Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

LGB fiction for young people

29 replies

BookIdeas · 16/06/2024 15:41

I'm deliberately posting this on this thread, not the Children's Books one (yet).

Has anyone any recommendations for well-written YA/teenage fiction (both sexes) that is very supportive of young people questioning their sexuality or identifying as LGB? Ideally it will have no mention of TQ+ etc. stuff or, if it does, is clearly critical of gender ideology. Does anyone know of any reading lists? I can't find anything online - everything seems to end up signposting trans.

I'm asking because I may be in a position to recommend books to young people in a non-school setting and my knowledge of YA LGB fiction is limited. I want to do some background reading myself. Thanks.

OP posts:
socialdilemmawhattodo · 16/06/2024 21:24

Heartstopper Alice os(e)man got my dyslexic teenager reading. He is questioning his gay sexuality. Although there is T involved the books are very much about friendships of the ND/ non-popular kids.

BeBraveLittlePenguin · 16/06/2024 20:27

The Magnus Chase stories (the Norse Percy Jackson equivalents, same author) have a daughter of Loki who shifts between male and female with a trans-y vibe, maybe avoid those.
And definitely avoid the Strangeworlds series (a very female they/them author) who has the main male character out of the blue remove a binder 🙄

Rubidium · 16/06/2024 20:21

I’m not really in the YA fiction loop but one book that occurred to me, which I read as a teenager, was Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, which is a semi-autobiographical story of growing up as a lesbian. It came out in the eighties, before the TQ+ was a thing.

BlackCatsAreBrilliant · 16/06/2024 19:59

The Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus series includes a main character coming to terms with being gay. I won't vouch for his other series though.

The Skandar series (AF Steadman) includes some LGB characters, treating the relationships in a wonderfully normalised way. It may be aimed at the lower end of your age range, although I quite enjoyed them myself.

Swipe left for the next trending thread