I haven't read many fiction LGBT books. Or I guess I've read some with queer characters, like Albus Dumbledore, but they aren't discussed as LGBT books, so I hadn't given much thought to what will give a book the LGBT label. But after seeing the many LGBT books recommended to me by BookBub, I've come to the conclusion that it's a hot romance involving a same sex couple. Oh, and so far I haven't gotten notifications about books involving trans characters. Where the heck are those novels?
My observations got me thinking...why do we need to see a same sex relationship to get that someone's queer? (Actually, this could be part of why bisexuals get called gay or straight depending on who we're in a relationship with, but that's off topic for this post.) We catch on easily enough to the fact that someone's straight even when they're single. So why do we need to see someone kissing another person of the same gender to get that they're queer?
Maybe it's time for LGBT books to be written about queer characters who are single. We already have plenty of books about single straights, so why not?
What would these books look like? I don't know. Maybe they already exist and I'm just not seeing them. If you know of any, please tell me! I want to know. I admit that my knowledge is pretty much limited to the e-mails I've gotten from BookBub, and I'm just assuming that it's a fair representation of what's out there.
It's an idea that I wanted to throw out there. Having LGBT romances is awesome, and I'm certainly not going to complain about having them around. But we're so much more than who we fall in love with, and it would be great to see that fact explored in LGBT books.
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| Pile of books |
2 comments:
Try checking out this website: www.lambdaliterary.org -- it has reviews of the best LGBT books being published today -- I hope you find the kind of books you want!
Awesome, thanks! :)
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