Media & ArtsMy pain condensed for amusement

submitted by julesburm1891 from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–][deleted] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

OP, any chance you can provide some choice quotes from the book?

I read the summary and cringed. It's obviously very geared towards youth, but this reminded just how far away from my own youth that these novels and influences are now:

Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

YA novels in my day (as a female, won't speak for males) were about girls experiencing puberty, peer pressure, body-shaming, cliques and friendship, perhaps coming to terms with their own early-blossoming sexuality ... those sorts of things. Talking about our actual experiences in age-appropriate ways, and not a damn thing about the politicized issues of adults.

Based on what you've described, this book is so much propaganda towards children that it shouldn't even exist, let alone be awarded.

[–]julesburm1891[S] 17 insightful - 4 fun17 insightful - 3 fun18 insightful - 4 fun -  (6 children)

I had the delightful experience of listening to this as an audiobook. (It was its own hilarity because a transman narrated. At no point was I able to suspend disbelief and even pretend the book was about a guy because it all just sounded like a woman with a slightly sore throat.) But, just for you, I will go in search of a print copy tomorrow to pull some quotes from the best sections.

I will tell you now that the author is clearly someone who hate read our old sub and r/GC. Both of the villains have intentionally bad, half-formed straw men from both places. (Let me reiterate that the villains are the only gay and lesbian characters.)

this book is so much propaganda to children

Unfortunately, that’s what YA has become. Everything is hyper woke to the point that most books are really just a Twitter rant with a loose shell of a plot around it. This sort of chicanery is also bleeding into middle grade and children’s books.

Even worse, this particular gem went further than your basic anti-LBG diatribe. Towards the beginning, it essentially gives instructions for how to get a referral to a gender clinic. Several times it encourages kids to go to online forums to learn about their gender. Later, it walks the reader through the process of getting hormones and top surgery. It wraps up nicely at the end with Felix giving a dramatic speech about how being trans makes her special and interesting deserving of love and “like a god.” (No, I’m not fucking around. That’s an exact quote.)

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Free audiobook? Or did you have to buy it/received from someone else? I will hate-listen myself as well.

I will tell you now that the author is clearly someone who hate read our old sub and r/GC. Both of the villains have intentionally bad, half-formed straw men from both places. (Let me reiterate that the villains are the only gay and lesbian characters.)

Ooooh ... if we recognize anything any any of us specifically have said, lets at least gets some LOLs out of it.

this particular gem went further than your basic anti-LBG diatribe [snip]

OMG!!! I'm very tempted to update the flair to "Transing Children", but am holding off until we get some solid excerpts.

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman🇬🇧🌳🟦 10 insightful - 8 fun10 insightful - 7 fun11 insightful - 8 fun -  (2 children)

hate-listen

I'm pretty tempted to hate-read it myself and then lend it to all my friends. Maybe I could suggest it to my book club? They were falling over themselves trying to say how they need to read more 'L..GBT... oh what was it Q+? QI?' literature, so perhaps I should gradually introduce more and more nonsense until someone TERFs out. Or alternatively they lap it up as stunning and brave and I leave.

[–]julesburm1891[S] 10 insightful - 4 fun10 insightful - 3 fun11 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

You play a dangerous game, my dude.

[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Let us know how you get on.

[–]julesburm1891[S] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I got it through my library on the Libby app. Your city probably has the same system.

It’s definitely not pulling quotes. The lesbian character says Felix transitioned because she’s a misogynist. It’s a pretty obvious and bad twisting of “maybe the explosion of girls identifying as boys has something to do with escaping the misogyny and sexual objectification of our culture.”

The boss villain at the end thinks “you guys” [trans people] are taking gay spaces because they don’t know “how hard it is to be gay.” (This is followed up with some straight girl yelling at him forever that black and trans have it so much worse and gays shouldn’t complain.) Its pretty obviously glossing over our actual complaint of “you are a bisexual woman who does not experience homophobia like gay men do and you should not fetishize them, harass them, or talk over their lived experiences.”

Anyways, I laughed my ass off at both parts because the author is so clearly furious LGB people and women won’t validate all their delusions.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The boss villain at the end thinks “you guys” [trans people] are taking gay spaces because they don’t know “how hard it is to be gay.” (This is followed up with some straight girl yelling at him forever that black and trans have it so much worse and gays shouldn’t complain.) Its pretty obviously glossing over our actual complaint of “you are a bisexual woman who does not experience homophobia like gay men do and you should not fetishize them, harass them, or talk over their lived experiences.”

It's interesting how the author brings up these points only to never explore them, which is not only lazy writing but also intellectually lazy.

Hell, if you're going to peddle this point, at least try to explain why genderspecials have it so much worse than gay men.

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I read one in my late teens from the library but I could see it was pushing casual sex and open relationships to teenage gays.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I keep coming across propaganda books for teens and YA, and it's really sickening. The name escapes me now (something with perfect in the title) but there's a book that's just come out about a lesbian who plays Romeo in a school play, but the thing is...she actually feels like a Romeo rather than a Juliet. The cover has some pretty insidious messages too, because the way the character is drawn is straight up male, even though she hasn't had any hormones, surgery, zilch. Playing male roles in plays ≠ being trans actually.

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman🇬🇧🌳🟦 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There was an interesting article in The Critic about how Young Adult fiction is basically all just woke propaganda at this point.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That was a really good read. I remember the Jackson controversy, and one thing they didn't mention was how authors had to 'come out' to prove that they were #ownvoices writers, as was the case with Becky Albertalli.

[–]julesburm1891[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This article is so painfully accurate. YA is absolutely falling apart because of this bullshit. The authors causing the problem are trying to migrate into children’s and middle grade fiction with zero self awareness that people don’t want to read their propaganda.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But that's why it was awarded.