Queer Representation in Media

Despite some small recent victories for LGBTQ media representation, we are still waiting to see queer characters included in mainstream stories in a meaningful way. Between rampant queerbaiting, case after case of Bury Your Gays, and large media companies completely ignoring the issue, LGBTQ fans are getting tired of waiting.

What we need are LGBTQ main characters in popular, mainstream franchises or other widely popular stories in film, TV, books and other media. We need them to be visible, happy, and alive. We need to see ourselves as heroes.

To highlight that need, we are announcing the #WeNeedLGBTQStories Week. Beginning on June 12, the one year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, and running through that weekend’s Pride Alley at Awesome-con in DC, this week is a time to talk about why representation matters. We will flood social media with reasons why we need healthy LGBTQ representation, what those characters/stories would mean to us, and specific examples of what it would look like and how it is already possible.

How can you get involved?

We will be posting on Twitter and Tumblr (and any other networks you’d like) throughout the week with the hashtag #WeNeedLGBTQStories. Help us get it trending! Share your thoughts, your personal stories, your specific hopes for characters, your ideas, your fan works, anything. Write blog posts and submit columns to news outlets. Write to specific creators and companies. Join Thursday’s Twitter chat and Friday’s Thunderclap (details to follow). If you’re in the DC area for Awesome-con, join us at a weekend’s worth of queer geek panels.

There will be more ways to get involved announced soon, but for now you can share this notice far and wide, and follow us here on Tumblr and on Twitter at @wnlgbtqs.

Themes for each day:

Monday, June 12: #KeepDancing

To honor our history and our community, and to remember Pulse and all of our fallen. To talk about the real world challenges we face and the very real impact positive representation can have.

Tuesday, June 13: We Are Heroes

To talk about the need to see ourselves reflected in our heroes, to see LGBTQ characters as not just accepted, but saving the day. What would this mean to you?

Wednesday, June 14: We Are Happily Ever After

To emphasize the importance of showing LGBTQ characters in happy, healthy relationships. We don’t exist in a vacuum and our love deserves to be honored. What does this look like?

Thursday, June 15: We are Alive

To call on creators to stop torturing and killing us. To remind them that we face this enough in reality. To show them how they have the power to save lives with their stories. We deserve better.

Friday, June 16: We are Possible

To point to specific instances that creators could act on in the near future to give us the representation we need. It’s possible, if you just let yourself see the potential – sometimes it even makes for a better story. Let’s bring back the campaigns #GiveElsaAGirlfriend, #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend and #LetAyoHaveAGirlfriend, and create new ones to highlight other good opportunities for LGBTQ characters. (My first suggestion: #GivePoeABoyfriend)

Saturday-Sunday: Awesome-con’s Pride Alley

We will be attending panels at Awesome-con’s Pride Alley, a track on panels and content devoted to LGBTQ geekery/fandom. We will be live tweeting various panels for those who can’t attend, and a meet-up and other activities are in the works.

So as many of you know, I am currently working on a project that seeks to explore the impact that engaging with transformative fanworks such as fanart/fanfiction has on members of the LGBT community. 

My goal is to compile records of people´s experiences in the forms of essays, comics, art, interviews, videos, etc! I will be posting all these responses on the blog @aroomoftheirown and eventually be compiling the entries into a zine which will be sold and all the proceeds of it will go to the Trevor Project and The Trans Help Lifeline. If youŕe LGBT and make transformative fanworks or even consume them, youŕe highly encouraged to submit a piece.

You can find more info on how to submit here and more general info on my motivations behind the project here.   

This project is being done as a community project for my Queer Theory class and the findings of it will be presented at a conference taking place at California State University, Los Angeles on April 19. 

So many people have expressed interest in this project, and thatś great, but so far, I´ve only received two submissions. This project is for a grade and an official conference, so I´m incredibly nervous about the current state of things, and even just beyond the grade, I really think this is an important project and I really want to get it off the ground!

Hi y’all!

I’m currently writing my BA thesis and I chose to write about femslash fandom, because of course I did. My focus is a) on a comparison between film and tv show femslash fandoms, which is why I chose Carol and Clexa as case studies, and b) on fan-produced memes within those two fandoms (you know, like “Harold, they’re lesbians” or terrible pick up lines).

Because I want to hear from fans and incorporate their views and voices into my work, I created two surveys. One is about Carol, the other one about Clexa, and, if you’re part of one or both of these fandoms, it would be great if you could complete the respective survey. It should not take too long.

I will also do more extensive interviews (per email, no actual face-to-face human interaction needed), so if you would like to participate in those as well, either message me here on tumblr (kommissarbelivet) or email me at [email protected].

The “A Room of Their Own” project is now accepting submissions to the project!

What is “A Room of Their Own”?

“A Room Of Their Own” seeks to explore and document the myriad of ways in which LGBT content creators and fandom participants use fanworks as a celebration of their identities and to force popular mainstream media to reflect their lived experiences. Basically, it seeks to be a collection of essays, comics, and interviews documenting how LGBT members of fandom use their various talents to carve out a space for themselves in mainstream fiction and to explore their identities in a relatively safe space.

“A Room of Their Own” is currently a blog that will accept submissions on a consistent basis, but the eventual goal is to compile a selection of the pieces into a zine or a series of zines, the proceeds of which will go to the Trevor Project and Trans Lifeline.

This project is also a part of a community service project that I am submitting to my Queer Studies in Education course at California State University, Los Angeles, and that may be submitted to the CSULA 13th Annual Student Research and Creative Arts Conference on Genders and Sexualities this Spring. If you want your piece to be discussed and presented at the conference, please say so in your email so that I can include it in my presentation.

Who Can Submit?

Any members of the LGBT community who have experience as fanwork creators or even who have just partaken in fanworks created by others are welcome to contribute! While I do understand that transformative fanworks have also positively impacted non-LGBT people as well, the focus of this project is specifically on LGBT fanwork creators and consumers and how fanworks have given them a space to explore their identities and see themselves represented in popular fiction.

What Can I Submit?

Almost anything! Essays, comics, videos, songs- whatever format allows you to interact with the subject best. If you have any doubts as to whether or not your preferred format fits the project, feel free to send an ask!

The piece you submit should focus on how participating in fandom culture has impacted you in your journey towards self acceptance and discovery, particularly as pertains to your identity as a member of the LGBT community.

How Can I Submit?

Please email your piece to [email protected] as an attachment.

If you are submitting a text piece, please submit via google docs/drive if you are able.

You are also welcome to post your piece on your own blog and send us a link to reblog if you feel more comfortable with that

While we are accepting submissions on a near-constant basis, we do ask that if you want your work to be included and credited in the conference and if you want to be included in the zine, that you do send your submission in by March 31, 2017 at 11:55 P.M. PST. (If you are running a little late on your submission, please contact us via ask or email for an extension).

Why Should I Submit?

Most explorations into the world of transformative fanworks have been done by outsiders and more for the sake of morbid curiosity rather than for the purpose of accurately representing LGBT fandom culture. This project seeks to even the balance of who has charge of our narrative by giving LGBT fanwork creators a platform to tell their own stories. So you should submit because you have a story to tell, a story that might help someone else just by being told. 

Thank you very much and I hope to hear from you soon!

this is so incredibly important to me holy shit

an article about an agender person’s identity ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE WASHINGTON POST

FRONT AND CENTER!!!!!

IM JUST

I admit, my gut reaction was “Ah yes, I see they put the tomboy character in a relationship with a character who will probably never be seen again and be utterly irrelevant to larger canon and easily ignored by 90% of the people who actually play the games”. But I failed to immediately account for how we’d all be SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS and cishet homophobes will be CRYING MASSIVE WHINY BABY TEARS and as such literally anyone who doesn’t care about lore (which, lbr, is a HUGE majority of the people who play the games) will STILL hear about Tracer is canonically queer now.

So I DO really want Heroes Dating, because I want it to be IN THE GAME where the millions of people playing the game will hear it. I WANT TO INTERRUPT THEIR DAY WITH GIRLS OR BOYS FLIRTING IN THE SPAWN ROOM. 

But the more I thought about it (and my friends screamed about it) it became clear this isn’t just ‘the low hanging fruit’ option. Tracer is on the box art, Tracer is on BUSES. Tracer is one of the most visible, recognizable, heavily marketed characters of this series. People may not know say, Junkrat is an Overwatch character if they don’t play the games, but if they seen Overwatch around, heard about it, thought about picking it up, they’ve looked at Tracer. 

And now Tracer is a queer woman in a happy relationship with another woman. 

But it’s way more than just that. 

Okay, I know most of ya’ll don’t give a shit about Overwatch’s professional scene. So let me explain something.

Blizzard is trying really, REALLY, REALLY hard to make Overwatch into a professional, respectable, top-tier, sustainable eSport. Like, they are not doing the quick return shit. They are putting in clear, visible efforts to make Overwatch a long term and well represented eSport that will make eSports itself more visible and viable in America and across the world. Competitions take place in nice looking stages, commentators and players dress professionally, commentators are paid at least competitively, they are setting it up so that players can make a salary (instead of only getting paid when they win). And Overwatch League? Looks like it is intended to operate as a gateway for top tier players to move to the professional scene based entirely on their skills (thus removing some hurdles for PoC or women).

This isn’t necessarily to say no company has ever done anything like this, but it’s clearly a massive financial investment for Blizzard in hopes of building up a long term and and ACCESSIBLE international eSports business.

And who is the face of that?

I want to tell you guys a story.

A few years ago, I came out to my mom the morning after my senior prom. She was surprised, then quiet, then asked what my real orientation was. I said, “I have no idea, but I like this one girl.” She was a little confused, but she kissed me and said, “As long as she makes you happy.” For the next few weeks, she asked a lot of questions: when did I realize? What was my new girlfriend’s orientation? What was the word for this or that? I WAS happy, right?

Fast forward about two years. My mom sits me down and tells me that she needs my help with her next book. She’s been writing middle-grade girls’ books (like, 9-14 range) since I was eight, and she says she has an idea that she really, really wants to get right. It follows the plot of Romeo and Juliet, she says, and the main character is a twelve-year-old girl realizing she has a crush on another girl when they put on the play for English class.

Fast forward another year to now. STAR-CROSSED is about to come out, and it is absolutely amazing.

My mom has poured her heart and soul into making sure this is a positive thing for kids to read. I’ve been reading and editing and helping with this book since its first draft and I’ve been, metaphorically and sometimes literally bouncing up and down on my heels, waiting to be able to tell people about it. It’s beyond sweet, and there’s a ton of Shakespeare and humor and goofy preteen drama and twelve-year-old girls flirting and Star Wars jokes and a glossary of Shakespearean insults in the back (yes, really), and it’s just so fun and positive and smart and I want to show it to every kid I know.

This book is for LGBT kids, written by a mom who has asked questions and done her research and tried as hard as she possibly could to make her own queer kid feel safe and loved and valid, and it REALLY shows. Mattie (the cutie on the left) and Gemma (the cutie on the right) are given space to learn about themselves, and ultimately they don’t have to figure themselves out right away or come out to everyone at once or choose a label. They’re kids. It’s okay to still be figuring things out. It’s okay. 

Fun facts: 

My mom said from the beginning she wanted both girls on the cover to make it clear what the book was about; then when they got the final artwork and Mattie’s hair was short, my mom wrote back and asked the artist to do the hair over to make it as obvious as possible that Mattie is a girl. 

When a few people started buzzing about Mattie being the youngest bisexual protagonist they’ve seen, she went back and changed passages to confirm that Mattie likes boys and girls. 

When I asked for a happier and less ambiguous ending scene, she set Mattie and Gemma up on a frigging date. 

,- Dave Kopay, former NFL running back who in 1975 became one of the first professional athletes to come out as gay.

Dave Kopey on Wikipedia | Photo Source

Sara Ramirez came out as bisexual while giving a speech at the 40 to None Summit on Saturday morning (October 8) in Los Angeles.

The 41-year-old Grey’s Anatomy actress, who is married to husband Ryan DeBolt, shared her truth in her speech.

“So many of our youth experiencing homelessness are youth whose lives touch on many intersections – whether they be gender identity, gender expression, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, citizenship status,” Sara said. “And, because of the intersections that exist in my own life: Woman, multi-racial woman, woman of color, queer, bisexual, Mexican-Irish American, immigrant, and raised by families heavily rooted in Catholicism on both my Mexican & Irish sides, I am deeply invested in projects that allow our youth’s voices to be heard, and that support our youth in owning their own complex narratives so that we can show up for them in the ways they need us to.”

We’re a new blog focusing specifically on sapphic literature. Our primary goal is to spread awareness about books that have wlw as characters (especially books that aren’t ‘coming-out stories’) as well as promoting LGBTQ authors and hopefully we’ll get you back into reading books! :)

If you could reblog this and help us spread the word (and of course follow if you’re interested!) we’d be extremely thankful! We will be posting book recommendations 3 times per week starting this Monday.