So Many Books... - Post a comment

gair

11:31 am

TG representation in YA is about where that of gay characters was - what - 20 years ago?

See, the thing that makes me weep with frustration is that gay representation in YA was better 20 years ago: Jenny Pausacker's What Are Ya?, a couple of M E Kerrs... Jean Ure did a bunch of nice gay characters in the 1980s before suddenly reverting to the 1960s template with the effeminate-foreign-suiciding-queer-boy plot of Get A Life!.

But yes, I completely sympathize with your/7B's point about absence of TG characters in YA (it's like a bi friend of mine says: better representation of bi people would be nice but for the moment I think we just needmore). It sounds also from 7B and your review that it's really unclear whether/that Johnny is transgender, and what that might mean (for him? for the author? for the reader?). Which puts it even more firmly onto my 'muddled' pile.