Always Let Love Win: In Memory of Nancy Garden

by

Shelby Engelhardt

 

Imagine being a young lesbian coming of age in the early 80s. It wasn’t socially acceptable to have feelings for someone of your own sex, and many in the LGBT community were ostracized. Then, suddenly, there is a book published that describes you exactly. That is how many lesbians felt when Nancy Garden’s young adult novel, Annie on My Mind, was published in 1982.

Garden was a celebrated LGBT author who passed away on June 23 of a massive heart attack at the age of 76. She wrote young adult and children’s books and was a lesbian who was openly out. This made her a rarity, especially when you look at her list of accomplishments and publishers. She wrote at least one book a year since 1971, with the last being published in 2012. Garden had been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award every year for a 10 year span. She was published by top publishers such as: Knopf, Houghton-Mifflin, Holt, HarperCollins, Scholastic, and many more.

Garden was passionate about writing about issues that young adults faced, especially those in the LGBT community. She brought truth and honesty to the subject of dealing with being gay and lesbian in her books. Her works showed her love for writing and her passion for writing for those who faced the challenges of being gay. Garden’s works ensured no LGBT kid grew up alone and her works were vital to many in the community and will continue to be for years to come.

Nancy Garden has left a legacy for many writers and activists to follow: never let ignorance win, but always let love win.



Moving Beyond Stereotypes: Creating Characters who are Queer

by

Janine Harrison

 

A dear friend of mine is a lesbian, and when she and an ex-girlfriend were still a couple, there was no “masculine” one and no “feminine” other.  They shared a wardrobe, for crying out loud.  Both of them could use power tools to build walls and fences.  That did not make them butch.  One of them wore makeup and dangly earrings; the other one enjoyed necklaces, rings, and beautifully fragranced bath products.  That didn’t make them lipstick lesbians either.  Most queers have been out of the closet for a decade or two by now and many of today’s teens are openly gay.  As writers, it is imperative that we portray this minority group, as individuals and as couples, with accurate complexity.  Stereotyping is just so 1980’s, after all.

The two most commonly stoked queer stereotypes include the effeminate male and the masculine female.  And let’s face it—there are flaming queens and mannish lesbians.  Stereotypes exist for a reason.  If a writer developed a scene set in a gay bar and did not include a few of these character types, it may even be considered remiss.  Avoiding a stereotype completely can come across as inorganic writing.  However, no matter whether an author is writing for a mainstream or an LGBTQ audience, and the central character is homosexual, does that character have to be a skinny, male hairdresser with a lisp who obsesses over sex?  Or a man-hating, anti-marriage female counterpart to John Wayne?  I think not.  If a queer couple is being depicted, does an author have to assign traditional gender roles?  Not necessarily.  Let’s take this even further.  Does a bisexual have to be written as promiscuous?  Why can’t he or she be fleshed out instead as a person with many talents and interests who, in the area of romance, is simply an equal opportunity employer?  And what about the transgendered individual?  Does being in transition necessitate “confusion”?  Must said character be cast in the role of “freak” or “monster”?  No, no, and more no.  It would be nice to see such a character cast in the role of a successful college professor, architect, or engineer, who just so happens to be involved in a sex-change process. 

Stereotypical plots are to be avoided just as much as clichéd characters.  Writers today should strive to move beyond the coming-out-was-painful-but-resulted-in-an-uplifting-state plot.  Equally so, placing gay males in heavily testosterone-driven arenas such as football or the military and lesbians in the ultimate “pink aisle” of situations, such as cheerleading or beauty pageantry can also be chucked into the circular file of the mind.  What issues are relevant to the queer community today? is a question that writers might want to ask instead.

Once imagination, drafting, and craft are complete, yet another question is:  Have I, as a writer, represented this character or these characters respectfully, as complex human beings?  If the answer is “yes,” then click “Submit.”



Transformation from Subculture to Accepted

by

Julie Demoff-Larson

 

Gay literature has gone through a gradual transformation over the years as the American population slowly changed to the acceptance of the gay community. LGBTQ literature began with subtle hints and innuendos eluding fantasies, trysts, and relationships that were forbidden. Later, gay literature focused on the "coming out" story. But these stories were primarily about shame, denial, and hardships the characters endure when their sexuality is revealed.

 

Jane Rule’s Desert of the Heart, one of the first strictly lesbian novels in print, reveals the desires that consumed those who married out of duty and abandoned their true nature. This was familiar to many women during most of the twentieth century. Women and men stayed in marriages that were unnatural to them out of fear of retribution, ridicule, and alienation. Stories like Desert of the Heart—poetic at times, and dated in others—mimicked the social constructs of the day.

 

Subcultures that existed in certain factions of society prior to now can be reevaluated in works such as Invisible Life, by E. Lynn Harris. Even today, denial has been a big part of gay reality in minority populations. Invisible Life exposes the secret lives of gay African American men who are in committed relationships with women. Some characters deny being gay because of their limited participation in physical contact. But most rejected the label because of the stigma and distain they would receive from family and friends. E. Lynn Harris also wrote about the HIV and Aids epidemic that plagued the gay community during the 80s and 90s. Americans looked the gay community in a very negative light and some writers tried to attach a human face on the disease.

 

We have come a long way from the days of fear and shame. Today, writers are creating stories and characters that are gay, but the plot of the story is not necessarily about being gay. As we strive to normalize gay culture, we no longer need a description of differences or similarities between hetero and homo sexuality. Now, we need what writers are actually putting out there—stories about family, love, loss, happiness, and sadness. The things that make all of us human.