SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA

[greghousesgf]

Originally posted by darkspirited1 at SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA

This comes from an article by rachelmanija entitled, Say Yes to Gay YA.
(click the link for the full article)

Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is
gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki's romance, like the heterosexual ones in
the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.

An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us.

The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay
character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to
his sexual orientation.

This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites… including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.

It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this.

Comments

[gmdreia.livejournal.com]

Ooh no shit!!! Thank you

I've read plenty of YA that has gay characters, but they're typically not in a matter of fact context, just a normal kid for whom being gay is normal. In the rare event that they are - they're lesbians. There's more lesbian YA out there than gay boy because I think on some level, girl girl stuff in the teen years is written off as girlie exploration.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your support!

To continue to support YA fiction with LGBTQ characters, I have proposed creating Permanent Floating YA Diversity Book Clubs. (http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/976665.html) If you wish to participate, the link will explain how to begin one, join one, or simply pass on the word.

[damigella-314.livejournal.com]

That's so depressing. I'm going to educate appropriately my own kids, since my hope that YA literature in Italian includes GLBT characters is just about zero. Today I showed my daughter a group of people taking pictures in front of e room where they hold civil weddings. She asked which one was the bride. I answered that it was probably the short lady in a white dress (short was relevant as she couldn't be seen because of that) and added thatI may be wrong and it may be as same-sex ceremony. Because in this country, unlike in Italy, such things exist, even if they are not called marriage.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I thought you would be interested to hear that we sold Stranger (aka "the Yes Gay YA novel") to Viking. Click on this link (http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/1075926.html) for a post with more details. Thank you so much for your support!