More Than Just Queer Joy, Please

On the release of JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE, by Naomi Kanakia

I stan the work of Naomi Kanakia pretty hard. I think she's a brilliant writer and a beautifully honest one. I was thrilled that she agreed to contribute to my upcoming YA anthology, WE MOSTLY COME OUT AT NIGHT. As expected, her story is gorgeous, wise, and moving. I know readers will love it!

Naomi has a new novel out this week, JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE, about the experience of being a trans girl in this ugly, ugly time we're living through. (As Naomi pointed out on Instagram, it’s the first contemporary realistic YA novel about a trans girls to come out in six years!) I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy and blurbed the book:

"Messy, raw, heartfelt, and deeply humane, Just Happy to Be Here is a book I will never forget. With humor, compassion, and (at times) squirm-inducing frankness, Naomi Kanakia tells a totally original story from a totally authentic point of view. Tara is a triumph, not because she’s somehow remarkable, but because she’s just like all of us. Her search for friendship, validation, happiness, and most of all respect (in a world that treats non-passing, brown skinned trans girls with anything but) is so painfully relatable and true. I loved her, and I love this book with every fiber of my being. Read it!"

I especially meant that last line. Please do read it! Anyway…

As part of the promotion for her new novel, Naomi wrote an excellent essay for School Library Journal. I suggest you check it out. Part of the reason I appreciate her work so much is that, like me, she pushes back against the current trend of "queer joy" narratives in kid's lit. In her essay she talks about why.

In this essay, I will share my own perspective on queer joy narratives and their limitations.

“I do not want some teenager to read a book of mine, think life is rosy for trans teens, come out to their parents, and get kicked out of their house.”

— Naomi Kanakia

Queer joy narratives offer hope, comfort, and pleasure to many readers. They are a necessary and welcome corrective to decades of representation that—to the extent it existed at all—focused almost exclusively on depicting the misery, shame, and suffering of the queer experience. Writing and reading about queer joy in the face of rising discrimination and violence is a profound act of defiance, as well as a means of self-care and survival for many queer and trans people.

As the trans writer and literary agent Zabé Ellor writes: “There is joy and then there is queer joy. To me, queer joy is rooted in overcoming oppression, in dodging a gender norm, in seeking love and community against the odds.”

The embrace of queer joy is inarguably a good and healthy thing.

And yet, I worry that the recent popularity of queer joy narratives has come at a cost, with the publishing industry’s overzealous adoption of this type of easy-to-sell story crowding out other types of equally necessary, though more difficult and challenging queer stories, specifically in kid’s lit.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, publishers and editors seem to prefer to fill their lists these days with happier, safer, more uplifting queer representation. Stories that don't risk putting off certain readers and gatekeepers by portraying the darker side of the queer experience—including the traumatic toll of (still-pervasive) homophobia and transphobia on young people.

Who can blame them? I get it. It’s a real downer to still be dealing with so much hate, ignorance, and bigotry a quarter of the way through the 21st Century. Add to that the chaos of the past few years, and many readers are yearning for books that are fun, affirming, and joyful. We all relish a charming boy-meets-boy love story, right? We delight in queer girls kicking ass and trans and non-binary teens triumphing in life. We luxuriate in fictional worlds where being queer or trans isn’t a “thing” at all; where characters are free to be who they are, love who they love, and overcome problems and conflicts that have nothing to do with their sexuality or gender identity. In fact, we love these kinds of stories so much that in the past couple of years, despite rampant book bans, the rising sales of LGBTQIA+ titles has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise flagging book market.

Queer joy sells. So, why mess with a good thing, right?

Wrong. Because queer joy is not enough, especially for the most vulnerable queer and trans readers out there. What about queer pain? Queer rage? Queer loneliness and despair? Queer messiness and confusion, activism, injustice? What about queer fear, especially now, during this terrifying moment in which an entire political party has decided its easiest path to power lies in legislative efforts to erase us?

Sometimes it can feel like "queer joy" is a pernicious lie we keep telling ourselves to try to forget how little there is to feel joyful about right now—especially for way too many queer and trans teens.

Let’s face it: Every day there are countless young people in America being shunned, bullied, and persecuted by family members, classmates, teachers, school boards, doctors, religious leaders, politicians, and entire communities—all for the supposed “crime” of being who they are. These are teens who find fewer and fewer books on the shelves that reflect the frightening and decidedly un-joyful realities of their daily lives. I fear that children’s publishing is failing too many of these readers by not providing enough stories that offer an accurate and frank depiction of their own lived experiences and struggles. Imagine how demoralizing it must be for a kid who’s hiding in the closet, or couch surfing with friends because they’ve been kicked out of their home, to only find books that portray what must seem like a fantasy world, in which queer and trans kids are loved and protected by their families, embraced by their peers, and celebrated by their communities.

That’s not to say that there isn’t an incredibly important role for these kinds of stories to play. Indeed, they offer essential windows to hope, positivity, and a better tomorrow. But books should be mirrors, too. Sometimes finding your own experience (however dark and disturbing) reflected back in a story can be both tremendously cathartic and a powerful affirmation that you are not alone in the world.

As an industry, we sort of, maybe, halfway seem to understand that we're not living in some post-racial utopia, despite the fact that Barack Obama was twice elected to the Presidency. Yet publishing still seems determined to sell the (more profitable) myth to young readers that we live in an (almost) post-homophobic, post-transphobic world. I find this particularly grotesque given the current slate of legislation surrounding trans healthcare, not to mention the thousands of LGBTQIA+ books that have been pulled from library shelves all across the country. There’s a damn good reason why queer and trans youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide as other teens. Even for the most loved and supported of these kids, being queer and/or trans remains a struggle. Yet for those without that kind of support, the environment in too many places in America is downright toxic.

I believe we need to be a lot more candid about this reality in the books we give our young people to read.

As Naomi writes: "I do not want some teenager to read a book of mine, think life is rosy for trans teens, come out to their parents, and get kicked out of their house. That is not the change I want in the world."

Naomi gets it. Lots of us do. But getting the message out to those who make the publishing decisions has been, well, challenging, to say the least. We need more people to speak up and speak out. And we need more readers to support wonderful, honest books like JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE.

In community,

Rob