When Claribel A. Ortega was in middle school, most heroes in books and media looked different from her with blonde hair, blue eyes, and light skin—and they never had the same feelings she had toward other girls.
Having access to stories about young, queer girls of color, she said, could have avoided years of shame.
“It could’ve made me feel like even if my parents don’t know about this, there are people out there who are just like me, and I’m going to be okay one day,” Ortega said. “It would’ve not taken me so long to feel good about who I was.”
Ortega is now a fantasy author whose stories, inspired by her Dominican heritage, aim to represent LGBTQ perspectives. She was one of several queer authors who shared their experiences, both challenges and triumphs, at the June 25 session “Beyond the Middle School Rainbow: Intersectionality in LGBTQIA+ Middle Grade Books” at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.
“All I think about is queer me at 8 years old thinking, ‘I just want one depiction of me that looks nice, that’s funny,’” said award-winning YA and middle-grade author Mark Oshiro.
Oshiro, whose books include 2018’s Anger Is a Gift and new release The Sun and the Star, Nico Di Angelo Adventures (cowritten with Rick Riordan), published their first novel for middle-grade readers The Insiders—a queer coming-of-age story—in 2022. It tackles difficult subjects like bullying but has moments of levity woven throughout, Oshiro said.
“Middle-grade is that wackiness I have and my ability to tell a joke every 30 seconds, even though everything I write about… still always has that air of heaviness to it in that I’m dealing with very difficult subjects,” Oshiro said.
Robin Gow, a trans poet and author of young adult and middle-grade books like 2023’s Dear Mothman, said it’s not enough for classrooms to just provide books that divert from the white, straight, cisgender experience; it’s important to center and celebrate those stories as stories for everyone. “And not taught as a ‘here, you can learn about this other experience,’” Gow said. “But [rather], ‘this has something to do with you too. Our people and our stories are valuable.’”
All of the presenting authors say they and their works have faced pushback amid the current wave of book challenges and bans disproportionately affecting titles by and about queer people and people of color. Mariama J. Lockington said her first book, 2019’s For Black Girls Like Me, was banned in a school district in Oklahoma and challenged in a district in Pennsylvania. She was also uninvited from a school discussion of her 2022 queer Black love story In the Key of Us. Though frustrating, the pushback won’t deter Lockington from telling these stories, she said.
“I kind of feel like I’m doing something right if I’m pissing people off with my stories in some way,” she said. “I also really try to focus on the fact that the feedback I’m getting from young people is always the opposite of what gatekeepers and adults are saying about what young people can handle or what they have going on their lives. We do a real disservice when we underestimate and overlook what young people are holding today.”
Ortega echoed that sentiment. Despite criticism online and in person, she thinks about the roars of cheers she gets from school auditoriums, or feedback she gets from young readers about her work.
“The kids get it, and that’s who I write for,” Ortega said. “And adults are just going to have to deal with it.”
