I was beset by a sudden desire to know what, exactly, JKR said recently

[conuly]

(It was every bit as ridiculous as I thought it would be.)

And that led me to this thread and the corresponding subthread where he really just gets into it with me, for no fucking reason, on the subject of "no mass produced book series marketed towards children would depict homosexuality in 1997-2007. No publisher would take it on".

This is a factually untrue statement, and I have the booklists to prove it. I'm not saying these books were necessarily available to every kid who might reasonably have wanted to read them, but to say they didn't exist at all? I bought some of them from Scholastic book forms! Bruce Coville? He's a big name! The Skull of Truth came out in 1997! Norma Klein? She's a big name! People absolutely heard of her who read realistic YA fiction. Francesca Lia Block? I never read her, but I had heard about her, I knew people who read her books, I knew her books touched on homosexuality. But here he is, arguing with me about it! Why are we arguing about something so absurd?

At least I figured out why this is bugging me, and if I get another reply I will tell him. When he claims that these books did not exist, that no mainstream publisher would have printed any of them, that no mainstream bookseller would have stocked them in the children's or teens sections, he's buying into the bullshit queerphobic narrative that before X date, everything was hunky-dory and those people either a. didn't exist or b. were happily closeted.

In the a version of this narrative, things were better then, and it is all this publicity that makes people think they're LGBTQ. In the b version, things are immeasurably better now and all those LGBTQ people should just stfu already and be grateful. And key to either version is erasing the proof that it's just not true*.

And part of that proof is juvenile fiction published by mainstream publishers in the dark days of the 20th century that involve LGBTQ themes.

FFS, it's like another flavor of "Women didn't write sci-fi until yesterday" and yes we did. Don't fucking devalue their very real difficulties in getting published and staying published by saying they didn't exist at all.

(And if you're about to tell me that I grew up in a socially progressive part of the country, I know! But according to his claims, so did he, with a liberal family and a bookseller uncle to boot. If he never heard of a single YA book with LGBTQ themes at that age, I imagine that must be because he didn't ask anybody or look very hard. I didn't ask anybody or look very hard either, and I still bumped into them just, like, on the shelves! Neither of us was growing up in a Fundiegelical hellhole, so.)

Note: I would've asked him if he'd ever heard of Heather Has Two Mommies, but that turns out to have been printed by an indie publisher after all. I never woulda thunkit after all the press it got!

* It is measurably better now in some aspects. The important thing is that the past does not just get uniformly more queerphobic the further back you go, and in a way that maps perfectly onto modern bigotry.

Comments

[ioplokon]

Who is gay in the Skull of Truth? (Not doubting you, just apparently have almost no memory of that book despite having read it!)

[sovay]

"no mass produced book series marketed towards children would depict homosexuality in 1997-2007. No publisher would take it on".

Uh. Nope. Read them. Bought them. Sorry not sorry.

When he claims that these books did not exist, that no mainstream publisher would have printed any of them, that no mainstream bookseller would have stocked them in the children's or teens sections, he's buying into the bullshit queerphobic narrative that before X date, everything was hunky-dory and those people either a. didn't exist or b. were happily closeted.

You're right and he should feel bad.

[conuly]

Mmm... I think the protagonist's uncle? It would've been pretty unlikely for a child in a middle grade book to be LGBTQ themself back then.

[conuly]

Uh. Nope. Read them. Bought them. Sorry not sorry.

And the percentage only gets stronger when we add in allegorical works (will never not recommend The Shuteyes, btw) and subtext in various shades of obvious.

You're right and he should feel bad.

It's not even that I care that he didn't know about these books until today, but why the fuck is he arguing with me when he is just wrong? I'm not even trying to say he's wrong about the main point, which is that it was much harder to get those themes into mainstream juvenile publications back then (and if you did, harder to get them into kids' hands) and that an author could've been very well-intentioned and still have been unable to write what they wanted to in this regard. But - it wasn't 1000000% impossible! That's literally all I'm saying! And by the time JKR had ditched all her editors, if she had wanted to write that, she could've written that. She certainly had as much creative control as any of your next five authors.

But she didn't, because she's just generally queerphobic, and that means homophobic as well as transphobic, for all that she sometimes pretends, ineptly, that it's only the last.

[jessie_c]

But here he is, arguing with me about it! Why are we arguing about something so absurd?

Because if he shouts loudly enough he can convince himself that he's right.

[landofnowhere]

Yeah -- there were real barriers in getting LGBT representation in childrens' books at that time period, I remember the "say yes to gay YA" movement in 2011 but (a) Tamora Pierce did so much better with the books she published then (Lark and Rosethorn's relationship was not made explicit in the text, and I certainly didn't learn about it until after, but at least they were getting to have a healthy living relationship unlike Dumbledore, and I never actually read The Will of the Empress but I hear it had canon F/F), (b) if anyone at that time was in a position to exert pressure on mainstream publishers as to what sort of content could be in childrens' books, it was JKR.

[aurumcalendula]

That's a boggling claim! Like Sara Ryan's Empress of the World came out in 2001 and was published by Penguin's YA imprint, Tamora Pierce's The Will of the Empress was published in 2005, and I swear Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword was marketed as YA when it was released in 2006.

[the_siobhan]

It was 45 years ago now, but I remember my gf and I being entranced by a YA book about a same-sex relationship when we were in High School. It didn't end well for the characters and I have no idea if the book was a mainstream publisher or not, but it definitely existed and we encountered it in the school library so it couldn't have been that obscure. I was with my gf 1978-1980.

[conuly]

Carl and Tom are happily together on Long Island too, in the Young Wizards books. Couldn’t be explicit, but they were both alive and not evil.

[conuly]

I guess, but it’s a dumb thing to want to be right about.

[conuly]

You know, I wonder if part of the problem is that he's a gay man (and presumably cis). Because I'll admit, all the examples that spring easily to mind are by or about girls and women.

[conuly]

Annie On My Mind?

[sovay]

It's not even that I care that he didn't know about these books until today, but why the fuck is he arguing with me when he is just wrong?

I am not slating him for being one of the day's lucky ten thousand! I am totally slating him for clinging to factual wrongness for the sake of a disingenuous point. And attempting to indicate support for your frustration, because people who will not accept facts in argument are head-exploding.

But - it wasn't 1000000% impossible! That's literally all I'm saying!

I did not particularly like His Dark Materials (1995–2000) past the first novel, but the gay rebel angels are not subtle!

(I can cite examples of explicit queerness in children's/YA fiction off the top of my head as far back as the 1980's and I suspect I could find them earlier if I poked for two seconds at the internet.)

But she didn't, because she's just generally queerphobic, and that means homophobic as well as transphobic, for all that she sometimes pretends, ineptly, that it's only the last.

As if that were better! Yeah.

[sovay]

Carl and Tom are happily together on Long Island too, in the Young Wizards books. Couldn’t be explicit, but they were both alive and not evil.

While agreed on the not explicit, Carl and Tom are so barely subtext that I have never met anyone who didn't take them as read as a couple.

[sovay]

I was with my gf 1978-1980.

Elizabeth Levy's Come Out Smiling (1981) is too late, then.

I hope someone in this thread can find the title for you.

[minoanmiss]

Carl and Tom's obvious marriage descended upon little fundie me like an earthquake of delight. I tend to credit Lackey and Renault for busting apart the homophobia TPTB bridled with me; thank you for reminding me of Duane's Carl and Tom whom I read two years earlier.

[conuly]

I did not particularly like His Dark Materials (1995–2000) past the first novel, but the gay rebel angels are not subtle!

Okay, hands down, the alethiometer is one of the coolest magical gadgets in fiction.

(I can cite examples of explicit queerness in children's/YA fiction off the top of my head as far back as the 1980's and I suspect I could find them earlier if I poked for two seconds at the internet.)

Oh, for sure. And I can make some pretty good cases for "probably intended as intentional subtext" from everything ranging from picture books (Frog and Toad) to middle grade (Harriet the Spy) and... okay, well, I don't read much dated YA, inasmuch as it's really fair to divide YA and middle grade too much earlier than the 1990s anyway.

[conuly]

I didn't as a kid... but then, to be clear, I also didn't fucking realize that Narnia was about Jesus, so.

[conuly]

(And just to re-bring up The Shuteyes, that book is about as obviously about gays as Narnia is about Jesus, and I didn't figure it out until an adult re-read! Though at least nobody had to tell me. I had to be told about Narnia.)

[sovay]

Carl and Tom's obvious marriage descended upon little fundie me like an earthquake of delight. I tend to credit Lackey and Renault for busting apart the homophobia TPTB bridled with me; thank you for reminding me of Duane's Carl and Tom whom I read two years earlier.

You're welcome! I think that's wonderful.

(I wonder if they were the first gay couple I met in fiction. I read the book so early, it's hard for me to imagine who I could have encountered sooner.)

[conuly]

If not, there's always /r/whatsthatbook.

Which reminds me, just two weeks ago somebody was there looking for a middle grade book about a girl with a lesbian mother that she read in the 1990s.

Which I didn't realize I found, so yay me.

[sovay]

I didn't as a kid... but then, to be clear, I also didn't fucking realize that Narnia was about Jesus, so.

That's fair. I read the resurrection of Aslan as a solstice story long before the Christianity occurred to me. I did for whatever reason assume about Carl and Tom.

[sovay]

(And just to re-bring up The Shuteyes, that book is about as obviously about gays as Narnia is about Jesus, and I didn't figure it out until an adult re-read! Though at least nobody had to tell me. I had to be told about Narnia.)

I am happy to have you re-bring up The Shuteyes, because I don't know it at all! How does it work?

[sovay]

Which I didn't realize I found, so yay me.

Nice.

[conuly]

I haven't re-read it in a decade, and there is a lot going on in that short book (which I will classify as SF-flavored middle grade weird with added LGBTQ themes) but to just hit on the most obvious part of the obvious, our protagonist ends up whisked away to the planet of Alert, where everybody is human but they don't sleep. Sleeping is slack, no, they work and play all day, and without actually admitting that they're conformist freaks they brutally scan each other all the time for signs of slacking.

Except some of them do sleep, including his foster family's neighbor's daughter, whose parents torment her constantly over this and then claim to be hurt and bewildered when she finally escapes to live with her mother, a radical napper. After all, didn't they give her everything, including a cubby behind the washer so she could take her little naps without disturbing people too much?

Also there's a sapient parrot, an earth people zoo, and M&Ms. And back on Earth the protagonist's mother is very clearly written as very loving and hippy, very freethinking.

Shoebag also turned out to be about gays. I thought it was about a cockroach going on his own weird kafkaesque adventure in NYC, but nope, it was a metaphor for being in the closet.