Gay Teens in YA Science Fiction and Fantasy

/Home/Science Fiction and Fantasy Books/Science Fiction for Kids and Teens

Gay Teens in YA Science Fiction and Fantasy
January 27, 2011
Angie Smibert
The League of Extraordinary Writers

his week’s Entertainment Weekly has a special report on Gay Teens on TV. EW traces the timeline of GLBT teens on network television—from the sparsely out early 90’s (eg, Ricky on My So-Called Life) to the recent proliferation of gay teens on shows like Glee and Skins. [And bless the Canadians. Degrassi has had no less than eight GLBT characters, including a transgendered one.] GLBT teens have become more and more represented on TV in the last two years TV---partly because of the popularity of Glee’s Kurt. More importantly (imho), though, they’re not just portrayed as kids with a problem but as fully realized characters that just happen to be gay. I’m not saying gay teens don’t still have acceptance problems. Quite the contrary. But TV has begun to catch on that gay teens not only exist but have the same wants and desires as most teens.


However, as I look at the EW timeline of gay teen characters, I’m struck by one thing. Willow and Tara (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) are the only gay young adults on a speculative fiction show. There aren’t that many gay adult characters on science fiction or fantasy TV shows either. Captain Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones on Torchwood. Sam Adama on Caprica. Camille Ray on Stargate Universe. A handful. The Star Trek universe was seemingly inhabited solely by straight people, a fact that Brannon Braga, the producer of many of the Star Trek franchises, recently admitted that he regretted.

This all got me thinking about gay teens in young adult (or middle grade) science fiction and fantasy. Gay and lesbian kids do seem to be represented in contemporary YA fiction (at least to some extent). For example, one of the Will Graysons in WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON is gay. The book was nominated for a Stonewall Award, which the American Library Association gives to young adult books of merit to GLBT teens.


However, I’m having trouble finding many YA / MG speculative fiction titles with gay characters. (Adult science fiction, yes.) VINTAGE: A GHOST STORY by Steve Berman was a 2007 Andre Norton Award nominee. (Deathly Hallows won that year.) ASH by Malinda Yao was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award last year. So, these books exist. Kind of like Ricky on My So-Called Life existed in 1994. Alone in a sea of straightness.

Why does this matter? We, as writers, have the opportunity to build futures and/or societies in which gay teens (really all teens of any background) are represented—and not just as “issues” (that is, unless that issue is central to your book) but as integral parts of the world. That does at least two things.

First, it builds tolerance. GLAAD president, Jarrett Barrios, put it well. He told EW, “This increasing number of storylines makes it impossible to assume there are no gay people around you. It makes it uncool to be a bully.”

Second, it builds hope. During a round table discussion about Battlestar Galactica, Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama) related a story about the importance of representing Latinos on the show. A friend called him about a year after the show hit the air. Her 12-year-old nephew was so excited about the show. The kid told her, “We’re in the future. We’re in the future.” (You can see that video here.)

Imagine NOT be able to see yourself (or someone like you) in the future. We have the power to change that.