A Gay Male Author Thinks It’s Fine For Women Writers to Dominate the Gay Romance Genre, and The Problem with White Authors Writing Black Stories

First, I want to make a point that this has nothing to do with readers. Readers can, and should, read whatever they want and whatever they find interesting. I love reading black stories. And I know a lot of straight people who love reading gay stories. There’s nothing wrong with that. This is about writers and cultural appropriation, and it’s NOT about readers. In fact, I think readers should get authenticity. 

I’m linking to two articles today at the same time and I think they go together in many ways. Both black writers and gay male writers are part of their own marginalized groups, they both often face the stigma of shame, and people coming from straight and white privilege have been appropriating them for years. In other words, writers coming from places of white privilege think nothing of writing black stories, and people coming from places of straight privilege are still writing gay stories. 

In the first article, which you can read here, a gay male author whom I don’t know anything about wrote a piece that explains why he believes its perfectly fine for straight white women to write gay romance novels and to dominate the gay romance genre. He talks about gay men and their best girlfriends. I don’t even know what that means, and I’ve been gay all my life. I don’t have best girlfriends. I have friends who are bright, intelligent women, but not “best girlfriends.” I also don’t know what that has to do with cultural appropriation. 

After this guy starts to talk about submarines, he loses me completely. How anyone can compare submarines to writing about gay culture just stuns me. In the good and wonderful name of Rita Mae Brown and Rubyfruit Jungle, get this comment…

If I want to write a book about submarines, you can bet I’m going to research the hell out of submarines. In fact, there will be no article about submarines left unread within the first twenty pages of my Google results. You need to know your subject matter, whatever you are writing about, whoever you are. That’s obvious, and is in no way unique to writing about gay issues.

He seems to be searching for this perfect situation that I don’t believe exists. I’m tired of straight privilege knocking me down. If you want to be my ally stand next to me and offer support, don’t take over my culture. 

In the next article, which is superbly written by a true professional, the discussion is focused on the problem with white writers writing black stories. Its so well-written and so accurate and articulate I hate to even compare it to the article I linked to above. 

Black people are finally waking up and saying, “Enough!” And white writers are outraged. How dare you tell us we cannot write Black characters anymore. We’ve been writing Blacks people for centuries. If white writers can write about slavery, we can write about the holocaust, right? Yet you don’t see Black people writing the Holocaust, Star Wars, the Queen, war sagas, period pieces, Elvis’ biopic, or anything based on a true story by a white author. Why are Black people systemically prevented from writing these stories? 

Here’s the link to read more.  I can’t praise this piece enough. And I highly suggest reading it in full. In many ways it can be compared to straight writers with straight privilege writing gay stories. These straights are outraged and they do not want to let it go. 

I wonder who will go down in history as being right or wrong. Or maybe it really is just about submarines. 

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