(no subject)

[damselfish]

Authors Say Agents Try to "Straighten" Gay Characters in YA.

Pretty much speaks for itself, but what amazes (or saddens) me is that this is hardly the first time I've heard of this happening, even from groups who say they want diversity-- or specifically solicit queer people. I see it in job opportunities especially, given where I am in my life. Everyone wants that diversity hire. They just don't want to have to, you know, hire you. They made the effort! They'd really like to! You're just not good enough for mumble mumble.

Same thing with fiction. "People love diversity! We want more diversity. Oh... uhm... I guess... your manuscript isn't what we meant." Sometimes people honestly, truly believe they want diversity and then turn it down for some other purportedly legitimate reason, and think to themselves that it sure is a shame that there isn't any queer fiction good enough! Which is blatantly untrue, just like it's untrue that there isn't a queer hire good enough for the job. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we see them time and time again regarding women and PoC (and other historically marginalized groups). The goalposts move, and we scrutinize the members of these groups harder than members of privileged groups even if they're every bit as qualified because that's how the system works: it isn't made up of a bunch of bigots steepling their fingers and cackling maniacally. It is mostly made up of a bunch of good people who think they're doing the right thing but they're human so they're loaded up with confirmation bias and prejudices they aren't aware of because we all are and psychology is funny that way. People aren't objective beings by their very nature. We all know that members of marginalized groups have to work even harder to be seen as "just as good" as the majority (and if you don't know, well, there is a lot of readily available research out there for you to Google/find in a library or on JSTOR or wherever). Even knowing this on a macro scale, we have a hard time applying this on an individual scale because we come up with all sorts of other reasons to explain why, say, we believe a group made up of 40% women is "female dominated."

We're just really poor at checking our own prejudicial thinking.

And I guess it's a bummer because I sit here looking at my half-finished YA lesbian fairy tale-- there's a huge market for these!-- and kind of sigh. I'm told time and time again that people want this sort of thing, that it's huge right now and publishers are busting down the doors in hopes of cashing in.

Sort of like how every firm wants a gay lawyer.

They just don't expect everything to be so... gay.

Addendum: Fortunately, these sorts of articles spawn a lot of good. Like #yesgayya for finding writers/agents interested. This reminds me that I should probably get a twitter.