Queer Lives in Fiction
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, Love, Life, Storytelling

The past couple of weeks have been super tough for LGBTQ people around the world. While we’ve made incredible progress towards full equality and acceptance in many regions of the globe, troubling signs are emerging.

The United States is awash in waves of fascism. Violent anti-LGBTQ atacks are on the rise, and Trump supporters everywhere are protesting our equality. The FIFA World Cup is being held right now in Russia, where violent anti-LGBTQ pogroms are taking place in some regions and where LGBTQ people everywhere are severely persecuted.

The world shrugs in the face of the ongoing brutality. Almost nobody is protesting. The games go on as if gay men were not being hunted down, interned in concentration camps, tortured, and killed.

At Th-Ink Queerly, we’re writing a lot about current events and activism, but we also want to pour even more oil on our fiction campaign. We want to set a bonfire ablaze with our stories that examine and celebrate the lives of queer people.

We want to encourage one another and to share our lives with those who may lack understanding. This past week showcases some of our goals very well.

Let me show you.

First off, celebrated Canadian cartoonist Sean Stephane Martin graced our pages with a two-part short story — illustrated with his own art, of course. Sean’s Doc and Raider, by the way, is the longest-running LGBTQ comic strip in history.

In this narrative adaptation of his work, Sean takes us back to the early days, when his “boys” lived in a tiny studio in Montreal’s Plateau district. When they move in, it doesn’t take them (or their perceptive pussy cat) very long to figure out that they’re sharing their living space with somebody who might just belong to the Twilight Zone.

Sean pens a ghost story that turns surprisingly poignant. I found myself wiping away a tear toward the end. He illustrates not only the ordinary lives and loves of two gay men, but the tragedy of life that often surrounds us without our knowledge.

He’d already started to fade in the night air when suddenly he turned back and looked at me, his face part happiness and yet part fear. “You will… remember me, oui? That would be… nice.” I turned and hugged my man as tight as possible. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

Alex David Bevan shifted gears this past week when he posted Chapter Two of his Colossus series. While this chapter is part of a longer work, a sort of gay Romeo and Juliet novella, it stands perfectly well on its own as a short story.

Do you think it’s easy in today’s world for young LGBTQ people to overturn societal expectations and come out to their family and friends? Yes, sometimes it is relatively painless — for some lucky people. For many, though, the experience of growing up queer is traumatizing and extraordinarily difficult.

Alex invites you to join a young, closeted gay man at a family dinner in the American heartland. Come and have a look at how hard things can really be, and at how brave queer young people have to be.

In that moment of terror, Caleb first considered suicide as an option. It was not something that had ever crossed his mind, but now it was front and center. In that moment he did not plan on living beyond the annual Johnson Labor Day party. He decided he was strong enough to never look his younger brother in the eyes again. It would hurt less. Caleb smiled. “Who wants coffee?” he asked, wondering how best to choke down the cherry pie that the Burbidges had baked for dessert.

Speaking of bravery, what would you do if your whole life was a lie — not just to the world around you, but to yourself? What would you do if the world were just about to discover your secret? What would you do if your life were about to shatter into a million splintery fragments?

What would do if you were the pastor of a conservative Christian megachurch, and a newspaper reporter had just discovered you having chemsex with a young street hustler in a seedy motel?

Brian Pelletier invites you to sit down and examine the life of a man in exactly that position. He’s penning a tale not of heroes and villains, but of humans in all their truth, frailty, and strength. He invites you to examine Monsters in the Closet.

Gene glances around the room and sees no trace of Jackson. He must have left while Gene was unconscious. He feels trapped and out of control without him. No one is on his side now. He doesn’t want to meet with her and face the truth, but he can’t think of any other plan. And Hank! What will Hank do?

In many places, being queer IS ordinary, or at least maybe it feels that way to straight and cis people who take our acceptance for granted. But what happens when allies presume too much? What happens when they see us as symbols of their own progressive values? What happens when they see our labels stand out in more vivid relief than our humanity and individuality?

Gloria Bates and BFoundAPen are collaborating on a story set in a college campus so progressive that the PR staff feels free to highlight queer students on its web site — without even asking first. Queer Bash, an LGBTQ mixer, is a popular beginning-of-term party with students all over campus.

So, why does at least one young LGBTQ student feel uneasy with all the attention?

We’re going to find out in With Our Bare Hands. Come and take a peek inside a contemporary American campus!

“Right, sure, whatever. Well, I’m sure you know the school already has your face plastered all over their website. That’s how everybody knows your face.” “Hmmph,” I scowled. “Can they do that?” “It makes them seem diverse. Good for admissions, plus they don’t actually have to do any work to be more inclusive. It’s best not to think about it too much.” He furrowed his brow, thinking for a moment. “Anyway, hey, I’m Amari! I trust I’ll see you at our GSA meetings, right?”

My own series, David and the Lion’s Den (James Finn) is beginning to wind up to a conclusion. Join me and my cast of only-in-New-York characters as we travel back in time to the Greenwich Village of 1989, when HIV was a death sentence, and hope had not yet managed to raise its head.

Watch life and love march inexorably forward even in the face of tragedy. I have some Moonlit Kisses in store for you, as our mysterious Colombian boy grows into a young man and falls for a young woman. His life may finally be getting back on track.

In Chapter 20, David apologizes to Richard, who finally shares his story with us. How did a retired Madison Avenue ad man become Manhattan’s oldest working dominatrix transvestite sex worker? And why? Richard counsels David to accept his fear and to embrace a sense of the ridiculous. Living life, Richard claims, is more important than understanding it.

He got his kiss that night. She tasted of the bubblegum ice cream he treated her to. Her breasts were warm, soft, and plump in his hands. Her hair smelled of flowers as her heartbeat merged with his.

“Nothing. I felt absolutely nothing. I just watched from outside. I watched my friends fall in love, fall out of love, cheat on their wives, trade them in for younger models, then get tired of them too.” “And you didn’t ever cheat?” “Of course I did! My whole life was one big paint-by-the-numbers cheat. I cheated every day of my life just by pretending to be me. Sometimes, rarely, I’d take an extra long lunch and cheat for real. Cruise some rough trade in Central Park. Ten minutes of being me.”

That wraps it up for this week, folks. I hope some of you choose to use part of your weekend to enjoy some story-telling, to thinking about real queer lives, and about what it really means to be human.

And remember,

When you think fiction, Th-Ink Queerly!