Here’s a close approximation of the speech I gave at ALA on Monday, June 27, 2016 on accepting the first ever Children’s Stonewall Award:
Good morning! I’m honored that you’re here. I’m honored that I’m here. First a few thank yous:
- To the Stonewall Committee, especially the Children’s & Young Adult Sub-Committee, and to Larry Romans and Michael Morgan, for understanding the importance of LGBTQI+ literature for young people.
- To friends and family, especially Jean Marie Stine, without whom Melissa’s story would still be a mangled mass of words.
- To the Timucua and other native people whose land this is.
- Sparkles and love to my agent, Jennifer Laughran, who revised and resubmitted my query into a book.
- Sparkles and love to my editor, David Levithan, and everyone at Scholastic who took this book on and wouldn’t let go.
- And endless gratitude to the booksellers, teachers, educators, and of course, LIBRARIANS, who are getting Melissa’s story into the hands of kids.
Last year was my first ALA. It was also Pride weekend in San Francisco, and Friday was the Trans March. I was in a car that evening, on my way to an ALA event. We passed by the march, and someone I was in the car with commented, “Look at all the bright colors!” Like they had just witnessed a pride of lions. (Or bears. Or otters.) Like we were on safari and had spotted the local fauna.
That very same day, gay marriage passed. And there were people at ALA who were congratulating me for it, as if I had personally accomplished something.
But here’s the thing: gay marriage has never been the top priority for trans people and marginalized queers. It’s barely in the top ten. The first priority for trans people is staying alive. The second is being ourselves. And while some people said, “Love Wins”, we sat nervously, because we know that progress on that long jagged arc towards justice brings backlash, which more often than not falls on the most marginalized parts of a community.
So for me, personally, and for my book GEORGE, it’s been an amazing year. I’ve been to dozens of bookstores and community centers, spoken to hundreds of kids and schools, met whole classes who read Melissa’s story. I’ve gotten countless emails, from adults and kids, trans and cis. One of my recent favorites was a tweet from the mom of a seven year old. They had just finished reading the book, and her daughter had declared her stuffed bunny trans. What a delightful and playful way for this kid to incorporate transness and how to ally with trans people into her understanding of the world.
At the same time, there are places that aren’t purchasing my book because of “content”. It’s been placed on special shelves in libraries, arbitrary minimum reading ages have been declared, it’s been disallowed for book reports, and an amazing speaker and author in his own right has been disinvited for booktalking it. Melissa’s story has literally been pulled out of children’s hands. Because for all the progress, there’s backlash.
And now, here I am, accepting a queer literature award in Orlando, Florida, where we just lost 50 people. Mostly queer. Mostly Latinx. Mostly in their 20s. And not only because of extremists in our country who don’t understand the meaning of “well-regulated” or what a musket is. But also because of internalized homophobia. And because progress brings terrifying, tragic backlash.
I’m sharing the sad part. In the story arc, it makes the redemption more powerful. Because what do we do in the face of backlash? We progress boldly beyond it. We keep going.
We don’t control the past. We barely have a handle on the present. But we can guide the future.
And that’s why writing middle grade fiction is so important to me. Ages eight through twelve are a critical time in figuring out who we are as distinct from friends, from family, from school, society, and the media we take in. These are formative years and young people need and deserve tools to help them make sense of their world.
I have this image that runs through my mind. It takes place 10, 20, 30 years from now. A cisgender, heterosexual, heteronormative, dudey-dude-bro, football playing, fraternity faithful guy is walking down the street. I mean, Dude-Bro. Total stereotype. Drunk as drunk on PBR at 4 in the morning. And in the other direction, walking towards him, is someone he identifies as trans. And somewhere in his notions and connections of transness, is Melissa’s story. And he thinks of Melissa as a person, and he sees the person across the street, and that real, live, possibly-trans person makes it through the night. And nothing happens. Nothing happens.
We book people say it because it’s true: BOOKS SAVE LIVES. BOOKS SAVE LIVES. BOOKS SAVE LIVES.
It is worth the risk to get books like George on your shelves. I know, especially for school librarians, that parents can be scary. But you have so much more agency that the kids who need to read stories like GEORGE.
And it’s not just trans kids who need to read trans stories. We all need to see each other as people if we have any hope of getting through the next century.
I am honored and delighted to be accepting a NEW award – for children’s LGBTQI+ literature, separate from the wonderful world of YA, because it means more quality queer literature for young people is coming. Books are consumable. We one and need another.
So once more, thank you. Keep reading. Keep sharing. Please. Kids need you.
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