Queer labels in books: how I think they should be handled

So the use of labels for members of the lgbtqiap+ community in books has been discussed a lot in the book community. It’s a really hard topic to talk about – because it can so easily be hurtful, very personal and making general statements about how rep should be handled can be excluding. This discussion was prompted in part by Silvia’s discussion post. I wanted to talk about the ways in which I think labels should be handled, and why I think books can include characters that don’t use labels without erasing labels as a concept or option.

Labels in books can be a very hard thing. The fact is, not everyone feels they fit into a label, or feels they are comfortable choosing one yet. Some people need time to find the right one, some people don’t like the idea of labels and don’t ever want one – there are so so many reasons why people haven’t chosen a label or never will and that is all totally valid.

And it’s valid in books too – I think we really do need more books in which a character settles for having no label, and I think that people really need to respect the books that do that.

But for me there is a difference between a book not labelling characters, and a book ignoring that labels exist at all. I often find in books characters will “explore their sexuality” without ever having an any thoughts or monologue about exploring their sexuality, and THAT feels fake to me. I spent many many years with no label – I only chose one last year, but having no label came, at least for me, with a thought process about labels, and if I wanted one. What I mean is, I knew I liked girls too, and I thought about this a lot, both before and after I was aware the term bisexual existed. For me bad representation is not failing to label a character, it’s failing to allow any prospect within any part of your story that a character COULD have a label.

So here’s what I think about labels in books: I think not having them is necessary, characters with no labels represent a range of people who need to be represented.

But characters in books can have no label whilst also acknowledging they exist. It doesn’t even need to be the character themselves – the narrative should acknowledge they exist. For example – Adam in the Raven Cycle never labels himself – but on top of that the narrative itself does not acknowledge the existence of labels, especially not ones like bisexual or pansexual. I personally think representation with no labels is good not when a character has no label by default, but when they decide they’re more comfortable without one.

You know the writing technique that goes around – “if you’re going to write a marginalised character that fits a stereotype, you should write one more of the same marginalisation that does not”. The idea being, that the two cancel out each other the readers recognise that marginalisation can be both things.

I think a similar approach should be taken with labels. If a character has no label, that’s totally fine. But the book should incorporate it in some other way: whether that’s another character talking labels, labels up on the news/internet/television, or even a character considering a label and going “hm, that isn’t for me”. A great example for label-less representation that doesn’t feel like erasure, for me, is Aled in Radio Silence. Aled doesn’t use a label – he’s friends with people who are, he talks about them, at one point he even says to his friend “hey, I guess what most people would call me is demisexual, because that’s the closest label to how I feel that I’ve seen, but I prefer to use no label”. A similar situation happens with Mark in The Dark Artifices, he acknowledges that bisexual is a term that could describe him, but also that he doesn’t use it for himself. And for me, that’s way better representation than characters who have no label by default, because the narrative doesn’t ever engage with labels as a concept, like Adam’s representation in The Raven Cycle.

Characters can be label-less, and should be label-less, and we need more of them.  But I don’t think their sexuality should be placed upon a blank slate. Whether or not you use a label, I think a universal experience is that everyone thinks about their sexuality, considers the labels we do see bandied about, and just has some general thought process about being lgbtqiap+. The crux of this discussion, I think, is this: characters without labels are good, but characters who have no label, because they have no interaction with the queer community, or engage in any queer dialogue or inner thought process are not great representation, and again, this is coming from someone who only chose a label last year.

This is getting a little rambly, but I hope this makes sense. I think labels are a really important thing, both if you do or do not use one, but I also think there’s ways writing them can be good and bad.

Also please note this is in no way an attack of Silvia’s post, it’s just an extension of it, her post just sparked me into thinking about all this.

I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts below. I know this is a really tentative topic but feel free to let me know what you think.

Until next time!