The LGBTQ community has seen controversy regarding acceptance of different groups (bisexual and transgender individuals have sometimes been marginalized by the larger community), but the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion and reflects the embrace of different identities and that we’re stronger together and need each other. While there are differences, we all face many of the same challenges from broader society.
In the 1960′s, in wider society the meaning of the word gay transitioned from ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ to predominantly mean ‘homosexual’ and was an umbrella term that meant anyone who wasn’t cisgender or heterosexual. The community embraced the word ‘gay’ as a mark of pride.
The modern fight for queer rights is considered to have begun with The Stonewall Riots in 1969 and was called the Gay Liberation Movement and the Gay Rights Movement.
The acronym GLB surfaced around this time to also include Lesbian and Bisexual people who felt “gay” wasn’t inclusive of their identities.
Early in the gay rights movement, gay men were largely the ones running the show and there was a focus on men’s issues. Lesbians were unhappy that gay men dominated the leadership and ignored their needs and the feminist fight. As a result, lesbians tended to focus their attention on the Women’s Rights Movement which was happening at the same time. This dominance by gay men was seen as yet one more example of patriarchy and sexism.
In the 1970′s, sexism and homophobia existed in more virulent forms and those biases against lesbians also made it hard for them to find their voices within women’s liberation movements. Betty Friedman, the founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), commented that lesbians were a “lavender menace” that threatened the political efficacy of the organization and of feminism and many women felt including lesbians was a detriment.
In the 80s and 90s, a huge portion of gay men were suffering from AIDS while the lesbian community was largely unaffected. Lesbians helped gay men with medical care and were a massive part of the activism surrounding the gay community and AIDS. This willingness to support gay men in their time of need sparked a closer, more supportive relationship between both groups, and the gay community became more receptive to feminist ideals and goals.
Approaching the 1990′s it was clear that GLB referred to sexual identity and wasn’t inclusive of gender identity and T should be added, especially since trans activist have long been at the forefront of the community’s fight for rights and acceptance, from Stonewall onward. Some argued that T should not be added, but many gay, lesbian and bisexual people pointed out that they also transgress established gender norms and therefore the GLB acronym should include gender identities and they pushed to include T in the acronym.
GLBT became LGBT as a way to honor the tremendous work the lesbian community did during the AIDS crisis.
Towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, movements took place to add additional letters to the acronym to recognize Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, and others. As the acronym grew to LGBTIQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAA, many complained this was becoming unwieldy and started using a ‘+’ to show LGBT aren’t the only identities in the community and this became more common, whether as LGBT+ or LGBTQ+.
In the 2010′s, the process of reclaiming the word “queer” that began in the 1980′s was largely accomplished. In the 2020′s the LGBTQ+ acronym is used less often as Queer is becoming the more common term to represent the community.
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There are a lot of quotes out there about how, in order to write well, one has to also read extensively.
I’ll be entirely honest with you, a few years ago I thought that was bullocks. Back then, I was maddeningly naive and arrogant enough to think that my own writing skills and natural flairwere self-sufficient. I could write anything, anytime, regardless of how much I was reading. Needless to say, that was during a phase when I wasn’t reading allthat much.
In fact, at the time, I’d got into a habit of not reading anything whilst I was writing, convincing myself that it was an unnecessary distraction, and one that impeded on my abilities to increase my word count and build good storylines.
I realise now how this line of thinking was influenced by my young and highly inexperienced (and easily bruised)writer’s ego. It came, I feel, come from a place of insecurity, of trying to deny that I needed any external help to nourish my craft. Because if I wasn’t enough for the thing I felt I was born to do… what did that say about me?
My views on the matter have evolved quite a lot since then (thankfully!) and I’ve learnt that needing help and accepting situations in which my abilities alone aren’t sufficient isn’t as terrible a thing as I once thought.
Ever-expanding horizons.
I’ll come clean right away: I don’t always have the perfect balance between reading and writing (if anyone knows the secret to that, please let me know!) but I’m getting there.
What that’s done to my writing has been incredible, because it’s opened up my eyes to genres, writing styles, plots and characters I just couldn’t have come up with myself.
With every book I’ve read, I’ve expanded my horizons. It’s broken down the wall to that tiny box in which I used to do my writing. As with every new things I’ve ever encountered, experienced or done, it’s helped me improve in some way.
Everything we consume (whether it’s food, content or human interactions) affects us in some shape or form. If we give our minds the same food all the time (say, for instance, giving it only ideas and styles that come from inside your own head) then our outputs and the things we create are bound to remain constant (or… dare I say: stagnant?). It’s by giving our creative muscles something new to munch on that they’ll produce something new and exciting.
You’ve gotta keep up.
If you remain unconvinced, here are three of the many practical ways in which reading work other than your own can help you:
1. Keeping up with your grammar — reading is proven to have a direct impact on improving one’s grammar. In fact, after a long period of not reading in French, I noticed my French grammar degrading, even though it’s my mother tongue. Grammar is a tool, if you don’t sharpen it, it’ll become blunt. And reading someone else’s work will ensure you come across turns of phrases and grammatical constructs you might not be familiar with, or not use very often.
2. Keeping up with new words — reading is also a proven way to improve and increase your vocabulary. I’d like to think my vocabulary is pretty decent, and yet there isn’t a single book I read in which I don’t learn at least one new word! And there’s nothing I love better than having to Google a new word, because it reminds me of how much there is to explore and uncover out there.
3. Keeping those sparks a-comin’ — I’ve lost track of the number of times where reading someone else’s work has sparked an idea or two for a different story or project. It was reading Jessica Scurlock’s Counter Ops that an idea for a sequel to No Pain, No Game crept up. It was flicking through a screenplay for Fantastic Beasts that the original idea for The Dhawan Brothers came up. It was re-reading Harry Potter for the millionth time that a brand new plot started emerging… (stay tuned!)
4. Keeping up with the trends — almost as important as the rest is ensuring you stay abreast of what the trends are. Writers are spokespeople for what’s happening in the world, what’s shifting at the heart ofsociety, and what’s going on inour collective human experience. It’s your duty as a writer to stay relevant so that you can keep producing work that evolves with the times you live in.
And these are but a few examples. There are many, many more. Some more logistical, like discovering books that follow different formatting rules, and some less tangible, like stories that give you the ability to explore different styles, to immerse yourself in different eras, to travel to places you’ve never been to… all things that will ultimatelyenhance your writing.
The list goes on.
In short: If you’re a writer, reading shouldn’t be a should. It’s a must. Reading allows you to keep up. To stay attuned to everything that’s going on around you, by forcing you to take off your blinders once in a while.
Breathe in… Breathe out…
I recently came across this quote by American literacy expert and author Pam Ally, which says:
“Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out.”
I couldn’t agree more. I no longer think of reading as an optional part of my writer’s life. Just like you can’t breathe out unless you’ve first breathed in, I believe that one can’t write well (or evenat all)if they don’t feed their system and creative machinery through extensive reading.
I love the idea of reading being what nurtures one’s writing. That it’s necessary to writing. That one doesn’t exist without the other. An endless loop, where theyflows effortlessly and seamlessly into each other.
Oh, self-doubt, thou heartless foe.
I do, however, think that with this concept comes a serious need to accept that a writer doesn’t have to be a self-sustaining one-man-band.
That it’s ok to need exterior assistance to generate or spark ideas. That it’s ok not to know everything and too always have much to learn. That allowing ourselves to get inspired by other people’s work is a sign of open-mindedness and not a weakness. That it doesn’t take anything away from our writing abilities; in fact, it’s a sign of maturity.
We need to know that we are enough as we are, that our writing is enough, and that none of it is incompatible with admitting we’ll forever be students of our craft.
The one thing that kept me from embracing the value of reading for my own writing was nothing more than ego disguised as self-doubt. It was that debilitating inner voice saying that, if I couldn’t be sufficient for my writing, then I wasn’t enough.
And not being enough is scary. It brings people’s guards up and, in my case, made me so stubborn I thought I didn’t need anyone… which in turn only blinded me to the myriad learning opportunities around me. I see that now, but I didn’t see it then.
It takes humility, acceptance and defiance to step up to that inner voice. That, in itself, is scary too. But what stands on the other side is a much more colourful path for our writing (and ourselves in general!).
Ain’t got no time?
Ok, ok, I can hear you say: ‘that’s all well and good… But who has time to read when you’re busy writing?’
If you’re writing, working, taking care of family, writing again, working again, making dinner, maintaining a social life, oh, and sleeping every once in a while… then where does reading fit in?
If you tell me you don’t have time to read, then I’ll tell you what I tell myself when I make that same comment to myself:
It’s not that you don’t have time to read. It’s that you’re not making time to read.
You have plenty of time, you simply chose to use it in certain ways, and reading may not always be the priority.
Can you look me in the eyes (figuratively of course, unless we’re neighbours!) and honestly tell me that you couldn’t spend half an hour less on [something] everyday and replace it with reading?
Forget thirty minutes, what about just ten minutes?
And feel free to find and replace [something] with just about anything.
If you still can’t quite figure out what that ‘something’could be, here’s a suggestion or two: binge watching Netflix, scrolling through Social Media, snacking, flicking through channels on the TV, mind-numbingly obsessing about what everyone is posting abouton Facebook, self-deprecatingabout how your life isn’t what you’d want it to be, bing watching Netflix again before diving back into Instagram...You get the gist.
Don’t wait to have time. You’re in charge. Make the time. No one will do it for you.
If you’re a writer, reading shouldn’t be a should. It’s a must. Reading allows you to keep up--to stay attuned to everything that’s going on
