Practical considerations for YA librarians and other selectors who purchase queer YA literature. Originally presented at the YALSA YA Literature Symposium in Austin, TX on 11/15/14.

1. Balancing your young adult LGBTQ+
collection
Megan England
Teen Services Coordinator, Atlantic City Free Public Library

2.  The goal: to give selectors of YA materials
different lenses through which they can
view queer young adult literature when
reading reviews and cover copy for
selection.
 Subject heading searches will fail you when
searching for queer literature and
nonfiction. Major work is needed in the
fields of cataloging and metadata to make
our catalogs and vendor classification
systems more LGBTQ+ friendly.

3.  LGBTQ+: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender, Queer/Questioning,
Intersex, Pansexual, Asexual, & other
marginalized identities relating to
romantic/sexual orientation or gender
identity and expression.
 Transgender: biological sex assigned at
birth does not match self-identified
gender (vs. cisgender)

4. Every reader needs window and mirror books:
We see ourselves reflected in mirror books
In window books, we look through into the lives of
others who are different from us.
This provides support and helps develop empathy
Tiemensma, L. (2010). Books are
windows, books are mirrors:
multicultural collections for
children and young adults
opening new worlds.

5. Malindalo.com
“Mainstream” publishers include:
Disney Publishing Group (Hyperion)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Scholastic
For a listing of LGBT publishers,
visit www.lambdaliterary.org
In most professional review sources
and other selection aids, we are
only seeing 26% of the queer YA
being published.

6. Malindalo.com
The cisgender male perspective dominates in queer YA lit. There is less representation
for cisgender females, and very little for transgender and intersex characters. If we aren’t
careful in our selection, our library shelves will reflect the above distribution.

7.  Gay and Lesbian
› The easiest identities to find represented. Cisgender gay males
still dominate both publishing and marketing, though, so be
aware and purchase accordingly.
 Bisexual and Pansexual Girls AND Guys
› Bisexual and pansexuals are poorly represented in all media as
greedy, selfish, slutty, confused, actually gay, actually straight,
etc. Bisexual and pansexual are their own legitimate identities
with very little fiction published to support them, especially for bi
or pan males. Can be very difficult to find through reviews/copy.
 Transgender
› Male to Female transition stories have historically dominated
› Female to Male stories are being published more and more.
 Hard to Find Identities
› Intersex
› Asexual
› Genderqueer
› These identities rarely see any books published. Purchase them
when you see them.

8.  Queer Secondary Characters (Outside looking in)
› Important for developing empathy and
displaying the true diversity of our world.
 Queer Main Characters (Inside looking out)
› Where real representation comes in.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher or
Luna by Julie Ann Peters
vs.
Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills
or
Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonski

9.  Social and Family
› Most contemporary realistic
YA fiction. The “coming out” novel
 Identity
› Aristotle and Dante Discover the
Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin
Alire Saenz
 Spiritual
› The God Box by Alex Sanchez
› Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler
 Romantic
› Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
› The classic romantic arc with happily
ever after/happily for now
 Unrelated to queerness
Malindalo.com
› Genre fiction where queerness is not a “problem” or plot device.
Defeat the villian, conquer the evil government, master secret
powers, etc.
Conflict is easy to determine from cover copy and reviews. Again, if we aren’t
careful in our selection, our collections will reflect this chart: 80% coming out stories.
Those are very important stories to have, but they shouldn’t dominate so heavily.

10.  Difficult to pin down from cover copy and reviews.
 To label or not to label? Labels are important for
representation. Some teens really need to see the
label on the page to feel validated. Other s want to
know it’s okay to be free of labels.
 Especially difficult labels to find include bisexual,
pansexual, asexual, and genderqueer.
Embracing labels:
 Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
 Absolutely, Positively Not by David LaRochelle
Questioning labels:
 Openly Straight by Bill Konigsburg
 Pink by Lili Wilkinson
Refusing labels:
 Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

11.  Diversity in characters
› Queer people with disabilities
› Queer people of color
› Queer people from ethnic and cultural
minorities
› Queer people from religious minorities
 Diverse Authors
› Including all of the above identities

13. #INeedDiverseGames
IndieGoGo
Campaign!

14.  Chambliss, W. J. (2003). How labels affect life: The saints and the
roughnecks. Down to earth sociology: Introductory readings (12th
ed.) (pp. 271–286). New York: Free Press.
 Lo, M. (2011, September 14). I have numbers! Stats on LGBT Young Adult
Books Published in the U.S. – Updated 9/15/11. Malinda Lo: Blog.
Retrieved from http://www.malindalo.com/2011/09/i-have-numbers-stats-
on-lgbt-young-adult-books-published-in-the-u-s/
 Lo, M. (2013, October 7). 2013 LGBT YA by the Numbers. Malinda Lo:
Blog. Retrieved from http://www.malindalo.com/2013/10/2013-lgbt-ya-by-
the-numbers/
 Lo, M. (2013, October 28). LGBT Young Adult Books 2003-2013: A Decade
of Slow but Steady Change. Malinda Lo: Blog. Retrieved from
http://www.malindalo.com/2013/10/lgbt-young-adult-books-2003-13-a-decade-
of-slow-but-steady-change/

15.  Tiemensma, L. (2010). Books are windows, books are mirrors:
multicultural collections for children and young adults
opening new worlds. Libraries for Children and Young Adults
& Library Services to Multicultural Populations . Meeting
conducted at the World library and information congress:
76th IFLA general conference and assembly, Gothenburg,
Sweden. Retrieved from
http://conference.ifla.org/past/ifla76/147-tiemensma-en.pdf