YA*LIT TRACK, LGBT PANEL - recs, discussion

[rm]

Hello folks from the LGBT YA*Lit Panel!

I'm still running around with too much programming, but I wanted to make this placeholder post. I will edit it soon to add in some of the books we talked about in the panel last night.

Meanwhile, if you all, or my other regular readers, want to make book recs, please do in the comments.

Things we are specifically looking for, based on last night's conversation:

- YA books with queer main characters that aren't issue books
- YA books with with queer characters in the background that help round out the world
- YA books that allow queer characters to have straight same-gender friends, as opposed to the usual trope of gay guy's best friend is a chick or lesbian's best friend is some dude.
- YA books that have trans characters
- YA books that have asexual characters, or barring that, YA books that would be appealing to YA readers interested in asexual identities
- YA books that might be appealing to young men in the military who may be uncomfortable with the coming repeal of DADT.
- YA books that may address other aspects of sexual identity such as BDSM-interest or polyamory
- Suggestions on how to combat challenges to LGBT-themed YA books in libraries and schools
- Suggestions for how to let publishers know we want more YA books with LGBT content

Did I miss anything?

Comments

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

The Enid Blyton Famous Five series has George (once Georgina) an FTM child who lives mostly as a boy. This is a main character, but there is also Jo, also FTM, but more of a background character who looks enough like George that they are often mistaken for one another. These are books from the 30s and Jo is Romany, so there is some 30s-style stereotyping in that regard. These books are scheduled to be rewritten within the next year, long after the author's death, so I fear they will change the FTM content to be more 'wholesome.'

The Chalet School books, a British Boarding School series, written from 1924 to 1962 has several FTM characters which are occasionally the main characters in the books. There are 65 books and the main characters are different in each one. The books cover about a half a year per book, so the girls come and go. At different times there are FTM characters called Jack and Bill, respectively. I believe the series ends before Jack graduates, but Bill ends up training inner city children in woodworking and crafts under the auspices of a church program. Jack knows of Bill and finds comfort and inspiration from him, and neither is ever treated poorly for their differences, rather character is the focus of the books. There is also Simone, a lesbian character who loves another girl passionately, though she grows up to marry and have children as does the girl she loves. Again, these books are products of another time and though not all the characters are privileged, they are all caucasian.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

While there's much for FTMs to find to identify with in Enid Blyton's George/Bill/Jo, etc, there's also much that butch women, gay women, and perfectly cisgendered female tomboys could find to identify with too. All of them are presented as female characters and referred to by female pronouns, so I think it's a little hasty to declare them all to be FTM characters without qualification (and I seriously doubt that was Blyton's intention). Which is not to say that interpretation isn't valid, but it's not the only one available. And honestly, also, the implication that tomboyishness must automatically = transness is one that makes me a little uncomfortable, though I am trans myself. It's worth bearing in mind also that in the era Blyton was writing, girls were much more restricted in terms of acceptable behaviour and activities, so for her characters, identifying as like a boy/as good as a boy was often an issue of asserting competence and independence as much as it was about gender identity.

Similarly, the phenomenon of girls having passionate crushes on each other was part of the British boarding school culture, and wouldn't necessarily have been considered to be a sexual thing, and the usual expectation was that girls would just grow out of it. I have a number older YA books which talk of girls having "pashes" and crushes on each other as a matter of course and in total innocence. Which, again, the interpretation of lesbianism is there, and it's certainly interesting and valid, but that's unlikely to be the light the author intended to present the relationship in. I think there's a definite danger here of imposing modern - and quite binary - interpretations of behaviour and identity on a very different culture.

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

This is true of Bill and Jack in the Chalet School series, perhaps, or perhaps not. But George and Jo did their utmost to pass and insisted on being called 'Master George' when possible. They went out of their way not just to do boyish things but to become boys and to be perceived as boys. That is not mere tomboyishness. Butch women, gay women and tomboys certainly identify with these characters, but the fact is that in so many words, Enid Blyton goes farther than that. They are not believed. Julian and Dick laugh at them, and sometimes - but not always - there is some sense of humouring them, but they remain determined and earnest. There is no element of sex here, just of identity.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I need to agree with smirnoffmule on this one. While I agree these are great reads for both queer women and FTM individuals, especially because of the dearth of material out there, the books are really playing with a sort of romantic friendship that is a product of the era and a number of social structures that are a product of both the era and the boarding school environment on display. While I agree that it's challenging for most modern eyes to read these books in any way other than what you've described there is a history of same-gender interaction which is important in its own right that is obscured when we choose (no matter how legitimately) that modern reading.

But, I am glad you brought them up. They are very worthy of being on this list and discussed.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

While I agree that it's challenging for most modern eyes to read these books in any way other than what you've described there is a history of same-gender interaction which is important in its own right that is obscured when we choose (no matter how legitimately) that modern reading.

This, very much.

Stephen Fry has interesting stuff on this in Moab is my Washpot, though he's talking about a later era and an all-boy environment, and I've heard similar accounts from my mum and her brother and sisters - all public (as in private, boarding) school educated in the 50s and 60s. It was this culture where some degree of homosexual attraction - and even behaviour - was considered acceptable and red-blooded and healthy, but was held absolutely distinct from actual queerness, which was not okay at all. And while what was held to be acceptable and innocent and what was held to be wrong and sinister can seem barely indistinguishable from outside the culture, it was totally clear to those within.

I only have this culture secondhand, but it's my understanding - in a very broad and generalised way - that boys could do stuff with each other, but it was taboo to feel any passion about it, while with girls, it was okay to feel the passion, but not to do the stuff. It's kind of horrifying and telling and fascinating in equal measures.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Which is valid is an interpretation, I absolutely agree; what I don't agree with is that it's the only possible reading, or that it's accurate to make the absolute statement that these are definitely FTM characters - or that it's possible to extract such an absolutist interpretation of the characters from the context they were conceived and written in, especially bearing in mind you're using a term that Blyton herself likely barely even had a concept of, let alone intent to present.

There is no element of sex here, just of identity.

I'm not sure what part of my comment this refers to, but in case it wasn't clear - I wasn't intending to conflate sexual and gender identity; my second paragraph on girls having crushes on each other concerned your reference to a lesbian character in the Chalet School books, not the Blyton characters.