Erasure: Not Just A Crappy ABBA Cover Band
It’s almost too bizarre and fucked up to contemplate: the Lambda Literary Awards reading censored a disabled finalist’s reading. WTF?
Here’s what happened: the San Francisco Public Library was hosting a reading for Lammie finalists, which I missed because I suck. One of the scheduled readers was Peggy Munson, author of Origami Striptease, co-winner of the first Project: Queerlit contest from Suspect Thoughts Press (which also published the book). I haven’t yet read Origami, but I’ve heard amazing things about it. Being disabled, Munson couldn’t make it to the reading, but sent a video.
Somebody decided not to include the DVD in the event, even though Munson was listed on all the publicity materials as a featured reader.
At this point, it gets a tad confusing. As near as I can gather, Katherine Forrest blamed the debacle on Jim Van Buskirk from the Library. And Van Buskirk in turn blamed Forrest. (I haven’t spoken to either Forrest or Van Buskirk, so this is all third hand.) Forrest claimed Van Buskirk banned the video because it was straight, even though it was all about genderqueer sexuality. Van Buskirk claimed Forrest banned the video because it was indecent, even though there was someone else reading erotica at the event. Everyone agrees that Lambda exec director Charles Flowers was out of the loop. (Further disclaimer: I’ve met both Forrest and Van Buskirk, and they both seemed amiable.)
About the claim that the DVD reading was straight, Munson blogs:
Ironically, the DVD reading that was censored was from a section of the book called “What Made Jack Run” that contains short pieces examining “Boys” and “Girls” and is intended to explore the inherent violence in restricting and naming gender in strict binary terms. It’s partly a deconstruction of gender insignia and stereotyping told through a surreal, dreamy, magical realist universe where dolls are ripped, apart, girls jumping from cakes are smeared in their frosting, and a genderqueer boy (whose gender identity is not specifically named in the book) dissolves into paper. One of the censored sections begins: “My hands on Jack were like a potter’s hands on clay. My hands were firing bricks then lining wells so I could drink before I parched. I grabbed him by the balls that could detach. I grabbed him by the neck that I could shepherd with my crook.” Wait a second: balls that could detach? Is that queer or straight? …
My friends think this is hilarious. “You are so gay. Maybe too gay for them,” wrote one. “Come here & suck my boner, you hetero whore,” joked another.
It’s almost too easy. One of the finalists in the Debut Lesbian Fiction category is too straight? Also, click the link for some of Munson’s thoughts about the erasure of disabled people. The Lambda Literary Foundation has issued an apology, and I understand Munson’s video will appear at a different reading. But it’s still pretty bizarre and shabby treatment, and I can’t help but feel it’s symptomatic of larger problems with America’s Bubble of Literary Queerness.
I’ve always felt that Lambda was a little sketchy. The big reason is that they have a bunch of categories for gay and lesbian books like best gay bathroom fiction, and single categories for transgender and bisexual.
Actually, I sort of understand that. There are relatively few bi or trans books published every year. And tons and tons and tons of gay and lesbian books, in all different categories. Why is that? Well, there seem to be fewer bi or trans authors churning out works, even once you include self-published stuff. And the scenes are really small. You can have a successful literary event that caters to gay or lesbian people, on a recurring basis. But it\’s really really hard to make a bi or trans literary event happen. Finally, publishing is all about marketing categories. For whatever reason, \’transgender\’ isn\’t a group you can market to, unless you\’re Ladylike Magazine. Two possibilities suggest themselves:
1) There are really way fewer bi/trans people than there are gays or lesbians
2) There are a lot of bi/trans people, but most of them are closeted and/or apathetic, or else they don\’t particularly want to read books.
I suspect both explanations have a grain of truth. Certainly most bi/trans people I\’ve met are way less likely to want to form communities around literary shit than most dykes. But bottom line, if enough bi people or trans people could rally around to make some bi or trans writers as successful as Michelle Tea or Edmund White, the publishing industry would take notice. That could lead, eventually, to a glut of books for bisexual dog owners. Then, and only then, you would see more Lammie categories.
So yeah, I don\’t think it\’s the Lambda Literary Foundation\’s fault. It\’s ours.
Good point. Although I wonder to what extent are books chosen because they are good, or because they are the only one’s published in the year that fit a specific criteria.
Also, couldn’t transgender rights and the transgender reader be nominated under LGBT studies? Couldn’t supervillanz compete against other gay and lesbian fiction books?
There’s also the whole bailey controversy a year or so back as well.
The whole selection process seems strange.
I was also astonished by the censorship of Peggy Munson! Greg told me after the event, since he had just then found out, and –well, I was stunned. For the record, Jim Van Buskirk has always been very supportive of my writing. I was also a bit nervous reading in front of a “gay and lesbian” oriented audience since a lot of my stuff is very “het” if not “straight”. I am, after all, a heterosexually identified transsexual man.
In any case, I hope that the situation is rectified as much as it can be, and it does look as though that will occur. Still, this is very strange and symptomatic of underlying tensions and unresolved contradictions, some of which you describe or allude to.
As to this comment:
if enough bi people or trans people could rally around to make some bi or trans writers as successful as Michelle Tea or Edmund White, the publishing industry would take notice.
I agree, but I’m not holding my breath for (at least) trans support. Transpeople are often the hardest on our own, and the places I have gotten the most out and out hostility (for even daring to write a book about being a transman) are from the transmale world. I was actually accused of writing the book to get money out of the pockets of poor transmen who could barely afford surgery! Transmen eat their own, they have a chance. Of course, there are also the great, supportive guys who write me to thank me for writing the same book. So, it goes both ways, but certainly, it is not easy out there.
I bought and read 3 of the 5 transgender finalists as well as others that aren’t on the list. I did a podcast about one book that isn’t getting much attention but should (trans/forming femininism).
but overall I have to agree with the 2 of you and wish that there was more support for trans authors and encouragement to write things other than transition memoirs (no offense Max).
“Also, couldn’t transgender rights and the transgender reader be nominated under LGBT studies? Couldn’t Supervillainz compete against other gay and lesbian fiction books?”
That has to do with the category in which the publisher decides to submit the book. It’s $20 per category, plus four books, and the publisher can submit in as many categories as they want. For example, “Luna” was in both “Children’s/Young Adult” and “Transgender/GenderQueer” categories the year it was nominated.
(I specifically asked Greg this when I saw “Supervillainz” was going up against two major anthologies. Yes, he could have submitted it to more but he didn’t think the cost would be worth it.)
Also, as a followup, Peggy’s video is apparently being featured in both NYC and Boston now:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/events/index.html
As a queer writer who occassionally writes about (gasp!) straight characters, I am furious about this on so many levels. That those leaders of a major LGBTQ organization such as the Lambda Literary Foundation would censor *anything* is astounding to me. The fact that they made a decision based on content being “straight” is even more absurd. I guess all us queer writers are permitted only to write about gay characters from now on. I guess we don’t get the support of the Foundation if our characters happen to like having sex or falling in love with members of the opposite sex. Let’s not even mention the fact that this wasn’t the case with the book in question. Oh, wait…it’s was because it was too “explicit.” Yeah, yeah, that’s it. LLF should just fess up to their mistake and live with the consequences and make amends instead of changing their stories as to why the debacle happened in the first place. Or, they can just George Bush their way through it.
but overall I have to agree with the 2 of you and wish that there was more support for trans authors and encouragement to write things other than transition memoirs (no offense Max).
I agree! But, believe me, strangely, there was not a lot of support for a transition memoir either. I initially got an amazing and lucrative contract with a mainstream publisher in ‘94, wrote the book over the next two years, and then — had the whole thing dumped at the last minute when my editor left the publisher for her own reasons, and they substituted a rather clueless contract editor who attempted, to no avail, to “dumb down” my prose and vanilla my story. He got fired, and the contract imploded. Seal rescued me years and years later. So, this was no easy journey, even with a transition memoir. And, till very recently, there were very few transition memoirs about FTMs, and more importantly, written BY the actual FTM instead of ghost-written.
Well, now that I have the “transition” memoir out of my system however, I intend to write other types of prose… And, of course, I’ve always been a poet.
But, believe me, it ain’t a picnic if you’re a transperson in publishing, no matter what you’re writing!
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Good post. I just found this Origami-inspired Twitter icon at Digg, which you can use on your blog if it is running WordPress.
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