Authors Say Agents Try to “Straighten” Gay Characters in YA by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith.

You need to read all the words in this, and you need to think very carefully about it. Especially if you work with or want to work with the big names in the U.S. publishing industry.

The money quote?

The overwhelming white straightness of the YA sf and fantasy sections may have little to do with what authors are writing, or even with what editors accept. Perhaps solid manuscripts with LGBTQ protagonists rarely get into mainstream editors’ hands at all, because they are been rejected by agents before the editors see them. How many published novels with a straight white heroine and a lesbian or black or disabled best friend once had those roles reversed, before an agent demanded a change?

This does not make for better novels. Nor does it make for a better world.

Let’s make a better world.

I have no doubt (and by no doubt, I mean I've heard the stories) of the same happening in adult genres as well in the NYC-centric U.S. publishing industry.

This is what I mean when I get angry about what's on the shelves, when I talk about the lack of diversity in the genres of fiction that I read. This is also why I get really furious in discussions about agents and submissions when agents want to claim that it is "just business" and don't want to have the discussions about how they, as a group, are engaging in these shenanigans either by asking people to straight/whiten/etc their characters or just by rejecting things out of hand.

This is why I laugh when people pretend like editors and agents are always acting as benevolent gatekeepers who only let the best manuscripts get through, and that people who don't get published obviously just weren't good enough. This is why my opinion and the way I look at self-published works has really changed in the last few years.

This is why I can open a book and see certain specific genre agents' names in the acknowledgements and know better than to bother because I can actually, physically track the books that I've hated, the books that have been chock full of racist, sexist, queer hating ickiness and see that a lot of those books were all handled by the same agent.

This is part of the reason why I've very much stopped believing that getting a mainstream publishing contract is actually even anything to strive for and have largely shelved the idea that my writing career should center around such hopes.

Because in the last few years, I've really had my eyes opened to the fact that it doesn't just take a good book to get a deal and some sales - because things aren't that fair. Because there are a lot of people - agents, editors, etc - who are literally weeding out diversity because they only care about straight, white readers, who don't think that the queer/POC/disabled/etc reader even count.

If you ever wondered why I'm perpetually angry, or why when people talk about e-book prices, book sales, and piracy that I feel like ripping furniture to shreds because there are so many layers of fuckery going on that it can never just be a simple case of anything - you know why now. Because of things like this.

So, I had a pretty long, angry (maybe even self-righteous) response post to this completely bullshit that Elizabeth Moon posted talking about citizenship (in the U.S.). I had a lot of points made, maybe some of them were even post worthy.

Then I read "Dissimilation" by shweta_narayan, and I realized that nothing I (as a white, privileged citizen of the U.S.) could possibly say would be better or more important or truer or more powerful than what has been said by someone who's lived a vastly different experience than I have.

And that if there are voices that needed to be centered in the wake of such abject asshaberdashery, its voices like hers.

That entry? Is still bouncing off the inside of my head. It is powerful, it is true, and I highly recommend reading it, re-reading it, bookmarking it and returning to it regularly. Really. GO READ IT NOW.

Also, I recommend this: post from the same author.