Blog Series: I Support #We Need Diverse Books (Part 1)

As it turns out, I have a lot of thoughts about why diverse books are needed. Like, 1000 words a lot, and that was me forcing myself to stop. So I’m going to make this a series, of probably two more posts: one dealing with the few diverse books I read/the ones I’ve been lucky enough to read as an adult, and how they helped me heal, and another talking about the diverse kind of books *I* personally want to write. Maybe you guys will read them.

 Why We Need Diverse Books, Part 1: My Story

 

Have y’all heard about We Need Diverse Books and the amazing, groundbreaking work they’re doing? The #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign is so inspiring, and something I’m personally passionate about. They have a fundraiser going on now for some GREAT innovate ways of increasing awareness about the diversity they and we want to see in MG and YA books. I’ve been to as many of their Twitter chats as I can, and I’m so impressed by how many people are there, too, teaching me things, asking for books with better representation. Update: They reached their goal! I donated $25 and wished it could have been so much more. All of this is great, but just one step.

I want books with ALL sorts of diversity: disabled characters, LGBTQ characters, persons of color as main characters, etc. I want gritty, powerful books that are NOT what we’ve always seen: straight, white privileged characters. I want change, and I have a personal reason for wanting it. This won’t ever be easy for me to talk about, but I know I need to keep talking around the fear. 

I’m queer. I’ve used other words: like bisexual, when I came out to myself at 19, or gay, when I came out to friends. I wondered if I was a lesbian. I struggled with being attracted to both females and males, and wondered what it meant when my preference changed. And I did it largely alone.

The last few years haven’t been easy. And I know this is my life now. I will always come out again and again. Some people will understand, and some won’t. Some will mistakenly think it’s a choice. And all of that is why I want diversity in books – both so people can see characters who look and think like them, and see THEMSELVES represented, and also to teach empathy and understanding to others. So they can understand people who aren’t like them.

Next year I’ll be 30, and I spent 19 of my years questioning who I was. Wondering why I wasn’t like the girls I knew or read about. Wishing I could just have a crush on a boy and get it over with finally and just fucking feel normal. As I got older, my thoughts changed. I was finally really interested in guys, but worse: I was interested in girls. It was such a confusing time, realizing what it all meant.

I struggled a LOT over the next years, but various relationships, both platonic and romantic, `taught me a lot about who I was, and who I wanted to be, and who I was MEANT to be. Finally, I found the courage to come out to myself, and very slowly, to friends over the years. And when I did? I was finally at peace with myself; the only problem was, I wasn’t ready to come out publicly. Sometimes I didn’t have the courage, so I left hints to follow, a trail of breadcrumbs, hoping friends would guess.

When I finally came out to my family right after Thanksgiving 2012, I remember very clearly thinking “This is the bravest I’ll ever have to be. Just this once.” My legs were shaking. My whole body was shaking, but I sat my parents down and somehow managed to say “I feel like I need to tell you, I’m bisexual.”

What I didn’t understand then was that I didn’t have to be that brave just once.

I have to be that brave EVERY DAY. With co-workers. With a new doctor. With professionals. With new author friends. I wear my heart on my sleeve when I come out each time, and once again I’m standing there exposed, silently praying I won’t see the person’s expression change. Or, in online relationships, that the person won’t unfollow me, or choose not to read my books. That fear is always with me. I carry it everywhere I go. And I can choose to let it break me, or I can choose to rise above it, and live my life genuinely. Happily. Bravely. It’s an easy choice, and it’s the only one I’ve ever made in terms of my sexuality. I didn’t choose to be queer. But I choose to live genuinely. I choose to be me, always.

I want to see books reflecting this, reflecting various different characters living their lives genuinely. YA books with two Prom Kings, and persons of color as the main characters. NA books with interracial relationships, and trans romances and characters. Asexual characters. Disabled characters in MG, YA, and NA. NA books focusing on blended families who raised open-minded characters. YA and NA and MG books that defy gender or sexuality stereotypes. Gender fluid characters.

Here is a truth: if you are able bodied, if you can see and breathe and walk and hear, you are privileged. If you have never trembled in fear while a co-worker uses homophobic slurs and thought “I can never come out to them, I am not safe here,” you are privileged. If you have control over your own body, you are privileged. If you are not disabled, you are privileged. It is an HONOR to get to live like that. (And I mean privilege in the truest sense of the word – I don’t mean anything derogatory at all.)

But the other truth is: not everyone is like you. Or you. Or me. Or him. Or her. It takes all kinds of kinds, and books MUST reflect that so everyone understands this from an earlier age.

Let’s all do what we can to make sure my experience, and countless other people’s’ experience aren’t repeated. Let’s do what we can to change the future for our kids, or our friends’ kids. Let’s do this together.

 

If you’d like to add your voice to the We Need Diverse Books campaign, you can find more information at their Tumblr and Facebook pages.