I’m opening this conversation because I’ve been out as a member of the LGBTQIA community for about three years, and I’ve been a published author of books with LGBTQIA characters for just over two years. Over that time, I’ve had many discussions in particular about the MM romance branch of queer lit. This is of interest to me for a couple of reasons.
I don’t technically write romance or even “MM” (male/male) pairings. As a result, I’ve had some negative experiences with reviewers who had expectations I didn’t deliver. I began to notice I’m not the only one. While I may find this mildly annoying when it comes to my books, it bothered me much more when I saw it happening to other authors. I also saw many people asking for MM to open its doors to a wider range of genres and characters. At first, I agreed with this, and to an extent there are things I still agree with (like the inclusion of asexual and trans characters).
However, I now see that the way forward is not to make a closed genre open itself. I think MM romance is a highly specific category, and unless we allow it to return to being as narrow as the name implies (that is, exclusively books about two male characters in a relationship), we won’t see progress.
In the act of asking to be let in the door but knowing the expectations, few options are left to authors. They can openly defy the parameters; they can quietly subvert them; or they can conform their writing to them. The first one frequently leads to ostracizing and poor reviews. The second may gain some ground but ultimately can feel like suppression. The third leads to a vast number of problems which can be summed up with the following formula:
1 penis + 1 penis = “MM” romance
That’s a bit crass, so let me be more specific in how that looks:
- Trans women but not trans men are included in “MM” (and excluded from “FF”)
- Non-binary people are exclusively transfeminine
- Transfeminine people are hypersexualized and often depicted as sex workers, “everyone’s fantasy” (because they “look like a woman” but have a penis), highly sexual, conventionally beautiful, immodest, and/or mentally ill (either as part of their sense of gender or with an overemphasis on self-harm and eating disorders)
- Transmasculine people are erased entirely
- Intersex people can exist as long as they “appear male” enough to satisfy the fixation on genitals
- Bisexual men must downplay their enjoyment of relationships with people who don’t have a penis (this is frequently shown by having the character describe sex and romance with vagina-equipped people as lesser, sloppier, or unsatisfying in some other way)
- Asexual characters, if they do exist, must at some point become sexual without any examination or discussion within the context of the relationship
- Asexual, trans, and particularly non-binary/gender non-conforming characters being cast as mythical creatures or aliens in a book full of otherwise human or humanoid characters
- Disabled characters who never experience any kind of sexual dysfunction nor any need to address their disability before or during sexual situations (aside from the occasional “maybe you won’t find my body attractive”)
- Misogyny, expressed through violence against women and lack of positive representation
In other words, for the most part, MM conforms to a cisgender and/or heterosexual gaze. This is unsurprising in a genre heavily populated with cisgender heterosexual writers. (I have not delved into the issues within FF romance, but I gather some of the same themes occur there, perhaps to a lesser extent.)
I am by no means suggesting all MM authors play into those tropes, nor that all MM books can be lumped together. Still, it’s disconcerting that these things happen so often that I can make a list. Over the last two and a half years, I’ve read over 400 books, which isn’t a small sample size. Expanding beyond that are all the conversations I’ve had with people who have read an entirely different set of books from mine yet see the same patterns.
For me, it boils down to a problem of who is being empowered and who is controlling the market. I have no problem with authors writing characters who are not like themselves, and I would not suggest that cisgender heterosexual people should stop writing LGBTQIA characters. The question is, who is benefiting from it and in what way?
The argument in favor of cis-het authors writing queer lit is often along the lines of “But we write about elves, vampires, and werewolves, and we’re not those things either!” True, but since those things do not exist, they are also not protected classes of people within society.
So I think we need to open the conversation about, in particular, what queer readers want and need. If we are writing about LGBTQIA folks, they should be our top priority. Allyship, cisgender heterosexual women’s sexual empowerment, and education of cis-het people should all be secondary. I want queer readers and queer authors to be empowered (including those who are not yet out, perhaps not even to themselves).
Here is a list of things I see as community needs to balance out the heavy emphasis on what I call “pairing romance” (i.e., specifically romance or erotica which emphasizes the binary gender of the couple: MF, MM, FF, MMF, FFM, MFM, FMF, and other multiples; MF is included because bisexual and trans characters are still queer, even in relationships which look cisgender heterosexual).
- A free list where authors and readers alike can make entries of books
- A de-emphasizing of MM romance as the main category of queer lit
- A de-emphasizing of binary gender pairing in general
- Inclusion of books which contain no romance or romance only as a secondary/sub-plot
- Discussion and dialog led by LGBTQIA people about our books (and a gentle reminder that A = asexual, not ally)
- Reviews (either by fellow authors or by readers) for a wide range of queer lit
- Safe space for LGBTQIA people to have conversations about what is empowering and what is harmful, without fear of repercussions from cisgender heterosexual readers and writers
- Safe space for LGBTQIA people of color specifically to have dialog about what is empowering and what is harmful, without fear of repercussions from white readers and writers
- Opportunities for authors and readers to connect, including linking authors with beta and sensitivity readers
- Anything else that LGBTQIA readers and writers would like to bring to the table
- People willing to come together to organize this into something to which we can all contribute
It’s not an exhaustive list, of course. This is to open us up for discussion on what we’d like to see the queer lit community become. My main concern is that we provide a way in which people can sift through what may be considered mainstream in order to find what we’re looking for.
Maybe it’s too much to ask, but given how many people seem to be looking for more (even if they aren’t sure what more means), I don’t think it is. With so much going on in the world right now, I think more than ever we need something to bind us as a community.
Leave me a comment, start a discussion, anything to get this going. What do you think? What would you like to see in a queer lit community?
I think this is an important conversation to be having. I read a lot of m/m romance myself, for multiple reasons, but I think the main reason is that I want to be reading queer lit and m/m romance is the easiest to find. It is a genre that is much larger than others, and I do think this is in large part to the many cishet women who both write and enjoy it. And some of them write it very well! I would never say that they shouldn’t, but it does come with its own set of problems whereby queer men are sexualized for the heterosexual woman’s gaze, and sometimes the rest of us in the LGBTQIA community get left behind. But I also struggle to find f/f lit that I enjoy because I’m in an awkward liminal space as a afab nonbinary bisexual. Most of the queer stories I’ve read featuring women-loving women are written by lesbians for lesbians, without any discussion for the women who might be genderqueer or bi+, and I have a hard time identifying with those stories, if that makes sense. Even though they’re queer lit, they feel ‘not for me.’
I love your point about LGBTQIA folks needing to write for ourselves first and foremost. There’s a whole other discussion to be had about young adult books in particular needing to be by queer people for queer people, instead of by cishet people to educate other cishet people (ie most ya books written about transgender teens). We need diverse representation, and we need to be among those writing it or be consulted as sensitivity readers on the writing of it.
Goodness, yes about being an afab enby bisexual person! That’s me as well, and I agree about having trouble finding things which feel authentic to that experience. That might be why I dislike how it’s always amab enbys who appear in most “MM” if there’s an enby at all. I’ve seen exactly two “FF” (using the term very loosely) with afab enby characters. Both were absolutely wonderful, and it was so refreshing to find them.
I also agree about YA books. Those I think 100% need to be by/for LGBTQIA folks, and they should be aimed at teens. I have seen one too many books with YA characters which you just know were written to be part of the MM collective. I’ve seen that “educational” slant in trans YA. I can’t recall the title, but one of them did that whole “big reveal” OMG this is a TRANS GUY! thing about halfway through the book. It was in that character’s POV, and he was already enrolled in a new school as a boy, so there was no reason not to clue us in from page 1.
Ooh, I’d love to know what the names of those two books are!
Yeah the educational slant in YA is weird to me? People who work with or write for teens should realize that they don’t need ‘problem’ books anymore than adults do, they just want books about teens who happen to be queer or people of color or disabled, etc. I’ve heard of several books with that weird reveal part way through. One book that comes to mind that did something similar recently was called ‘Symptoms of Being Human’ by Jeff Garvin. It wasn’t all bad, there was some good stuff about the main character being genderfluid, but the main gimmick was that Garvin managed the whole book without anyone referring to the main, Riley, with any specific pronouns. I think that was to make a point about how assigned gender doesn’t matter in the scheme of things, but the truth is amab and afab people have very different experiences with being misgendered, and I strongly would have preferred to know more about Riley’s inner feelings instead of keeping everything vague. (There was also the issue of it’s pretty clear Garvin has no idea how tumblr works lol, but how badly that bugged me might be more of a personal thing).
The one title I remember–Blue Suede Boi. It’s very sweet (and sexy!) and well-written. But it’s short. The one character identifies as a boi, not as butch, which was a nice change. I can’t recall the title of the other one.
It’s completely accurate to say that amab and afab enbys have vastly different experiences with misgendering. I’m also tired of the trope of “perfect androgyny.” I wouldn’t have been able to achieve that when I was younger, and the best I could hope for now is to look like “It’s Pat” from Saturday Night Live back in the 1990s.
My 11yo had an interesting perspective on YA. She has some disabilities, and she said she gets sick of reading about disabled kids being embarrassed by their disability. So even as a parent, that is such a specific thing I might not have thought of. This is exactly why, even with all the experience I have, I would still want to talk to her a lot before trying to write something about kids like her.
For sure! It’s a simple solution to avoiding falling into stereotypes or tired tropes – authors who don’t necessarily identify with a community they’re writing about should consult with members of that community about their books.
I’ve also heard it said they, by all means, write about people different from you, but don’t make the struggles faced by another group the main focus of your story unless you belong to that group, and that seems like a guide to me. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me, as a white person, to write a story that’s all about racism, for instance.
I think that’s what a lot of people are reacting to when they say they’re tired of reading about homophobia as a plot device. I kept thinking about that and going, yeah, but I’ve experienced it, so why shouldn’t I write about it? And then I went…oh, right. Because I have actually, literally experienced it, the way I frame it is probably a bit different from someone who has never experienced it using it for tension and drama.
I suspect this one is mine. I’m trans. And its done that way both because I was sick of trans stories having the character be nothing but trans from page one, and because I never saw that precarious “only just passing” stage depicted and how on edge it leaves you.
I would add to what we need, we need more intersectionality between letters. Trans men get neutered. We are sexless, uninteresting beings the odd time we do pop up in MM. As an ace trans guy, I immediately stopped getting crap for being ace because well duh of course trans guys aren’t into sex! One identity or the other appears to be manageable. Both is not.
Ali we need to stop the assumption that a, people of different letters can automatically move in other letters circles and b, that all letters support all other letters. I’ve even been told by publishers it’s okay for me to use gay slurs because I’m trans. Uh…very much not the same thing!!
The book I mentioned was written by a cis-het woman and was meant as “educational.” The book was…not great. It left me feeling uncomfortable because it really *was* about him being trans (and the other POV character was a trans girl). I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it was just not well-thought-out. It was pretty much the type of book my kids hate–what my 11yo says is about people like her but not really for people like her. (Both my kids have various aspects of themselves which put them squarely in marginalized groups, but I can’t say more publicly without their permission.)
I suppose the problem for me is that I live entirely in the “in-between” spaces, in just about every aspect of my life: gender, sexuality, ethnicity, even class, religion, and age! So for me, I *do* kind of move about in various spaces, and it makes it SO hard to find books that speak to me. Not because I need only “in between” characters but because I just plain need more variety and not to feel like I’m always on the wrong side of something.
This is so important – particularly that any space that evolves from this discussion belongs to LGBTQIA authors and readers. I’ve received those same kinds of reviews from review sites that claim to read LGBTQIA yet judged my stories by MM romance rules, and I know of other authors who have been through the same disheartening experience. In a sense, it can be seen as positive in that the people who visit those sites (i.e. cis het women) are not the people we want to read our stories anyway. It suggests we’re getting it right. However, authors need to reach readers and vice versa, and there needs to be some honesty on the part of authors who write different books for different audiences (and also their motivation for writing about LGBTQIA characters).
The motivation is really important, and I’m not even sure how to get at the issue. I keep hearing people give all kinds of reasons, but those reasons rarely have anything at all to do with actual LGBTQIA folks.
I don’t know how I feel about having cis-het authors writing LGBTQIA books for a cis-het audience. Maybe I’m wrong in feeling uncomfortable with it, but that’s the part I want separated out. If an author clearly is not writing for us or in some sense with us in mind, then maybe that’s an author who has to examine motivation. Our lives aren’t clever plot points.
I’ve often wished we could see a little more cover art on books depicting more of a variety of characters than distinctly male or female.
Yes, definitely. And more cover art which doesn’t imply sex or a “pairing.” I tend to like covers without people on them in general.
I just wanted to register my support for a queer lit community. While some of my writing fits within the MM romance genre, more of it doesn’t. I like to feel free to follow my queer characters and stories wherever they take me – but as a result I don’t feel as if I quite belong anywhere. I’ll be interested to see what evolves from this discussion!
That’s often how I feel—like I don’t quite belong anywhere. I actually have no problem with romance or even MM romance (aside from some of the things I listed that people do in order to fit into it). But I only sort of fit if I squint, and I’ve met so many others who have said the same. It made me wonder how we can all find each other.