One of the challenges in teaching about gender and sexual identities is that students are afraid to discuss them outside of heteronormative binaries — straight men or women. This is especially true for students in teacher education programs.
Young adult fiction offers a wonderful medium for discussing homophobia, heterosexism, and the nuances of gender outside of students’ binary expectations.
Finding great young adult fiction that describes adolescents in realistic situations inside of and outside of school has been a longtime frustration of mine. Until recently.
QueerYA has begun a database of young adult fiction addressing the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, intersex, and asexual persons. (Note: The asexual list includes titles which are both young adult and not young adult.)
In the past, I’ve relied on two books to represent heteronormative masculine and feminine youth experiences:
1. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher.
“Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school’s less popular students.”
2. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.
“‘Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say.’ From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. In Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.”
Feel free to share the databases and/or the novels you use!
