Posted on 06/28/2010 7:40:39 PM PDT by narses
At his Kentucky elementary school, kids taunted Brent on the playground about being gay, whatever that was.
By eighth grade, he realized what they meant and came out to a friend – and vice versa.
She was an avid writer, he a voracious reader. They headed to their school library in search of stories that spoke to their lives: gay, gay in the South, gay and fearing stereotypes like “disgusting” and “worthless.”
“There were tons of books about gangs and drugs and teen pregnancy and there were no LGBT books,” says Brent, now 15 and heading into his sophomore year of senior high. “I asked the librarian about it and she was like, ‘This is middle school. I can only have appropriate books here.’“
So they went to their public library, where they discovered plenty of romantic gay steam – for adults.
Turning next to bookstores, they finally found what they’d been looking for – a recent explosion in the publishing world of books that speak to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning teens.
First came a gem, a book for young people that made them cry: Martin Wilson’s 2008 debut, “What They Always Tell Us,” set in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The story about a troubled year for two brothers, one of whom finds solace in a relationship with a boy, made him feel less like an “alien on your own planet,” Brent says.
A world of books followed. Brent read his way through Tom Dolby, Robin Reardon, Julie Ann Peters and David Levithan.
He soon realized there were lots of coming out stories but he also craved romance, fantasy and paranormal books with characters that just happened to be gay, like Damien in the “House of Night” vampire series he loves, by the mother-daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast.
“I see the characters trickling into the mainstream genres. I really like that,” says Brent, who asked that his last name and hometown not be used.
“It makes being gay feel natural, which it is, of course. Books give you hope.”
Books that speak to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning teens have traveled light years since John Donovan’s “I’ll Get There. It Better be Worth the Trip” led the way in 1969.
Long since out of print, the story of the confused world of 13-year-old Davy and the jock he kisses will be reissued in September by Flux, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide.
“This book made Harper & Row (now HarperCollins) very nervous,” says Brian Farrey, editor of the new edition. “They weren’t sure how people were going to take to it.
“It was the one that said it can be done for teens, and there won’t be people with pitchforks and torches waiting for you at the door. It opened the closet to teens and said you are not alone.”
Long before gay characters began popping up in the mainstream on TV and at the movies, librarians embraced “I’ll Get There,” says Kathleen T. Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Another important forerunner was Nancy Garden’s 1982 “Annie on My Mind” and its unabashedly happy ending for two 17-year-old girls who fall in love.
“Previous to that, there would be some awful car accident or one of the gay characters would die,” Horning says, acknowledging that thread in “I’ll Get There.”
“There was a sense that the gay character had to be punished somehow. They were kind of depressing.”
Still, until now few LGBT titles became blockbusters. That changed with two boys named Will Grayson and a very large, very “Glee”-ful linebacker named Tiny.
“Will Grayson, Will Grayson,” by Levithan and John Green, debuted on the New York Times children’s best-seller list and stayed there for three weeks after its April release. That was a first for a young adult novel with major gay themes.
It has delighted hungry teen readers – fanboys and fangirls who were the likely reason the book became a trending topic on Twitter. Penguin has 60,000 copies in print.
In alternating chapters, Green and Levithan write of two 16-year-old boys with little in common, living in separate Chicago suburbs.
One’s depressed and struggling to come out and the other is straight with a flamboyantly gay friend in Tiny Cooper, a football star on the hunt for love – and stardom in musical theater.
“I am Tiny,” sassy 20-year-old Andrew Casasanta, an English major at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
“It’s still very frustrating,” he says. “I don’t think that there’s many characters out there that I can personally relate to, and they’re generally more stereotypes. It’s important that this book, while having gay themes front and center, was written well.”
It helps that Levithan is a prolific rock star in gay lit for young people, with an acclaimed winner 2003’s “Boy Meets Boy.”
It also helps that Green is revered as a writer for teens, including his “Paper Towns” in 2008, and by fans of the adrenaline-infused videos he regularly posts online.
“Landing as high on the New York Times list as we did with ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ made a big statement to the children’s publishing world that gay characters are not a commercial liability,” Green says. “This is an important statement to make.”
As gay-straight alliances spread in schools and kids reared by gay parents have kids of their own, books remain important survival tools for all young people trying to figure out who they are, says Lynn Evarts, a high school librarian in the farm country of Sauk Prairie, Wis.
“Kids have for the most part become ‘Will and Grace’-ified,” she says. “Oftentimes I’ll hand them a book that has a gay main character and tell them how funny it is, and they take it and like it.
“These are kids who wouldn’t normally touch anything like that. I live in the land of rednecks, but they like it because it’s funny and good.”
But what about readers like Brent who don’t have inclusive libraries, deep pockets or technology to download ebooks?
Recent research in Texas, for instance, indicated a strong “I don’t serve those teens” attitude among librarians.
“It’s the argument that drives me crazy,” says Teri Lesesne, who teaches young adult lit in the Department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
“It’s like, ‘Yeah, you do,’“ she says. “They might not be coming in and saying, ‘Hi, I’m gay or I’m bi or I’m transgender or I’m questioning my own identity,’ because they’re afraid.
“But they’re there and...
Watch for pedophiles next to chart the same course the “gays” did toward societal acceptance.
Mostly like both; plus boys that have absent or emotionally distant fathers may seek out male companionship to make up for the lack of the father, and then the predators do their thing.
spot on!!! The mother was almost dyk-ish and the father was NEVER in the picture.
Thanks, will check out those links.
Exactly. A falldown is red headlines, people who give up the “gay” life and become normal “don’t exist”.
One of the few places. THere are websites that give this good news (I’m talking about NARTH etc) but few news sites.
The line between “pedophiles” and “homosexuals” is not only thin, it’s really just a shading.
Homosexuals used to be called pederasts since throughout history they have been infamous for seducing/molesting young boys. And last figures I’ve seen, about 1/3 of all child molestation is same sex, and the men who molest boys usally have huge numbers of victims. Since homosexuals are around (at most) 2% of the population, those numbers speak for themselves.
This dirty secret the leftists and the media (but I repeat myself) like to keep well hidden.
All of this was soundly endorsed by the American people on Nov. 4, 2008.
So these kids know that what they are feeling is NOT normal, that they have mental issues and so they seek out literature to make them “feel” better about their particular mental and emotional problems.
Shop for children’s lit in Christian bookstores.
Always remember, gays don’t reproduce, they recruit.
Notice Brent's need to re-affirm his own statement.
Shop for children’s lit in Christian bookstores.
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And the classics. Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Old Yeller, etc.
I feel sick. It is not natural of course....Shaking my head again.
“boys that have absent or emotionally distant fathers may seek out male companionship”
There, too, the relationship with the father serves to put the boy in the line of danger, but it is the molestation that traumatizes.
“And the classics.”
Despite a three-word review in the NY Slimes (Tarzan Tripe Forever) the books of Edgar Rice Burroughs teach conservative values: courage, duty, honor, honesty, etc.
“Excellent point, but recognize that research into this topic is nearly verboten.”
Yeah, I’ve been saying that for over twenty years.
“...says Lynn Evarts, a high school librarian in the farm country of Sauk Prairie, Wis.
“Kids have for the most part become ‘Will and Grace’-ified,” she says. “Oftentimes I’ll hand them a book that has a gay main character and tell them how funny it is, and they take it and like it.
“These are kids who wouldn’t normally touch anything like that. I live in the land of rednecks, but they like it because it’s funny and good.”
And people wonder why I don’t take my kids to the library....
“Natural” is kind of a stupid word. Petroleum is natural. Ask people in Louisiana how they like petroleum on their beaches. Uranium is natural. Would you mix it into potting soil and grow tomatoes with it? E-coli is natural. It doesn’t make a popular food additive.
You are absolutely correct. That is why mentors for boys such as Boy Scout leaders, men teachers, Big Brothers (now infiltrated by homosexuals!!!) etc should all be vetted carefully to make sure none are homosexuals.
Boys and girls from families that used to be called “broken” - only one parent - can greatly benefit from adult mentors. But now the danger from sexual predators is so great that such children are at terrible risk. The predators usually befriend them, then trust develops, and the molestation/seduction is usually very gradual. Such fiends need the death penalty.
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