LGBTQ2S+ Books, Identity and Reminiscing

In which a girl in her early twenties is transported back to her teens by finding the one book that changed everything for her — in a good way.

You’re cleaning your room for the first time in who knows how long — and who knows what you’ll find. You get to your bookshelf, which is stacked with more than a hundred books and even things that aren’t books, but you have no idea where to put them. You need to de-clutter, so clearing the shelf and determining which books stay and which books are to be donated is quite the challenge. What do you hold on to, and what do you give away? And then, perhaps, you stumble upon one of the oldest books on your shelf, which means you should give it away, right? Except it’s that one book that brings back a flood of memories — being in high school, your first introduction to queerness via your favourite medium — books. You remember that first day picking it up, looking at it, and being intrigued. Then you bring it home, you read it, and for the first time, you feel seen. You feel like you are not the only one who feels the way you do any more. There is a book, your favourite thing in the world, letting you know that you might not be as different as you think you are. That there are other people out there like you out there, and that you are not alone.

It’s incredible what different meaning books can hold for different people. Perhaps they are a loving memory from a friend or an old book passed down through generations. But, for me, just like the books themselves — they hold a story. A story of finding oneselves identity and acceptance through media: specifically, through the discovery of LGBTQ2S+ books. 

Flashback

I’d been reading like every other kid did in elementary school, but I didn’t fall in love with it until about Grade 6, where I discovered the book Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix, and I could not stop reading it. For the first time, I realized just how amazing books are. That they held stories, which I loved, just like the TV shows I watched and games that I played. Thus, my collecting grew and grew, and I loved sitting on the couch, playing Avril Lavigne on repeat on my iPod Nano and curling up with a good book. As I grew older, I discovered that on the internet, was a whole community dedicated to books, and eventually, I’d find one dedicated to just the type of books I needed at that age.

Now, I’m not one of those people who knew I was queer right from when I was little. It was a slower discovery — one that I only started realizing as I grew into my teens. My first introduction was the TV show, Glee, where they had a story line about one of the characters realizing they are a lesbian. I remember it made me feel … weird, like there was something that resonated with me with that story line, but I couldn’t exactly click what it was. So I ignored that feeling — but it did get me researching other media with similar topics. Thus, I discovered LGBTQ2S+ books — and then, down the rabbit hole I went.

In about 2015 and 2016, LGBTQ2S+ books were nowhere near as many as there are in 2023. The Goodreads lists had the same books as the lists on any other media website, and I really wanted to check one out. So, when I went to Chapters and saw Simon Vs. The Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. I remember reading it constantly — I’d bring it to school and read in the cafeteria, under my desk, whenever I could. And it was the first time it hit me, as I was reading, that I felt just like Simon, the main character. A bit scared of what everyone would think, that I may actually like girls, and not boys. (Which, is, well, opposite of the main character, technically, but in general terms, it’s the same experience.)

Sometimes you cannot put your feelings into words themselves. Especially if they are scary and unfamiliar. So, books can do it for you. I flipped through the book and found this quote: 

So, I keep thinking about the idea of secret identities. Do you ever feel locked into yourself? I’m not sure if I’m making sense here. I guess what I mean is that sometimes it seems like everyone knows who I am except me.

Simon vs The Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, page 56

And that quote, that quote hit me like a truck. It feels like I never understood myself, but some of my friends did and would say things that I just didn’t understand. So, to understand myself more, I read. I read more and more books to help me understand and find myself — because as someone who loves stories and fiction, it resonates with me more than anything else could. 

Keep Moving Forward

Flash forward 7 years, and here I am, still reading books to help discover myself. We never stop growing as people — we constantly learn and change and adapt. And for me, being in my early twenties, that’s definitely one of the most self-discovering times of life. And I still let books help guide me through that. And LGBTQ2S+ books aren’t even only about self-discovery — there are also books where queerness just is, something that isn’t different and just exists, which is much needed and much therapeutic. As a connoisseur of queer books these days, I’ve made an infographic about some of my favourites for different genres if you want to step your toes in! Even if some of the books are very fantastical and out of this world, I still see myself in each of these books, and I hope you can, too.

Finding that book on my shelf while doing some summer cleaning brought back these memories for me — and I even reminisce about that a bit on Twitter, if you’d like some more spur of the moment thoughts. It’s incredible what finding one book can bring back for you, and how you just can’t get rid of it because of the special meaning for you. Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda will live on my shelf forever, and continue to tell an important story — the story within it’s pages, as well as my story.