THIS WEEK
For many readers growing up in the UK, the book publishing sector does not adequately serve them with books that speak to their experience of their sexuality or gender—and this must change
T
Matthew Todd Former editor, Attitude; author
he absence of the past is a terror, wrote Derek Jarman, in his essential 1993 diary-based book At Your Own Risk, in which he described the trauma of being leſt out of history, and of not seeing yourself depicted in TV in film, in stories. It’s some- thing those of us in this industry, I imagine, understand is a profound and fundamental human need.
If you are straight, imagine what it’s like
to have not had books and films that showed what it’s like to be you: no “Romeo and Juliet”, no “Casablanca”, no “Gone with the Wind”, no Adrian Mole and Pandora, no Bridget Jones and Mr Darcy, no Hermione and Ron, no prety-much-every-book-ever-writen which centres straight relationships in the narrative. I don’t think you could imagine. It’s horrendous. It makes you feel, at a very deep level, that there’s something wrong with you and who you are should be hidden way. It’s so painful writing that list, it makes me want to cry. It’s why in 2017, when the first studio film about a gay teen finding love was released, “Love Simon”, I sat and watched an audience of younger and older gay and lesbian folk weeping. If you are transgender, up until the past five years, it’s most likely you’ll have never seen characters like you in the mainstream. This does mater. As Mohsin Zaidi—author of one of the only books ever published about being gay and Muslim, A Dutiful Boy—explains so sensitively (on p11), representation can be a mater of life and death.
When I was a teenager, I went looking in 06 30th April 2021
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN’S TALES OF THE CITY STRUCK A CHORD WITH THE GAY COMMUNITY
the school library for any books about people like me. I was suicidal, desperate for the support I wasn’t geting in the real world, and I found none. Even if there had been relevant books, I wouldn’t have known because they weren’t talked about. Even E M Forster was so ashamed of his sexualit he made sure that Maurice wasn’t published until 1971, when he was in the ground. Twent years later, study- ing Howards End for my A-Levels, a teacher asked why we were reading “that book writen by a homosexual”. Even now, there are almost no books or films similar to those, with same- sex relationships at the centre. The ones I did start to read were depressing: everyone died of AIDS or suicide; no lesbian ever survived. In the mid-Nineties I found Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the Cit series (first published in 1978), about the lives of normal twentsomething people—gay, straight and trans—and I raced through them all. Despite their iconic success, there has still not been another popular gay-themed series since. Is this really because there are no such stories, or writers to tell them?
Clearly not. Of course, lots of LGBT
writers tell other stories but this has oſten been because, as has happened to countless colleagues, we are so used to being told to “de-gay” projects that we oſten pre-empt and self-censor. In 2012, when I was shopping the
Despite Tales of the City’s iconic success, there has not been another popular gay- themed series since. Is this really because there are no such stories, or writers?
proposal for my first book, Straight Jacket, about gay mental health, one publisher complained that it didn’t have enough heterosexual people in it. “That’s the point,” I replied. “It’s about gay people and for gay people.” I wanted to explain that it would be like complaining The Female Eunuch didn’t have enough to interest men in it, but I didn’t. There are hundreds of writers out there and books that could have made money for publishers. The lesbian author V G Lee springs to mind; one of the funniest and warmest writers in the UK, who has been shockingly under-supported by the industry. There are dozens more. An audience exists, but they need to be marketed to. The recent census will be fascinating. Let’s say 2% of the UK population identifies as LGBT. Would it not be reasonable for even half of one per cent of books published to be about LGBT stories? It makes commercial sense but also strikes to the heart of the publishing industry: what is it for if it cannot tell a diverse range of stories? Over the past five years the industry has made significant efforts to change this
The Lead Story LGBTQ+ Spotlight
Rewriting history: why book publishing must embrace LGBTQ+ stories—and soon
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