A - Only one, but they have to live for a year in the dark to be completely, absolutely sure it needs changing and have the confirming opinions of 2 electricians (at least one with a PhD).
Children and youth are naturally imitative. That’s how humans learn everything from facial expressions to language to how to behave. The power of a positive role model is for them the comfort of knowing that this example is worthy of their imitation and shows the properness and success of particular behaviors. Kids turn to sports figures, actors and singers, family and community members to be shown how to be in the world. It is entirely normal and smart to learn how to deal with the stressors and challenges as we grow up by seeing how an admirable person copes.
But with the greater stressors and challenges GLBT youth face finding role models can be difficult. So much is needed, for parents to accept a child’s sexuality and identity, for those who appear to thrive on condemning GLBT people religiously and politically to silence their own hate, and for public figures to come out, so that these young people have less to fear and more positive examples to follow. It’s a matter of life and death, with suicide being so much greater among GLBT youth than others.
There is nothing unique about GLBT youth and role models found in books. All kids who read or at least watch TV or movies turn to fictional characters to model themselves on. The difference is that there are so many fewer role models who are gay, lesbian or transgender. The isolation for these youth is impacted by not even having fictional role models. Every child takes in the influence of how an admired character handles the same challenges as he or she faces. When there are so few “like me” available to the GLBT young person, what succor could have been there is simply and starkly absent.
This is why publishers like Harmony Ink Press are so vital to the collective health of our society and our young people. All need to see GLBT kids coping in the world, making mistakes but learning and developing strong self-esteem. This is not confined to the GLBT characters illustrated. Other kids need to have role models who are not antagonistic, prejudiced, ignorant, or intolerant of people not like them. But it will be the ostracized and condemned young people who will benefit most by reading books with characters who share the sexual preference and/or gender identity.
Some adults are afraid that such books will encourage children to be gay or transgender. No, these books will teach GLBT kids to be happy and whole.
School and municipal libraries must aggressively seek books that have GLBT role models, since too often parents will try to control what cannot be threatened or cajoled out of a child. They won’t buy the books, and for the most part the kids won’t know about them or how to access them.
Even though I did not fully recognize it until I was well into adulthood, I know that as a transgender person from birth that I could only have benefited from literary role models as a child and teen. The female characters I read then always disappointed me. In a kid’s book I read, GRETA THE BOLD, the title character wants to be a knight, but in the story she gives it all up for her man in the end. This was the norm in these books, resulting in my wanting and needing one thing but having my choices invalidated.
I wrote BELOVED PILGRIM originally trying to create a female character I could myself relate to, but as a result of the experience I began to see my gender identity coalesce into the mental and emotional male I am in spite of my female body. Harmony Ink Press encouraged me to reconsider the novel with a transgender protagonist in place of the original lesbian. Rather than replacing her, she became enhanced as the “he” she always really had been. As I quip now, it turns out that the woman character I can relate to is really down deep a man. The story is ideal for showing the progress a trans-kid might go through to find the authentic identity their environment rarely provides.
You might think a contemporary reader would find little to identify with in historical novels, but I can assure you, the element of fantasy, while not literal in the genre, appeals mightily to the youthful imagination. Though female bodied, I spent a great deal of my childhood playing Robin Hood or some other heroic medieval male role. “Pretending” allows one to step outside the limitations of everyday life and be someone you simply could never be. I read every such novel, YA or otherwise, I could to live my authentic life through the strong male character. Imagine what it might have done for me to have a character, like BELOVED PILGRIM’s Elisabeth/Elias who more completely matched who I was in my own transgender self.
The increasing number of authors who seek to provide positive role models for gay and lesbian youth is making quite a dent in the former lack thereof. That needs to happen for transgender youth as well. Even if the young person finds only fictional characters to have as role models, they are at least that much no longer alone.
Request reprint permission from Christopher Moss.
But with the greater stressors and challenges GLBT youth face finding role models can be difficult. So much is needed, for parents to accept a child’s sexuality and identity, for those who appear to thrive on condemning GLBT people religiously and politically to silence their own hate, and for public figures to come out, so that these young people have less to fear and more positive examples to follow. It’s a matter of life and death, with suicide being so much greater among GLBT youth than others.
There is nothing unique about GLBT youth and role models found in books. All kids who read or at least watch TV or movies turn to fictional characters to model themselves on. The difference is that there are so many fewer role models who are gay, lesbian or transgender. The isolation for these youth is impacted by not even having fictional role models. Every child takes in the influence of how an admired character handles the same challenges as he or she faces. When there are so few “like me” available to the GLBT young person, what succor could have been there is simply and starkly absent.
This is why publishers like Harmony Ink Press are so vital to the collective health of our society and our young people. All need to see GLBT kids coping in the world, making mistakes but learning and developing strong self-esteem. This is not confined to the GLBT characters illustrated. Other kids need to have role models who are not antagonistic, prejudiced, ignorant, or intolerant of people not like them. But it will be the ostracized and condemned young people who will benefit most by reading books with characters who share the sexual preference and/or gender identity.
Some adults are afraid that such books will encourage children to be gay or transgender. No, these books will teach GLBT kids to be happy and whole.
School and municipal libraries must aggressively seek books that have GLBT role models, since too often parents will try to control what cannot be threatened or cajoled out of a child. They won’t buy the books, and for the most part the kids won’t know about them or how to access them.
Even though I did not fully recognize it until I was well into adulthood, I know that as a transgender person from birth that I could only have benefited from literary role models as a child and teen. The female characters I read then always disappointed me. In a kid’s book I read, GRETA THE BOLD, the title character wants to be a knight, but in the story she gives it all up for her man in the end. This was the norm in these books, resulting in my wanting and needing one thing but having my choices invalidated.
I wrote BELOVED PILGRIM originally trying to create a female character I could myself relate to, but as a result of the experience I began to see my gender identity coalesce into the mental and emotional male I am in spite of my female body. Harmony Ink Press encouraged me to reconsider the novel with a transgender protagonist in place of the original lesbian. Rather than replacing her, she became enhanced as the “he” she always really had been. As I quip now, it turns out that the woman character I can relate to is really down deep a man. The story is ideal for showing the progress a trans-kid might go through to find the authentic identity their environment rarely provides.
You might think a contemporary reader would find little to identify with in historical novels, but I can assure you, the element of fantasy, while not literal in the genre, appeals mightily to the youthful imagination. Though female bodied, I spent a great deal of my childhood playing Robin Hood or some other heroic medieval male role. “Pretending” allows one to step outside the limitations of everyday life and be someone you simply could never be. I read every such novel, YA or otherwise, I could to live my authentic life through the strong male character. Imagine what it might have done for me to have a character, like BELOVED PILGRIM’s Elisabeth/Elias who more completely matched who I was in my own transgender self.
The increasing number of authors who seek to provide positive role models for gay and lesbian youth is making quite a dent in the former lack thereof. That needs to happen for transgender youth as well. Even if the young person finds only fictional characters to have as role models, they are at least that much no longer alone.
Request reprint permission from Christopher Moss.
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