[Adopting Tini Howard’s numbering system for Substack posts from now on, because I think it’s high key brilliant!]
It’s been a long 2 weeks, coming back from the mountains, catching up on work that the travel days put on pause and chores around the house, fielding sick cats and doctor’s visits.
I’m medium scattered, but equally determined to get completely back on track.
I wanted to talk a little about queerness, and how the wider culture automatically sees it as sexual, “mature,” or explicit.
To be clear, I don’t see anything wrong with sex. If you enjoy it (and I do) then it’s wonderful/fun/a worthwhile pursuit. And if you don’t, that’s great too – more time for other things.
I think much smarter people than me have spoken at length about the dangers of associating queerness with the sexual and explicit/mature in terms of the law, education/minors, social media platforms (YouTube lawsuits and restriction of videos, TikTok, Instagram), etc., so I won’t go into that.
What I was thinking about was more about daily life and about stories.
To think that queerness is synonymous with sex/explicit means that things that would otherwise be seen as innocent (innocent doing a lot of lifting here and meaning without guile without any sexual intent, and also age appropriate) take on a completely different meaning.
Something as simple as two children holding hands becomes something suspicious. Certain types of clothing become indecent/corrupting. Affection between friends, obscene. A queer parent? Dangerous.
Every action, every stage of life, becomes something almost sinister (yay homophobia).
Stories that are otherwise accessible and “universal” (ha!) are seen as weirdly *deliberate* and dubious if they include or center queer characters, if they are written by a queer author.
Suddenly, children’s books become too mature for their target audience. It may affect (read, corrupt) impressionable young minds. Suddenly age appropriate YA romances are indecent. There is clearly an agenda here.
There’s this extra layer there that literally has nothing to do with the story, imposed from the outside.
I think anyone reading this will understand how oppressive and fucked up that is.
Why am I thinking about this? Because it’s something that literally comes up every day for me.
Second guessing every small interaction I write between characters.
Having to spend time (sometimes hours, sometimes days) justifying things in stories that my peers don’t have to (not only things I do differently, but things that I do that my peers do, but in being queer my doing it has different meaning somehow).
When I’m working with someone who is queer and they are self editing (or trying to pre-emptively “save us the struggle”) is heartbreaking (sometimes a betrayal).
It’s another way that queerness is criminalized, but also, it really says more about the people operating from those positions than queer people. Like…
Why are straight people obsessed with making everything about sex, with interpreting everything as explicit? They do it to themselves too, but they think that heterosexuality is “normal” so it isn’t a problem. It’s…so fucking weird to me.
So, what do do? Well, talk about it first, because I think that it’s as big a problem among liberals as conservatives. I will be generous and say maybe it is an unconscious bias, so speaking it’s name makes people have to own what they are doing and (hopeful) make an effort to change.
I guess, part of it supporting queer creators doing work in spaces that are geared towards younger folks.
I personally really loved/am looking forward to:
WITCHLINGS by Claribel A. Ortega (Middle Grade)
THE INSIDERS by Mark Oshiro (Middle Grade)
HAZEL’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (Middle Grade)
THE DEEP & DARK BLUE by Niki Smith (YA)
CEMETERY BOYS by Aiden Thomas (YA)
SQUIRE by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh (YA)
THE BACKSTAGERS by James Tyion IV and Rian Sygh (YA)
Just to name a few, but there are…so many more.
I think being intentional about how we think is part of things, but honestly, I don’t really have answers beyond “get pissed off,” “support queer creators,” and “call that gross shit out.” I am only one (1) soft, tired writer, so I am open to suggestions…
Promise I’ll lighten up soon, I’m just finding that having this space to thinking “out loud” has been really nice.
Still working on the next few F.A.Q.s (“How do I break into comics?” is gonna be a longer post haha), but until then, here’s some cool stuff! (Leah will be happy to know I closed tabs after I linked them here!)
Vida Cruz has a short story collection on gumroad, and it’s delightful!
After watching Jesse/Bowties & Books use their deck of TBR cards to help them choose what books they should tackle next, I had to have a set. They ROCK!
I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but there are two (queer centric) monthly book clubs (Rainbow Crate and Pride Book Crate) that look really cool! For anyone looking for an alternative to that transphobe supporting book box...
The rest of TQS: Leah Williams and Tini Howard both have Substacks!
I also have a website where you can find more info on my work and some comic industry resources!
THANKS SO MUCH!
It’s rough out there, so I hope everyone is finding ways to be kind to themselves.
5. WELCOME BACK (TO ME, FROM ME)
It’s always baffled me that same people who are horrified at the thought of kids being “exposed” to queerness will also do stuff like dress boy babies in shirts that say “lady killer” or push romantic narratives on kids of the opposite gender who are simply playing together, etc