Token straight: A queer author's perspective
Red string and pins have turned my novel-planning pinboard into a conspiracy board of ideas. My friend sits on the floor beside me, picking out coloured whiteboard markers and chatting. I’m brain-dumping about the different character relationships and sexualities when my friend makes an offhand comment that stops me in my tracks.
“You do realise you’ve flipped the ‘token gay’ character thing, right? Are there any cis, straight characters in your books?”
I took a step back and looked over all my novel concepts, works in progress, and my published book. I’ve come to the realisation that I write casually queer, and have to scour my brain to think of any cishet couples or characters in the books I’m writing.
No matter how many genres my current book projects span across – ranging from epic fantasy and sci fi to contemporary slice-of-life – the one consistency in my writing is that every single story is comfortably, casually, unapologetically queer.
I grew up in a happy family, for the most part. There was no learned prejudice towards the LGBTQIA+ community, but at the same time, I didn’t know it existed. It took me going to high school to learn it was even a possibility. A single Harry Potter conversation opened my eyes.
“Hey, do you ship Remus and Sirius?”
“... But they’re both boys?”
“Are you homophobic?”
“Wait... boys liking boys is an actual thing?”
Within a week, I came out to my friends as bisexual, and the world kept spinning.
But despite this extremely casual discovery, I was in tears when I came out to each of my parents. Scared they would look at me differently, or tell me it was wrong, even though they had never given any indication they would feel this way. No matter how much I tried to deny it, the media and people around me fanned the flames of my uncertainty.
Overhearing the widespread playground use of the word ‘gay’ as an insult. A study by Autostraddle was conducted and revealed that through 1976 to 2016, 11% of US TV shows features lesbian or bisexual female characters, and of those, 31% ended up dead and only 10% received happy endings.
For young teens who might be living in less-than-ideal home situations, queer movies aren’t a viable way to learn more about their identity. But books can be read and enjoyed more privately. It’s an intimate experience, and something entirely your own.
In my debut novel, Second Star to the Right, a queer couple emerges across the course of the book. Two teen girls who fall for each other during the strife and conflict of the main plotline. And when the main character realises she is falling in love, she knows it can’t be right. Not because she has fallen in love with a girl, but because she doesn’t believe she deserves to be loved.
My book cover doesn’t scream ‘THIS BOOK HAS QUEER CHARACTERS!’ – it doesn’t need to. There is safety in subtlety. I didn’t want any curious queer teens to experience the awkwardness of when my Year 10 English teacher picked up my book (which had been strategically placed cover-down), just to see an illustration of two girls kissing on the cover.
In Second Star to the Right, there is a lesbian main couple, an aromantic character, a non-binary character, and a polyamorous throuple. I didn’t put these characters in to fill a diversity quota. They developed naturally in the story. In the same way that we in real life come to learn about our identities as we grow and explore the world.
Whether it’s through a narrative where the characters are casually queer, exploring the ups and downs of identity, or dealing with the prejudice and fear that is unavoidable in some environments – telling queer stories is something I do not see myself stopping. I’ll keep searching for that 10% chance of a happy ending, and I’ll do my best to keep the number growing.
I’ll keep flipping the narrative, so that queer people can exist casually. And even if it's just fictional, straight people can be the token characters for once.