, especially of people in the LGBT community. Teenagers nowadays are much more open about their sexuuality...with a 1 in 10 chance, almost every one of them will know someone who is gay.
I mean, Captain Jack in Doctor Who anyone?! I doubt we'd see that in an American children's programme! One of the reasons I love Britain...we really are steeped in homoerotisism...ie Panto, Lily Savage on Blankety-blank (a particular childhood memory of mine), our "national treasures" and much loveds; Simon Amstell, Matt Lucas, Ian McKellen, Will Young, Graham Norton, Alan Carr, John Barrowman,..need I go on!
And then there are the fangirls who will love anyne for all eternity who includes a slash pairing! *shifty eyes* not that I'm one or anything!

Heh heh, I was exactly the same with BMT... I never actually read the end bit with Sonea. I just didn't really care that much about what happened to her anyway the way I did in the first books.

And.. well, everything else you said after that... could have come from my mouth. ^__^ So yay for Britain!

It depends on how the topic is broached. If the story is more about acceptance rather than the sexual aspects of the lifestyle then it is okay for a Young Adult Novel. Especially when dealing with something that might be controversial, it is good to be subtle about ti rather than cram it down the readers throats if you know what I mean.

Personally, I think that the YA genre could DESPERATELY use a story that treats a homosexual relationship like it would a heterosexual relationship. Where I live, my school is mostly straight; if somebody's gay, they're on the fringe of the school, and nobody's surprised because they're one of the "weird art kids or whatever." But I've never heard of anybody being gay in the "popular" crowd. So I think many teens need to get used to seeing gay relationships treated normally, without fanfare or the excuse of being edgy.

Plus, if it's written well, and can draw you in just like a book with a straight romance, then teens will go for it, definitely. The trick is to find a publisher that doesn't mind.