Because of a current situation with an author, the question of pen names and author responsibility has come up yet again. I don’t want to get into details about any particular author, especially with something ongoing that I’m not closely involved in. This has to do with an author whose books I’ve never read and who I’ve never followed on any social media, so I cannot and will not speak directly to that. Suffice it to say it’s a JT LeRoy situation with a good dash of Rachel Dolezal thrown in.
That is not the subject I want to discuss. There are two intertwined ideas at play: author pen names and authors’ life stories, which converge as Author Personas.
Four years ago (it’s hard to believe it’s been that long), I was still writing as a progressive Christian blogger. Before that, I’d halfheartedly kept a random, anonymous “mommy blog” with posts about some of the cute and weird things my kids did. It was a bit of a silly mix between sunny and sarcastic. The only people reading it were real-life friends.
The “mommy blog” morphed when I started questioning things at our church. I was emerging from what I call fundamentalism lite, and I was seeking the company of other like-minded people. I was still anonymous at that point. But I wanted to really put myself out there, and I’d read advice to use my real name and just enough detail to give myself credibility. So I did.
I’m not sorry I did. During that time, I met some really cool people. I traveled across the country to see them in person, and some are still friends to this day. My religious and political views shifted really far to the left, and I had a ton of support.
At the end of that time, I was dabbling in fan fiction (as an outlet for some of the deep hurts from my religious days) and also beta reading for a website. I met a colleague who became a friend, and she encouraged me to send my first manuscript to her publisher, which I did (and it was accepted).
Meanwhile, some things were blowing up in the progressive Christian world, including a well-known blogger being outed by another well-known blogger. There were as many opinions as people, but the biggest thing I learned was regarding Own Voices writing. A lot of bloggers wanted the conversation to be led by LGBTQ+ Christians. Some of the most vocal were also vicious and saying hurtful and harmful things.
Because I’m a particularly sensitive person, I internalized a lot. I ended up believing that my one book with a bisexual main character might be “offensive” if I didn’t come out myself. So…I did. Publicly. Really, really publicly.
While this was happening, several other progressive bloggers also came out. I’m not exaggerating when I say they weaponized it. People threw accusations at each other that they were posing as “fake queers” to gain credibility points, either to speak for the LGBTQ+ community or to avoid scrutiny for problematic statements. Having just come out myself in order to protect against being accused of appropriation, I no longer felt safe in a community I’d trusted. I felt like a fraud, especially given that I wasn’t out until I was approaching my forties and wasn’t doing things considered “queer enough.” I left, but not without doing my share of damage and leaving broken hearts on both sides.
Fast forward to being a published author. My blog is still public. You can read back through for all my old posts. A few have been deleted, but I’ll bet you could even locate those via Wayback. Everything I just said can probably be found and verified, though I didn’t give much information. I still use my legal name on my Facebook account, and I use my author name (which is actually my birth name) everywhere else. I wasn’t trying to give all the sordid details of my life so readers could feel like they knew me. It’s simply an outgrowth of already having had a public profile while blogging non-fiction. I chose not to cover it up.
All that said, I have no issues with how authors choose to present. Take a pen name, or not. Take a new one for each genre you write, or not. Divulge details, or not. It makes no difference to me as a reader or as a colleague.
Where I find the ethics get tricky: Creating an author persona which is entirely different from your real life.
On the surface, that probably doesn’t matter much, if no one is being hurt. However, it does present a problem when it comes to Own Voices and when there’s risk of harm to others via that persona.
Posing as a member of a marginalized community that you don’t belong to does damage. I’m not simply talking about those people who invent tragic back stories and then con followers out of money, although that’s clearly a terrible thing to do. I mean even in situations like mine.
A white person posing as someone of a marginalized race (like Rachel Dolezal) can easily be sussed. If they come back with claims they really are this other person, they’re rightfully removed from any position of authority. But it’s much more complicated with the LGBTQ+ community.
For one thing, some authors really are transgender and discover this or are able to come out through writing. And some cannot be out, so their author persona reflects their true self. They don’t typically invent tragic back stories to manipulate readers, however. For another thing, there are plenty of folks like me who present to the world as cisgender heterosexual but who actually are not. We may choose to be open about it (or not) for a variety of reasons.
But once a person has invented something for the purpose of manipulating others or for financial gain, it calls into question every single one of us who thought being honest about ourselves was the right thing to do. It means that I might be grilled on my history, since I’m a genderqueer bisexual writer who has only ever been in one long-term relationship that appears cisgender heterosexual. It means trans folk have to out themselves in order not to be accused of lying and manipulating and threatened with legal action. It means potentially losing genuine allies due to lack of mutual trust.
I’m not sure what the way forward looks like. We need to weed out individuals who manipulate, and I have no trust for people who pose as LGBTQ+ folks and really are cisgender, heterosexual, and allosexual (i.e., tick all three boxes). I don’t think they care about or have the best interests of our community in mind.
I do think we need to talk more honestly about Own Voices and why it’s important that people who are part of marginalized communities are heard. This is not to limit what people are “allowed” to write. But I suspect the pressure to be Own Voices touches each of us in different ways. I felt pressure to come out; others may feel the only way is to lie about who they are. Which speaks to the privilege of those folks, and that’s also a much-needed conversation.
I’ve long been an advocate of self-reflection, and this is no different. Rather than a blanket always/never for what authors write or how we present to the world, we should think about the motivation for both of those things. What is underlying our choices, and how can we make those decisions ethically?
If an author is contemplating taking on the persona of someone marginalized, even if it doesn’t include a tragic history or involve money-making scams, that person should ask themselves why they are compelled to do it. Faking being LGBTQ+ or any other marginalized identity doesn’t come with the burdens and joys of our real-life experiences.
I am the same as you and didn’t put a label on myself until my 40s and wasn’t ready to come out until recently, and like you, appear cis and hetero to outsiders but I am not, and therefore can be mislabeled by others. I understand the need or desire for an author to hide their identity for reasons of protection, and I have no problem with pen names, as I write under one. The misrepresentation of health and sexual identity used as a means to get others to sympathize or donate funds or for publicity is where the line is drawn. I agree with your article. I am so saddened by the accusations being thrown around and hope that the truth comes out.
I absolutely agree. There have been some borderline situations in the past, but none of those are quite the same thing.
I’m 100% supportive of authors using pen names, even though I don’t. There are as many reasons to do it as there are authors who use them, I think.
Hopefully, everything will come to light in this situation. It’s been hard to watch it unfold.
I use a pen name, wanted/needed to keep my writing life (but not identity) seperate from my personal life. But I have found for all the ‘writers work together not against each other’ rhetoric you see on SM, it isn’t true. Especially in the those who write LGBT+ . As an author I often feel I need to out myself, prove my queerness in some way to justify what I write, and then worry that if I do, I might be accused of not being queer enough, having been in a het relationship for 18 years, that I’m saying it only to garner sales… which as a newbie writer I don’t have many of (one day). I’m not out in my personal life, it’s not hidden, but don’t think I need to shout about it either.
On top of that you get the arguements that as a women queer or not you shouldn’t be writing it, or even reading it – yup I’ve seen people say that before too. When you’re starting out, trying to get a foothold in the industry it makes it very stressful, terrifying.
Yep. All of this. I found out the hard way that coming out did not make it easier. It left me open to “not queer enough” and “fake queer” accusations rather than “welcome to the family.” (I got plenty of that from actual friends—just not in my writing circles at the time.) Now that I’m writing fiction, I’ve found there is a lot of anger and tension on all sides. Some days, I just want to go hide.
I’ve heard the arguments against women (queer or not) writing MM. I’m torn because I’m a big supporter of both women and of Own Voices work, and there’s mud-slinging on both sides. There’s not an easy answer, which is why I always recommend self-reflection. I may not identify as a woman, but I’m not a man, either. So I’ve had to do a lot of soul searching to work through some stuff. I figure one of the best things I can do is support authors I like, including queer men writing about queer men, and make sure what I’m writing shows the love and respect I have for people in my real life. And that has to be good enough for me. Other people will reach different conclusions, and that’s okay too.
That’s what I try to do too. It’s one advantage of living on the other side of the dateline, most of the drama happens while I’m asleep and I miss most of it being in my TL.
Lucky you! Though I did end up leaving some writing groups because the internal drama got so intense. I’m happier and more calm when I stay out of it all.
I’ve recently delved into using a pen name and I think it needs to be read by people who do use other names for their writing. Being in the LGBTQ+ community means often having to out yourself. It doesn’t help, as writers, that it makes it especially frustrating having to deal with those individuals who take on manipulative personas. I get tired of showing my ‘queer card’ constantly in real life, let alone in my writing life. People who take personas out side their community, mainly those who have no clue what it like to be apart of that community, seems to increase to need to prove ourselves.
That’s exactly it. I feel so often like I have to hand over my Bisexual Identification Card already. People who really *are* faking an identity cause so many problems. Like I mentioned, I felt as though I had to be out to “legitimize” my work. But that really came at a cost. Good things came of it too, of course, because it’s tough to hide that kind of thing forever. But I wouldn’t have gone public so quickly if I hadn’t felt pressured.
I haven’t decided if I’m going to slightly change my pen name when I get around to publishing the couple of YA projects I have. I might simply use my real first name instead of my initials, just to distinguish but also to keep an association. I don’t know; some people don’t bother.
Excellent post. This is such a fraught subject, and things get very nasty very quickly. And a situation where people are afraid to write about a particular subject, or are expected to show their ‘credentials’ before they write about a particular subject, is going to end up with that subject being written about less often, less courageously, and less well. Everybody loses.
Absolutely. I think that’s exactly the sort of thing that leads to a situation where someone can slide in and manipulate people in various ways. I hope this is the beginning of really opening up the conversation without people being shut down.
Yeah, I debated along the way about using a pen name, especially when I was teaching on the secondary level, but I decided against it because I’m proud of what I write. The only thing I really do is drop the i from my first name because no one calls me that anymore… okay, so my parents and aunts do, but that’s just about it.
Oh, and I started out doing a frugal mom blog. It’s long gone, but the Wayback might have it too. I never did a whole lot on it, but I was out then. However, I came screaming out of the closet when I was in my early 30s. I didn’t peek out, I didn’t slip quietly out… no, I came out screeching like a banshee. I self-identified lesbian then, but that’s changed over time. I’m pansexual, and proud of it. I was once upon a time married to a man (a cruel excuse for a human being, but there it is) and am married to a woman now. That happens to almost half of the assigned at birth women where I’m from, so I see no reason to hide it. And half of those AFB women have children.
Heh, I think the Mom Blog thing was really big for a while there. I was still getting comments on years-old posts as recently as last fall.
I like to hope I’d have eventually come out (publicly) anyway, but part of me isn’t sure. I definitely would’ve chosen a different method.