Social Justice

A Dialog on Queer Literature and Community

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?

Gatekeeping and the Priority of Own Voices Books

Books, Fiction, LGBTQ+, Social Justice, Writing

It’s been a while since I blogged any truly personal thoughts on a subject. These days, I mostly review books, so today I’m appealing as a reader rather than an author. I’ve sat on this for some time, wondering how I could capture it without sounding angry or like a whiny, entitled author. I’m still not sure there’s a way to do it, and there is no way I could summarize the entirety of the problem in a single blog post.

I’m going to address gatekeeping in queer lit and the way LGBTQ+ people are frequently locked out of telling our own stories.

The reason I’m doing this now is a recent kerfuffle involving VOYA (Voices of Youth Advocacy), a journal for librarians working young adult literature. I won’t get into the particulars here; you can read some of it at this link, and there are others in the article.

This is not VOYA’s first bungle. I became aware of what happened because I’m a book blogger involved in bisexual advocacy. However, while sifting through the mess, I came across this piece, written regarding a dreadful, clueless piece previously appearing in VOYA.

To sum up, a white man made noises about how hard it is to represent youth of color. Where he failed—and where that intersects with me as an author and book blogger—is that he also claimed he was doing his best in a field it’s difficult for writers of color to break into. He was only doing what they could not.

Well.

That all sounds horribly, painfully familiar.

Time and again, I have seen LGBTQ+ authors struggle to break into the largest genre of queer lit: namely, MM romance. Now, you could argue that there are already plenty of LGBTQ+ authors in the genre, and that would be true to an extent (self included). But reality is that we do not own the genre. The bulk of it is not written by or for us in any sense.

I’m not writing about it to complain that I’m not getting my due or that I personally have been slighted in some way. I write because I like to, and it’s not my primary income. I’m thrilled when I sell copies. Is it painful to get a negative review? Yes, but only because it is for all of us.

What bothers me far more is so-called “LGBT” review mills which consistently provide the most negative reviews for:

LGBTQ+ non-romance, particularly gay literary work
Most lesbian fiction
Books with “het sex” (even when the romance is MM)
Polyamory that isn’t menage
Trans characters
Femme men
YA novels without romance
Books with the label bisexual (regardless of the relationships)
Books by and about people of color

Not surprisingly, a lot of those books are the ones written by and for LGBTQ+ people.

Even more disturbing, when called on it, some writers claim that they are writing about us because for unspecified reasons, we somehow “can’t.” Just like Patrick Jones failed to understand that the lack of representation is not because white folks didn’t step up to the plate, cisgender straight people do not seem to understand that the lack of representation is not because we “can’t” write our own stories—it’s because when we do, they are too queer for mainstream readers, and we are consistently locked out of our own genre.

In the last several months, I’ve begun to speak up when I see straight people going after LGBTQ+ writers. In particular, this is often cisgender straight women going after gay men and then accusing them of misogyny or cisgender people going after trans folk in aggressive or pitying ways. The result has been an outpouring of private messages, emails, and comments from other LGBTQ+ people saying they feel uncomfortable speaking up for fear of being alienated.

This bothers me a lot more than when I get a negative book review. It’s upsetting, for sure. Some days, it makes me think about quitting. But it makes me a lot angrier as a book reviewer myself. How dare a straight person review a book by and for the LGBTQ+ community and tell us what it should have been or how it failed to be their version of queer?

I review a lot of books by all kinds of writers. It would make me a terrible reviewer (and probably a terrible human being) if I read a book by someone in a community I am not part of and then shredded it for not meeting my stereotyped expectations.

This isn’t acceptable in any other genre except MM romance. Even lesbian romance has been largely reclaimed—at least in a mainstream sense—from the jaws of straight male writers. And the excuses for perpetuating it in MM are so thin. No one would accept a large body of white people claiming to read books about people of color, written mainly by white folks, on the grounds that they are tired of whiteness. Most people should then turn to books by people of color to meet the need for diversity. (I realize that some don’t, but we rightly go after them, as people did with Patrick Jones.)

You cannot expect me to take you seriously if you say in the same breath that you read MM novels to escape the dynamics of heterosexual relationships while also complaining about queer lit that doesn’t imitate it. You also can’t expect me to take you seriously when you say you read MM novels to avoid heteronormativity but then complain about books written by actual LGBTQ+ people who have families and children, and write about them, claiming they have failed to capture “real” queerness.

Bisexual cisgender women*, you do not get even one pass on this either. Saying you read or write MM romance to find the “representation” you didn’t get when you were coming out is the pinnacle of bizarre, since there are many fine lesbian and bisexual women writing high-quality FF. Erasing women who love women from the equation is not a path toward representation.

So why do we allow the unchecked internalized misogyny, the objectification of queer lives and bodies, and the gatekeeping and policing of LGBTQ+ authors? There are no reasons on the planet, in my opinion, which are good enough to make me think this is acceptable. Not even the claim of gay men having male privilege over straight women holds water when for the most part, there’s blatant disregard of the ways in which gay and bisexual men have been brutalized.

Before someone voices outrage and says I’m shutting down their free speech, hear me out. I’m not looking for straight women to stop reading or writing MM romance. I certainly don’t advocate for some of the vile misogyny and biphobia which shows up in both some gay literature and in some MM romance written by men (and, let’s be honest, plenty of women). I’m not suggesting that readers need to stop loving romance or that they shouldn’t have preferences for what stories they like. Heck, when it comes to erotica, I figure whatever turns you on is fair game because that’s the nature of the beast.

What I want is an end to reviewing all queer lit like it should be MM romance (and a particularly narrow subset of the genre at that). I would like to see transparency in who is on review panels. Most of all, I want to see my fellow rainbow writers being unafraid to voice their concerns. It’s become too many of us, and we’re being kept from finding each other and standing up against the gatekeeping by way of negative reviews, blacklisting, and bullying on social media. That has to end.

Finally, I’d like to see cisgender straight women—and cis women of other orientations—examine carefully the motivations for reading and writing exclusively MM romance. Ask yourselves why you don’t think lesbian romance meets the criteria of “removing the power imbalance.” Ask why you think LGBTQ+ people cannot tell our own stories. Ask why, outside of erotica, you see the need for gay and bisexual stories to be sexy or romantic in order to be valid.

Here’s a challenge for you: If you really, truly are an ally, then find it in yourself to listen to us. Read books by us. Evaluate them on the strength of the story or the writing, not whether it fits neatly into a genre. Hear us when we say what you’re writing about us isn’t reality. Then do as you will, but don’t harm us in the process.

*I rarely feel the need to assert this, but I’m not a cisgender woman. Just making that clear before accusations fly.

A funny thing happened…

Books, Cool Stuff, News, Social Justice, Writing

Imagine my surprise the other day to be tagged in all my social media (multiple times) because a simple idea I posted months ago had become a meme. In fact, it was passed around to so many people, I kept getting pinged with private messages, wall posts, and emails asking me about it.

Short version: I said this in response to something I can’t recall. When I said it, I wanted to capture something common to any of us who have experienced marginalization. It takes different forms, it intersects, but this is the one thing which I have seen to be true across almost every sphere. A few friends asked to share it at the time, and I said that was no problem. Thus a Tumblr meme was born, and I lost track of it because Life Happened.

I took the photo from the Interwebs. I don't know who meme-ified it, but it's my quote, so I think I can be forgiven for pilfering. — I took the photo from the Interwebs. I don’t know who meme-ified it, but it’s my quote, so I think I can be forgiven for pilfering.

[Black text on white background. The quote reads: “This is literally what it’s like to be part of a marginalized group. Politeness is met with a refusal to listen, and anger is met with demands for politeness.” Attributed as A.M. Leibowitz, bisexual author of quirky LGBTQ+ romance (via bialogue-group)]

Fast forward to this week. Franchesca “Chescaleigh” Ramsey posted the quote in meme form on her Facebook page. Now, if you have no idea who she is, please watch pretty much any video at the link I provided. They’re all good. She breaks things down for people like me who don’t have degrees in this stuff. You would think that as a writer I can word good, but I actually have trouble absorbing things I read if I have to look up half the terms. Anyway, I love her, and I spent the rest of my day blushing furiously over the attention.

Which brings me to why I’m really writing this. It’s not because I want to brag on being quoted. (It is pretty cool, though.) It’s because of two things.

First, I do not deserve cookies for this. I stated a fact, and I stand by it. But more importantly, it’s not what I said that matters. It’s what I do. I have to live by these words—be willing to listen regardless of how the person is telling me about their experiences or the way the world works. I have some places where I’m privileged, others where I’m not. Where I do have privilege, it’s my job to do the hard work of being an ally without expecting a big thank you and an Edible Arrangement over it. I can meme-quote all I want, but if I’m a lousy ally, my words are trash.

Second, this pertains directly to my career as an author. (Can I start with how it made me smile to see my books called “quirky”?) Having my words go viral as a meme, with my name and job description attached, means people can find me. They can read my author bio and my novels. They can see me on social media and send me messages via this blog. Which means they are seeing a representation of who I am as a person.

Here’s the thing. I don’t write as a way to play Queer Studies 101 with my readers, and I don’t primarily write with an audience of cisgender (i.e. not transgender) straight people in mind. True, I have an oddly loyal following of cisgender straight guys reading my novels about gay and bi men, and also true that many readers of m/m lit are women of all orientations. However, my goal is always to write with an understanding that the characters represent the real people who are most like them. I have to ask myself whether my friends and family would be angry, hurt, or embarrassed by anything I write or if they would feel proud, honored, and heard through it. This is true regardless of the characters’ race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, or sexuality.

This is why every word I write means something to me. I want to do right as an ally through my work and in my everyday life. This includes representing those most like myself in a way which is true to me and my kin. It’s possible to be part of a marginalized community and yet have so many internalized -isms that we fail to be allies to our own selves.

I can’t represent every facet of every community in any given book or even in all of them. There will always be people who think I’ve written it wrong, even when I’m writing about my own experiences. There will also always be people who just plain think I’m a terrible writer. That’s okay! They don’t need to give me cookies either. (Though if you like my books, and you happen to want to send me bi-pride or rainbow frosted unicorn cut-outs, I won’t say no.) It’s more important to me that my words not cause harm or uphold damaging ideas.

As much as I’m committed to writing with those values in mind, I’m also committed to reading with them in mind. As a rule, I prefer to review books written by, about, and for their communities. We already have a problem with straight white cis men being overrepresented on our bookshelves, even as early as the picture book stage. Currently, we have an overrepresentation of white gay cis men in our queer lit. The voices and lives of other people deserve to be heard, and our words deserve to be read.

The next time you pick up a book, whether it’s mine or someone else’s, think about who the story is about and who it is for. If you find yourself primarily locked into a pattern, break out of it. If the book challenges your thinking, go with it and see where it takes you. Here’s to listening well, even when that comes in paperback format.

Happy reading!

No more hedging. No more hiding. No more closets.

News, Odds 'n' Ends, Social Justice, Writing

I haven’t exactly known what to say about the shooting in Orlando. I’ve mostly been sharing other people’s words because I think they’ve said it better than I could. Heck, even some allies have said it better than I could, and I’m a card-carrying member of the LGBTQIA community. Maybe being a step closer or a step removed means being able to find one’s words more easily; I don’t know.

Even now, I wasn’t planning on posting. After all, anyone who has cared to follow my blog, my writing career, my Twitter, my Facebook page, or interact with me in person on a level greater than “how’s the weather” pretty much knows where I stand. And then I read this post by the marvelous Hans Hirschi. Go read it. It’s long, but it’s completely worth the time it takes. My thoughts can wait until you’re finished.

Are you back? Okay. So, what really struck me was the part about making heteros feel comfortable. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done that. Or I’ve been embarrassed because the heteros got uncomfortable around me. Like I needed to apologize. I’ve been doing that dance since I was 13.

I used to get teased, back in school, for being a “lesbian.” Never mind the fact that I didn’t even identify as bisexual back then! I didn’t really have a concept of anything but gay and straight, and I knew I liked boys…a lot. Okay, I wasn’t totally boy crazy. But I had plenty of crushes! Even had a boyfriend in ninth grade, and I had a years-long crush on my bestie (er…if he’s reading this, as we’re still friends on Facebook, he now knows this about me…sorry!).

Except really, they weren’t totally wrong. Only I minimized it, hid it, denied it…all to make them more comfortable. To make them believe I wasn’t going to perv on them in the locker room (good grief, none of them were that special) or try to grope them or whatever (yeah, real things they suggested I might do). And naturally, my involvement in a religious community stamped out any sense that it might really be okay to like girls (gentle reminder, I had no concept of other genders back then).

My first real crush on another woman was in college. I won’t embarrass the poor woman (also still a friend) by giving clues about who she is. However, I was still very much keeping tight control on all of my feelings. I was still worried I might make someone “wonder” about me…make them uncomfortable. Funny thing is, of all the people I could have crushed on, I picked a person who is now herself out. Too bad neither of us was ready when we were eighteen.

To this day, I tend to minimize everything. After all, does it matter? I’m married to a man. I don’t want anyone to worry that I’m leaving my spouse or that I might be creeping on them or thinking about them in a decidedly more than friendly way. I can pretend that I’m just your average suburban WifeMommy.

Only I can’t. I have my first genuine lesbian romance coming out (heh) in July. Sure, I’ve dabbled. I’ve written three flash fictions (all under 2k words). I have side characters who are bisexual and lesbian women. But something in me stopped short at anything more because it might make people uncomfortable. It might make people see me differently. It might make people hate and fear me.

If I were in the wrong place at the wrong time, it might make someone take violent action against me.

A man shot up a club full of Latinx LGBTQ+ people reportedly because they made him uncomfortable. Perhaps this was because, as his father suggested, he didn’t like seeing them being publicly affectionate. Perhaps this was because, as other media has suggested, he had internalized homophobia. Since we don’t have him here to ask, we can only speculate. The bottom line, though, is that he was uncomfortable with us enough to want to do lethal harm.

Look, I know that personal safety is a must. You’ll never find me trying to convince anyone they should be public in any way about their identity because it can be deadly. Hell, it can be deadly if the only place you’re out is where you theoretically should have been safe.

But I’m tired of playing that game in my everyday life. I’m tired of locking things away, compartmentalizing them, pretending they don’t matter, all to make heteros feel all right about sharing a room with me. Anyone who is deeply bothered by the fact that I love people who are not men can feel free to find other friends to hang out with. And please don’t worry, if you’re the sort of person who feels weird around me, there’s a better than average chance you’re not a person I would develop romantic feelings for, trust me.

Being part of the writing community, in particular LGBTQIA lit and more specifically m/m romance, I’ve seen a lot of things that make me feel uncomfortable as a non-hetero person. There is a disturbing amount of misogyny, biphobia and sapphobia (fancy word for hating women who love women, in case you wondered). This is not coming from gay men reading m/m romance, for the most part—it’s coming from straight women. While it’s not everyone, it is a sizable chunk of the community. Until now, I’ve catered to that attitude. I’ve tried to make hetero people feel comfortable by not speaking up and by sticking to writing about men.

I’m done. I can’t spend my life making hetero people happy. Not among my real-life friends and not in my reading/writing community. If people are going to get twitchy when I write about queer people who don’t happen to be men, then so be it.

As for the rest of the world, the ones who already hate and fear all LGBTQIA people, I don’t know what to say to that. I know I’m at risk because sometimes people “read” me. I got yelled at from a car window the other day, and not the typical catcalling and “smile for me, baby.” No, the person clearly assumed I was queer and yelled a slur at me while I was walking my dog. On my street. In broad daylight. Because I made him “uncomfortable.”

I don’t really know how to end this, except to say that I’m past caring whether heteros are “uncomfortable.” There is no possible way to satisfy all the conditions which would make them “comfortable” anyway. Instead, I’ll be over here, living my life, writing my words. Maybe I’m finally ready to write the bi/lesbian FF novel that’s been hiding in my story morgue for two years and let it out for the world to see.

Go forth, my out and proud LGBTQIA family, and make the haters uncomfortable.

Real men are…

Dance, Feminism, LGBTQ+, Women

A few days ago, I came across a photo posted to one of the pages I follow on Facebook. For some context, this was in response to a previous photo meme about boys who take ballet growing up to be strong, healthy, and surrounded by women. I found the original meme funny, as the mom of a boy who takes ballet, tap, jazz, and Irish dance and seems to have no problem at all being the only boy in most of his classes.

The comments on the original photo included some by a few men who posted that boys who take ballet will turn out to be gay (they used words I prefer not to share here, thanks). Another commenter posted his photo with this caption:

Now, I have no problem at all with whoever wants to take dance classes. I’m very happy for Jason Whoever and his dancing feet. What I do have a problem with is how this is framed. It puts a certain kind of masculinity at the top, emphasizing a stereotype of manhood: physically strong, muscular, interested in culturally-approved manly pursuits such as rock music, and employed in a culturally-approved masculine job.

In other words, it’s perfectly fine for boys to take ballet so long as they turn out to be like him: not gay and not too feminine.

As much fun as it is to punch the air and go, “Take that, haters! Look at this badass dude!” it’s ultimately not the most helpful response. It’s still rooted in both homophobia and misogyny.

Because of my work as an author, editor, and reviewer, I see this all the time, especially in m/m fiction. It’s one of my pet peeves—men who assert their manliness page after page. This is done in a multitude of ways:

Large, muscular bodies
“Manly” jobs or hobbies (military/police/fire, sports, rock music, anything that requires a power suit)
Large penises (sometimes even in works that aren’t sexually explicit)
Emotionless, incapable of expressing emotions, or limited to anger and arousal
Sexually insatiable (again, this is even sometimes true outside erotica)
Literally telling us they are men, often repeatedly (especially if they don’t meet one of the previous criteria)
Disgusted, bothered, or simply not interested in other men who don’t fit the above
Disgusted, bothered, or explicitly not interested in jobs or pursuits perceived as “feminine”
Biphobic and transphobic
Openly misogynistic and directly hostile toward female-identified characters

It’s not the first two things on the list that bother me. Are there muscular, culturally masculine gay and bi men? Yes, of course there are. In fact, I love that they are part of the total picture because there’s a tendency for straight people to think they don’t exist. Showing athletes and hero-types is a way of breaking down a certain type of barrier. In and of itself, that’s not the problem. It’s the lack of diversity and the disdain for men outside those boxes that disturbs me. When it becomes the ideal, not merely one representation, it feeds into other forms of misogyny and queer antagonism.

The same is true when talking about men in the arts, especially dance and theater. It’s fantastic that tough military men and powerful football players have taken ballet classes, but they are not the reason it’s acceptable for boys to dance.

Imagine being a boy who takes ballet and sees something implying he must grow up to be a certain type of man or he will surely “turn out gay.” That pretty much hurts every boy who takes dance class ever, including the ones who are destined to be big, muscular military men. It implies there’s something very, very wrong with being gay or more feminine or even just not built like a linebacker; it erases bisexual men entirely; and it implies that those who are wired toward cultural masculinity cannot possibly be gay (or even just enjoy culturally feminine pursuits). No one wins in that scenario.

At what point will we stop defending certain hobbies and jobs on the grounds that they’re not too gay or too feminine because big, tough men do them? When will being gay and/or culturally feminine be considered just as awesome as being culturally masculine? The only good answer to “But he’ll turn out gay!” is to say, “So what?” and leave it there.

And they’ll know we are Christians…

Faith and Spirituality, LGBTQ+, Social Justice

Last night, I read this post: An open letter to non-affirming Christians. It’s fantastic, and I think you should all go read it before you continue here. I’ll wait; I’m a very patient person.

Back? Good. Nathan Barber summed it up pretty nicely, but I think I’d like to take it further. He mentioned a video (which he didn’t link and neither will I) of a pastor fueled by hate calling for the execution of gay people. It’s pretty special; I don’t recommend watching it and giving that man any more traffic unless you have a really strong stomach or you’ve been practicing a hell of a lot of meditation lately and are feeling pretty chill. It’s guaranteed to make the average person seethe.

Which I think is sort of what Barber was getting at—it apparently didn’t make all that many non-affirming Christians particularly upset. Heck, it barely registered among my affirming friends. That’s a bit disappointing, to say the least. I get it, though. Most of my affirming friends were—like me—too repulsed to watch and definitely too repulsed to share it. Maybe I should be grateful no one I know shared it with any kind of agreement (or were at the very least too polite to voice their agreement, I suppose?).

Barber wonders where all the non-affirming Christians were in speaking out against the video. While I wonder that too, I want to take that further. Where are you all who say you “love” lgbtq people when 40% of homeless youth are part of that demographic? Where are you when someone you know (because surely the parents of these expelled-from-home teenagers have friends) kicks their child out? Where are you when people are beaten to death or shot while seeking help? Where are you when 12-year-old children take their own lives because they face hate every damn day at school? Where is your outrage that people you say are beloved children of God are literally dying because of their identity?

You are nowhere to be found.

This is not some isolated incident of a hateful pastor you can pass off as “not a real Christian” (which is a ridiculous argument anyway— your own teachings that “by faith alone we are saved” make that a lie). This is something that permeates the non-affirming portion of Christianity.

I know where you are: Many of you are busy blaming the victims. You wonder why the parents of a young child would let that child dress or act in a way that “invites” bullying. You think a little “tough love” might result in an end to teenage rebellion, and it’s unfortunate when the adolescent doesn’t listen. You’re sure that suicide is just an unfortunate side effect of an unrepentant heart. You don’t really believe the attacks are hate crimes (this applies to race-related crimes, too). You don’t care whether the victim identifies as lgbtq anyway (for the record, neither do I, but you seem content to make assumptions I believe are irrelevant).

I’ve heard it. I’ve heard you tell others they can’t be true Christians and fully love, support, and affirm lgbtq people (or be lgbtq people). After all, God’s love only goes so far, right? God loves us, but not our sin. This is all terrible and tragic, of course, but if only lgbtq people would turn from our sin and trust God, this would all go away. The suffering would end if we just stopped bringing it on ourselves by being…well, ourselves.

Where I probably (maybe?) disagree with Nathan Barber is in saying it suffices to make a simple statement that hateful pastors don’t speak for you. I don’t believe it does. If you really, truly “love” your lgbtq brothers and sisters, show us. Do something. Talk your friend out of kicking out their child or make space in your own home. Make sure your children know that anti-gay bullying is not ever, ever acceptable. Speak up when you see a hate crime and tell us that’s not what Jesus would do or want. Just don’t sit there in comfortable silence, content to nod your head that yes, you do in fact really, actually love lgbtq people (while simultaneously obsessing over the sex you think we might be having).

Let me address you, too, affirming Christians. You seem to think it’s okay to “live and let live,” that this is a simple matter of theological difference. You’re happy to suggest the non-affirming folks are just living out what they genuinely believe is right. I get that; I don’t want to have big debates over interpretation of the Bible either. But let me ask you this: what are you doing about the ongoing culture of hatred toward lgbtq people? Are you, in fact, doing any more than your non-affirming counterparts to combat youth homelessness and hate crimes? If not, take a good, long look at yourselves and ask if you are as affirming as you think you are.

You could easily pass off Reverend Awful as unhinged and not worthy of your time. But can you so easily and callously pass off the ordinary, everyday aggressions against lgbtq people? I sure hope not, for the sake of those left scarred by your thoughtless non-actions.

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