Love in Dark Settings

Lambda Literary Awards is apparently excluding certain previously eligible writers from eligibility, based on their gender and orientation. Boys Next Door has a summary and links to the blogosphere reaction. See also the additional commentary by TeddyPig.

The Lambda Literary Foundation believes that this rule is necessary in order to "elevate the status of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people throughout society." Well, the gay male novel that caused me to come out as bisexual to my mother, at age eighteen, was "The Man Without a Face." It was written by a woman.

The gay male novel that caused me to come out as bisexual to my father? "The Last of the Wine." Also written by a woman.

The people whose literary courage inspired me to be courageous enough to come out as gender-variant? Slashers, writers of gay male fiction - mainly women.

Obviously, in the eyes of the Lambda Literary Foundation, I've been following all the wrong role models.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm attracted to both sexes. I'm also androgynous. If the author's "gender orientation/identity" must match the gender orientation/identity of their characters, none of my GLB books will be eligible for the awards, whether my books are about gay/bisexual men or lesbian/bisexual women, because I'm neither a man nor a woman. Presumably it would be okay for me to write about transgender folk, unless the Lambda Literary Foundation decides that only transmen can write about transmen and only transwomen can write about transwomen. Me being neither, I'd only be eligible if I wrote about androgynes.

To quote Gehayi:

"I swear that it's getting to the point where writing outside of your own sphere, be it racial, religious or sexual, will be either de facto or de jure forbidden. Gays will be compelled to write only about gay characters. Straight people will only be allowed to write about straight characters. Jews will not be allowed to write about non-Jews, or vice versa. And, of course, women will only be permitted to write about women, just as men will be the sole sex permitted to write about men. The fact that people are capable of writing outside of their own spheres and doing it well, and have been doing this for thousands of years, will be brushed aside. . . .

"Forgive me, Lambda Literary Awards, but I don't want to live in that kind of world. I really had thought that in the year of 2009, we had got past the notion of thinking that certain people write better than others because of who they want to have sex with, or what's between their legs. It distresses me that a group promoting excellence in works about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and genderqueer people seems to feel that reverse discrimination isn't discrimination at all."