The Pride Month Post
10 Jun
Well it’s Pride Month, so I feel the need to– I don’t know. Say something. Provide a few links and a personal anecdote, I guess. I hope I’m not about to preach, but this is pretty important to me and to what I write, so I think it’s relevant enough to deserve thorough discussion here. I’ve always been very clear in my views, but in a general way; I’m a little nervous about getting so personal this time. I hope you’ll bear with me.
My first link is Malinda Lo’s Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes in YA Fiction, which I picked up from Corinne on twitter the other day. It applies to all fiction though, not just YA, in a lot of ways. Even if you don’t plan on employing LGBTQ characters in your fiction, maybe give it a read. Hell, maybe it’ll inspire you to do so.
The second is from The Angry Black Woman: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack – Straight Privilege Edition. The whole story is there, but it’s effectively a list of privileges straight people enjoy– and take for granted. (Hm, tautology ftw.)
I get it if you’re not interested in working with any of these issues or writing queer characters. But sometimes they pop up anyhow, and I’m mostly just throwing this out there as a kind of reminder that uninformed assumptions and the whole heteronormative worldview are, not to mince words, casually cruel. I’m not saying anyone who reads this blog would be neglectful of such things, I’m sure no one I know would or has been. But I feel the need anyhow.
I’ve led an extremely privileged life. I grew up with enough food, enough money for a new pair of shoes every year, an allowance, vacations to the East Coast in the summer, and loving parents. I’m a white middle-class American from a Christian family. All I mean to say is that privilege always went my way, except in the case of idiot high school boys (this is not a blanket term– contrary to popular belief, they are not all idiots) and their male privilege– but even that was rarely aimed at me as I never had a lot of time for boys. Academia was another story– but don’t think that I’m complaining about my life, because it has been fucking easy compared to 99.9% of the world’s population.
But I’m a vegetarian atheist bisexual-identified woman who’s married to a brown guy. So every now and then I get a very, very slight taste of what it’s like to have people make assumptions, and it always shocks me when I’m actually bothered by them. (As an impersonal example: Happiness, for one year only. Um, wow. So if my husband, who is from India, had been a chick…?) And I think damn dude, with my cushy life, even I get pangs every so often.
I’ll bet you do too somehow. That’s the place from where understanding comes, I figure.
I’ve been reading M-Brane SF’s Things We Are Not, which is an anthology of LGBTQ-centric sci-fi. I always hear people asking questions like “Why do we need a queer antho– can’t they fit in with the straight ones, if everyone’s so equal?” No one here, but I just mean in general, that’s what people who have no awareness of their own privilege say, and it’s infuriating.* The first story– not to give too much away– features a character who defies the whole Gender = Sex thing. And I’m reading the story and I can just feel myself unwinding and relaxing, and I’m wondering why because it’s a fucking weird (in a great way), intense story. I go to the next one and the next one, women missing the women they love (in space!), people having important sexual realizations, characters who just happen to be queer (and telekinetic! Or whatever…), characters whose queerness is the point, all sorts of things.
About five stories in I realize I’m unwinding because I’m fucking relieved. I’m relieved not to have to box in the way I think about sexuality and gender to get these stories on that level. It’s intellectually freeing to read, and not a little comforting to see this whole community of writers interested in these kinds of characters and issues– or non-issues. I feel this way every time I read queer lit, in particular when it’s genre. I feel supremely grateful and happy and comfortable.
But it’s depressing that I never realize I’m uncomfortable when I am. Because that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. Probably why it took me so long to realize what finding a woman attractive actually meant– in spite of all the time spent with queer female friends long before that. (The World Says: If you like dudes, you don’t like chicks! Er…)
I like to challenge myself, make myself uncomfortable with what I read, don’t get me wrong. And not everything I write has a character who identifies LGBTQ. When there are, sometimes it’s accepted, sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s an issue, sometimes it’s irrelevant to the plot and never comes up, and sometimes it just is– as so many character points often just are. I’m not asking for more, or saying everything needs a gay character, and I’m certainly not saying I suffer in any way. I’m just putting this out here because I know a lot of people feel the same– if not about this particular issue, than about something. It bleeds into our writing because everything in life does. I figure examining them, where they come from, and what effect they have on the page is what this blog is here for.
Well, that and death, sex, and rock n roll. But technically this applies to one of my holy triad, right?
Anyhow, I promise I’m done with long posts for a week or two now. See what happens when I’m not writing a book? Yikes.
*“Why do we need Black History Month? Why do we need Women’s History Month? Why is it such a big deal that no women are on that list of Best Fantasy Authors Ever?” Man. This is the face of carelessly cruel privilege. That’s the nicest thing I can say about it. I am not saying this was a motivating factor for TWAN– it’s an interesting theme regardless. But questions like that are a pet peeve.
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Now playing: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio
via FoxyTunes
Excellent post, and thanks very much for writing it, I’ve been neglecting a few of my posts of late and it’s good to see others keeping up!
As a vegetarian atheist (closet) bi-sexual, married to an Assyrian, I now realise we have even more in common than great music and literature taste too…
Oh good! More long blog posts! Now I don’t feel so alone.
I think you mostly know that I’m with you on just about everything here–another middle-class cis white chick here, but one who’s also atheist/bi/disabled. It tends to be so much easier to explain racism/homophobia/whatever to people who are at least a minority in one area of their lives, doesn’t it? I tried explaining this to my dad, who’s your basic white-straight-cis male, and yeah. Sigh.
Anyhow! I’ll really have to take another look at Things We Are Not, thanks for the rec. When reading, it really is nice to know you’re in the hands of people who Get It.
And, y’know, there’s a reason Pjotr became Dinara in ARtFP. One’s because I wouldn’t want to shock anyone’s delicate sensibilities when Valentijn takes the lead in book to. And the other one is, why the hell not?
Er, book *two*, that is…
Proving once more, Mark, that we are awesome. (What? We are!) Yeah, I haven’t been posting much either until this week– finally shaking off that last book has done wonders. Maybe in a bad way, depending on your point of view.
Cory, most people have felt marginalized in some small way, and that’s what I want to tap into… but there is that rare human being who just cannot possibly get it– often willfully. What can we do?
I never thought of it as being “comfortable” before. The parallel that keeps coming to mind is that when I’m in India, I really, really like the food– my mother in law’s coconut chutney is my favorite food ever, I think. But after about a week, I just want a fucking pizza. And when I eat it I’m in heaven. Hell, usually I have a Coke with it.
Also, so cannot wait for Val’s book. EEEEE!!
Ah, sweet prejudice. I’m constantly amazed when I meet it in the faces of people I thought I knew well.
I’m lucky, not because I’m white (which I am) or middle class (which I’m not – working class girl, daughter of a single mother and there’s a heap of prejudice associated with that–takes chip off shoulder
), but because my family is comprised of white, black and brown and my gorgeous nephew is about to marry a Chinese girl.
I’ve seen a lot of prejudice in my time (and shot some of it down), will continue to see more, but am thankful that those I love don’t carry hate in their hearts.
An excellent entry. I particularly like the list of heterosexual privileges. Being straight, white, and from a middle class family is like winning the social lottery.
Cate, you are lucky indeed– and so am I in that way. I’m convinced that with people like you fighting the good fight, it’s gonna be okay. Some day.
The class thing is so much more complicated in the UK, from what I understand. (And not just what I learned from Jarvis Cocker, either…) Working-class can bleed into middle-class for us, among other issues that just never really existed here, since we’re hopeless newbs at the whole “culture” thing anyhow. I always want to say the race thing is more complicated here, but it’s probably just complicated in a different way.
Yeah, Nat, it’s like the universe waves a wand and says, “For YOU, life will be super easy! YOU, on the other hand– STRUGGLE!” Amazing, innit?
Long posts? That wasn’t too bad. I got through it in three sessions. Some thought provoking stuff presented there, Katey.
I’m hoping we reach a time (probably far into the Star Trek-ian future) that assumptions and generalizations about certain ‘cultures, orentations, classes, etc. will never happen…and you know that I’ll read your stuff no matter how long winded you get!
About five stories in I realize I’m unwinding because I’m fucking relieved. I’m relieved not to have to box in the way I think about sexuality and gender to get these stories on that level.
And that is such an awesome way to put it.
My two “favorites” so far from the assumptions category, proving that it comes from both sides of the track:
1 – The woman who flamed me, saying I should’ve “left” Bea and Ryna as a guy and a girl. And then told me I ought to at least put warning labels on my book.
2 – The lesbian who, once she found out my current partner is male, asked why I wrote about women loving other women – because, you know, I could write about straight people. Knowing that some of my partners had been women seemed to have no impact. And it wasn’t that “oh cool, you wrote about dykes!” kind of vibe. It was more of a “you poser – you’re a deserter to the cause, if you ever were a REAL woman-lover to begin with, which I doubt” vibe.
… but then, to prove that we authors can make a difference, one of my friends kept talking up Ashes to a homophobic law enforcement buddy of his. Wouldn’t fess up on if there were queer characters or not. Dude read it anyway – and said that maybe love really just was love, after all.
Thanks Alan, that’s very kind of you to say. Sometimes these posts, particularly when they seem a bit preachy, can be incredibly obnoxious… but hey.
Megh, wow. Those are some awesome, awesome assumptions. “Leave” Bea and Ryna as a guy and girl… wow. I don’t even know where to start.
PEOPLE, READ THIS BOOK. Because yeah, love is really just love. <3
I don’t even know where to start.
Yeah – that one confused me. One, because it assumes they started out as a guy and a girl (the woman said that I had to be making a deliberate choice if I deviated from the “norm”) – and two… exactly how would that love triangle work if everyone was straight?