http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-joanna-stampfel-volpe.html

This isn’t a book about being gay. It’s a post-apocalyptic story in which some characters happen to be gay. It’s YA sf/fantasy, and that’s exactly where it belongs. I object to the idea that having a single gay character in a book or film or television show makes it “gay media.”

THIS.

http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/

http://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/

In regards to ‘no one has ever refused to rent to me because I like to cook.’

No one has refused to rent to me because I like to cook (and garden & sew and…etc) – but I have been called a faggot and much, much worse.  

I too resent that books with even one gay character are segregated…I really think that Rowling originally wrote Dumbledore to be out of the closet – but then had to censor her work at the suggestion of the publisher as a condition for Harry P to be published.

 At first I thought the agent had merely advised the author that the book would be easier to sell, or sell better, if the gay character were eliminated. If this were the story, I would not condemn the agent, because I think it is morally wrong to give inaccurate analysis [assuming that analysis was done]  to someone who is seeking information. It would be a dereliction of duty akin to an engineer approving building plans based on how pretty they were rather than whether the calculations were done right.But then I read that what actually happened was the agent made a conditional offer to rep the book if it were sanitized. I absolutely agree that kind of behavior should be called out. If he or she didn’t want to rep the book, and people are certainly entitled to their opinions, he should have just, said, “I do not think I can give this book the representation it deserves” or even just “no thank you.” Making a conditional offer is even worse than just declining the book (no reason required).

So you don’t think marketing has worked this way since it was invented?  You see nothing positive in creating a market to attract writers to a specific niche market? Writers have work, readers have product. It doesn’t have to be a negative thing if you think about it.

Special-interest sections are interesting, and if there is no connection to an axis of discrimination I don’t see a problem at all.  Want to work up a market for people who like to travel, knit, listen to music, or play basketball?  Go for it.  Being a lesbian isn’t the same as liking to cook; so far, no one has ever refused to rent to me because I like to cook.  But once you decide a minority facing discrimination is a special-interest group, you’ve just marketed us into an area marked “other.”  We become people who are kept away from the “normal” people, so we don’t bother them.  It’s assumed that we’re not interested in “normal” people books and they’re not interested in ours.  The majority gets to go along pretending we don’t exist.Sometimes it’s fun to meet people in bookstores who are browsing the same stuff I am; and honestly, there are plenty of books that *do* belong in the queer section.  Books about queerness.  But not every damn book with a gay character.  “It’s good for business” is just not a good enough reason to perpetuate bigotry, in my opinion, and…  we’ve come full circle.  It’s really sad to hear this argument.

You can say something much more detached from the reality of the
conversation, just keep reading into things and making shit up. Seems
to be a trend for this thread. Nothing you imply was said and your stab
at innuendo is repugnant.

Actually, you really did criticize Antinous for drawing the parallel to racism, implying that it’s an unfair comparison and that racism is far worse.  You can look up a ways and see your own words if you’ve forgotten.  Maybe you were just feeling defensive because your initial suggestion had perfectly good intentions, but as a member of (in this case) the privileged group you hadn’t realized the effect on the rest of us.  It’s easy to get defensive when privilege is challenged.

People who tell us queer folks we shouldn’t invoke parallels with racism are pretty well always trying to say we don’t face discrimination the way people who aren’t white do.  And while I will agree that it’s not the same (we have different histories), it’s similar enough that when we sit down to compare notes we usually find a lot of commonality.  Gay is a minority, thanks, one that’s discriminated against in a thousand thousand ways.

(The differences we find:  it’s easier for us to pass, and we were never enslaved and aren’t still living with the echoes of that horrific period of history.  On the other hand, we were and sometimes still are invisible, passing is not a solution to inequality, and our existence was criminalized – and we’re regularly condemned as immoral sinners who cause all the problems of the world.  Many of us have been disowned or thrown out of the house upon coming out. “Who has it worse” is a stupid game to play.)

People (straight people) don’t often think about it because they’d prefer not to, but currently it’s still permissible for people in the town where I do my grocery shopping to refuse to serve my girlfriend and I.  And, here in the town we live in, we have legal protection against discrimination, but we were denied housing and she lost a job.  Wonderful, well-meaning oblivious straight people are often surprised to find out this still happens, or that it’s legal; it seems so ridiculous that our country didn’t learn from the civil rights battles we’ve already fought.  (It seems utterly bizarre that I’d have more civil rights in South Africa than I do here in the US, no slight against South Africa intended, but apartheid wasn’t all that long ago.)

It does happen, though; and unpleasant encounters with heterosexism are a pretty regular occurrence.  **sigh**

I understand and to a point agree – but the special interest sections are cool because you can bump into people browsing the same stuff you are and perhaps move the conversation to the coffee counter or perhaps somewhere more fun. 

I have however seen books in both the ‘gay section’ and in the other areas.

So you don’t think marketing has worked this way since it was invented?  You see nothing positive in creating a market to attract writers to a specific niche market? Writers have work, readers have product. It doesn’t have to be a negative thing if you think about it.

Sounds like you like to negatively spin things.  I was thinking more along the lines of genre, and it’s nothing new to categorize fiction to the tastes of readership. It’s a common practice at book stores.  Wouldn’t it show compassion and understanding to have a category of books for gay YA readership?  That’s also targeted marketing, right? Just seems like a money maker to me.

Separate but equal, huh?You know, there’s awesome queer fiction out there – and queer erotica, and queer nonfiction while we’re at it.  So far, those books (published for adults) do have their own section in bookstores.  I think it would be awesome if we could move away from that level of segregation – if we could accept that the generation who are currently children are not going to be as able to pretend gay people don’t exist as those that came before.  Putting books and films with gay people in them in their own section buries them; it’s better than nothing, but not better than actually being represented like other normal human beings in normal human being ways.  I would be thrilled if I could stop being thrilled every time a new mainstream film or book has a queer character.  And if books with people like me in them were considered just as normal as books with girls who fall in love with boys…  I’m meandering.  My real point: it’s not compassionate or understanding to mark a group of people as different for the purpose of making money.

So you’re comparing this to a race issue, really?

So, are you saying that homophobia is somehow less harmful than racism? If so, you’re part of the problem.

the agent really should be named and shamedWhy? An agent’s job is to sell a manuscript; no more, no less.

You’ve answered your own question. If the agent is named, his higher profile, more profitable clients may decide they would rather someone a bit less evil represent them. They can only really get away with it in the long term if they can hide their prejudice.

The fact that so many people accept cowardice and bigotry as completely A-OK because they’re good for business takes huge chunks of hope out of me.

Thank you!  Beautifully said.  I don’t know why people around here are defending this mystery agent so stubbornly…  how do you all think it feels to be gay and hear “well, stories about people like you don’t sell, so I want you written out of this story, don’t be upset, it’s just business”?  Yay for perpetuating inequality!  As far as where this kind of censorship ends up… anyone else familiar with lesbian film or the lesbian pulps?  For a long time, in order to get films made and books published, writers had to make sure the women involved ended up dead, insane, or straight.  We currently have…  oh, well, maybe three and a half films with happy endings for the women involved (the half because of the alternate ending to Loving Annabelle).  Total.  Looking for representations of gay women in popular culture?  Well, they all kill themselves, unless they end up with a man!  And surely there’s no problem with that, right?  People don’t construct identities out of what they take in from popular culture or anything.Ugh.  :(

That means that more than there being a market, there’s a need. Kids are asking librarians for these books. Don’t work in YA if you don’t care what kids want to read. You can make money and do the right thing—give kids books that reflect their reality—at the same time. 

They are NOT trying to pressure this agent to change.

They deliberately DIDN’T “name and shame” the agent, because that’s not what they’re trying to do, and they don’t want people to miss the point of what they DO want.

And, lastly, that the things they ARE asking people – editors, agents, readers, writers and all the rest of us – to do have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with asking people to pressure agents to conform to their ‘agenda.’ 

The number of straw men being bashed about in this comment thread is astonishing.

There’s no “soft way” around discrimination: you adopt an eternal zero-tolerance policy, and are willing to pay the price. Let the bastards sort themselves out, and act accordingly.

Also, labeling something a book for gay kids is like labeling something a book for girls. Cuts the audience drastically. Aiming kids towards books is a librarian’s job

Plenty of straight YA readers (most of them, if my impression of today’s young adults is anywhere near accurate) would be perfectly happy to read YA fiction that contains gay characters, because that makes the stories more realistic, i.e., more like the real world they live in – which also contains gay people.

That assumption is what makes it ghettoization, no matter what your ‘intent’ may be.