Gay Secondary Characters can slay the Dark Scary

I have a little fantasy that I sometimes allow to play out in my head when I'm bored. It requires that I make a few assumptions, big assumptions, listed as follows:

1) I have become an author successful enough to do a book tour.
2) I have written a successful series of books with a gay protagonist.
3) These books have generated a delicious amount of outrage in the conservative sectors of the world.

The fantasy begins in a Q&A session with avid fans of the books. Everyone, but especially me, is having an amazing time. The room's full of young gay readers who are stoked to find a leading man they can identify with. It's full of straight fangirls that just cannot contain their squees at the idea of two cute boys having a kiss and a cuddle. It's full of other straight readers and parents of children who are huge fans of the book's setting, plot and flavour. This fantasy is going swimmingly up until this point.

And that's when this one lady stands up. Or maybe it's a man, it doesn't matter. S/he is just old enough to have teenage children of his/her own, and they have an opinion they'd like to share. "Tell me," S/he begins, "what inspired you to write this mind corrupting filth? Was your goal the total collapse of moral framework in Australia/America/Europe/The World, or just the reckless destruction of the frail minds of my own children?" It is here, dear reader, that the fantasy goes into hyper-ego mode. What follows is nothing short of superiority porn.

"Sir/Madam," I begin, "this is normally where most authors would tell you that, if you are offended, you are welcome not to read the books in the first place. Common wisdom says that you're welcome to disagree with the content of a book and that nobody has a right to force it upon you. At the risk of offending, however, my response to you will be slightly different. Because you see, you are exactly the type of person that needs to read this book the most. Everyone in this room has seen and felt something positive after reading these books. The fact that you refuse to see the same things over such a trivial issue as the leading character's sexuality is proof positive that your horizons need broadening." 

At this point in the fantasy, I sound exactly like him.

Stunned by my wordy riposte, this imaginary sap doesn't even interrupt me. "You've walked yourself in to a nice little walled off section of literature, declared everything outside of it to be non-existent and dangerous, and slammed the door behind you. Well, knock, knock, sir/madam. Here I come. I hope you're afraid of the big, bad wolf, because I'm right outside. And I'm going to huff, and I'm going to puff, and I'm going to blow your goddamn house down."

Also, whenever I get to the wolf part in the fantasy, I look exactly like this.

The room erupts with wild applause and the deluded lady/gentleman that I've been addressing suddenly sees the error of their ways. All these people can't be wrong, they think, and even though I've just been used as a punching bag by an immature writer and had my worldview belittled and ridiculed, I'm prepared to forgive on account of it made me a better person. We look at one another and nod, having come to an understanding. Pizza arrives even though nobody ordered it. Then we all watch funny cat videos on YouTube for hours, occasionally laughing with our new found friend at how stupid their opinions were before they had their eyes opened.

As fantasies go, it is elaborate and snobbish in the highest degree. But it makes me smile, which is all a fantasy needs to do, and so it will always have a place in my repertoire of things to imagine when the internet goes down and I'm bored.


There are two nebulous reasons why this little fantasy could never be anything but a little piece of escapism (besides the fact that all of my assumptions listed above are most definitely false). The first is that I'm generally a polite and nice fellow and, even if I lucked out on being in the exact situation I'd been mentally preparing for, I would never say something so confrontational. The second is that such an exchange with somebody who was dead against gay themes in YA fiction would be utterly self-defeating and unhelpful.

I don't think I'll encounter many denials that people like the gender-neutral upstart in my fantasy exist. I mean, the campaigns to ban Harry Potter because of its 'inappropriate content' were widespread and well publicised -- and that was well before anyone discovered that Dumbledore had achieved an OWL in fabulousness.

If Grindelwald liked it, he should have put a ring on it.

There are always going to be those who are actively opposed to gay themes in fiction - especially fiction for children and young adults. On top of them, there are always going to be those who aren't necessarily opposed to them, but who also don't want to read these themes themselves. I'm paraphrasing that lightly. The way you might usually hear this is 'I don't mind that there are books with gay people in them, but I don't want them shoved in my face'. Actually, don't take my word for it. Here's a comment by 'Anonymous' on The Swivet that sums it up nicely.

As a reader, I don't want to be force-fed something I'm not comfortable with reading or dealing with. This goes for anything, not just homosexual content.

Do homosexuals exist? Do rapists exist? Do drug addicts and drug dealers exist? Do dark and scary things exist?

Yes. But that doesn't mean I want to read about it.

Please, readers, I'm asking you to put aside for a moment the fact that this person is conflating homosexuality with rape, drug addiction and 'dark, scary things'. We're all agreed - that says far more about this particular person's prejudice than it does about truth, reality and human decency in general. We know that they are wrong, we know why. So let's have a discussion about how we go about changing this particular reader's mind on the subject.

The chances that a fire-and-brimstone takedown of the like in my fantasy will work to expose a reader like this to the themes and the Dark Scary that they so hate are exactly zero percent. Likewise, the chances that a reader like this will pick up a book that looks, feels, sounds or smells even slightly 'gay' are exactly zero. This is a reader living within that walled off section of literature, barricaded off from the rest of the reading world. They've employed a bouncer to stand on the door. The policy is no gays allowed, and in their world there is nothing bigoted or wrong with that. It doesn't matter a single bit to them that, with minimal effort, they could discover that the Dark Scary they're so avidly avoiding isn't really anything to be afraid of in the first place. They just don't want to have to bother with it all.

The best way - and I'd be tempted to argue the only way - that somebody like this will ever be exposed to gay characters is if they exist in a secondary capacity. I know, I know - there's been a lot of work done and words written to drag the attitude of Gay YA readers and writers up to the point where it's agreed that gay people deserve their own stories. I'm all for that. I write queer protagonists, and probably always will. Stories with LGBTQ leads are incredibly important not only for LGTBQ youths, but straight ones that might be able to break through some old-fashioned ways of thinking and find new empathy for their LGTBQ peers.

That's not going to be helpful, however, if the perceived rainbow flags on the cover and in the reviews are going to turn a potential reader away because they simply do not want to be bothered with the Dark Scary within. So along with the sharp increase in books that focus on gay protagonists, which I'm looking forward to, I think we need to think about amping up the gay secondary characters while we're at it.

It's possible to do properly. I confess that I get a little bit annoyed with those who would dismiss every single gay secondary character that ever was as 'just a sidekick', as if the role of a sidekick has been worthless to every other type of character that ever filled that role. A properly treated and nuanced secondary character that is also gay can be just as, if not more, valuable than a properly treated and nuanced main character. Why? For the simple fact that readers who would not normally expose themselves to this kind of character are being shown things that they're not used to seeing. And wouldn't you know, the Dark Scary isn't all that bad after all.

I can name for you exactly one gay protagonist in a work of fairly mainstream science fiction: Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood fame. It's worth noting that the reason he became the main character in a TV series that is notching up 5 seasons is because he began as a sidekick in Doctor Who. There's a certain 'from little things big things grow' attitude that I'm advocating here. Not because I don't think gay characters deserve equal standing (they absolutely do), but because there's something to be said for introducing readers to ideas they aren't comfortable with slowly. Is it sneaky? Maybe. But in a good way. Like how maybe you never knew you liked olives until you accidentally got them on your pizza one day. Make sense?

Captain Jack, depicted here about to shoot the Dark Scary.

We need more gay secondary characters in books. We also need more gay protagonists, sure, but maybe we need secondary characters even more. The market for gay-themed books within the LGBTQ community is kind of static - it directly correlates with how many gay people there are that read books. Bringing new readers in to that market from outside the LGBTQ community is important not just for sales and the improved health of diversity in YA fiction, but for showing people like the ones in my fantasy that the Dark Scary actually ain't all that dark and scary. That's the way to open doors and identify with one another. That's the whole point of books - particularly YA books, surely.

Show curious readers that there exist gay characters who aren't stereotypes, who aren't annoying distractions, who aren't comic relief, who aren't morally bankrupt and, most importantly, who aren't much different from straight characters. Pack your books with gay secondary characters and make them real. If you were going to have two heterosexual leads anyway, then consider the rest of your story a blank canvass. Try and convince some readers that gay characters aren't Dark Scaries. The flow-on effects could be better than we imagine.