LGBTQ+ people have faced and continue to face discrimination. On the night of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn located in New York City’s gay nightlife area. Throughout the 1960s, police raided many gay bars to enforce morality and clothing laws common at the time. These laws stated that women had to wear three pieces of feminine clothing and men had to wear three pieces of masculine clothing. This policy justified the arrest of many trans people and drag performers, as well as other gender-nonconforming patrons. The police raid on Stonewall would end in a riot.
Patrons resisted arrest during the night of the Stonewall raid, inspiring queer people around them to protest. Their actions would lead to three nights of protest that would later be called the Stonewall Riots. The event was widely publicized and pushed the Gay Rights Movement into general view. Stonewall is considered by the popular imagination “as the symbolic start of the Gay Liberation Movement” (Marotta). Gay Pride parades were organized a year later around the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. The US celebrates Pride Month in June in memory of the raid.
Though Stonewall was not the first instance of resistance to anti-queer laws, the riots do mark a turning point in history. Michael Denneny notes, “[T]he event had become an idea, the idea that gay people would fight back, would stand up for their rights. And ideas are what change the world.”
Stonewall had a surprising impact on children’s literature. Explicit queerness (or the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender characters more generally) had been a taboo topic in children’s literature. This was because children were presumed to be innocent of LGBT themes and identities. It was (and still is) a common belief among adults that the representation of different sexualities or gender expressions could corrupt a child’s innocence. Kenneth Kidd writes,
"At first glance, lesbian/gay children's literature seems largely a post-1969 [Stonewall] phenomenon, much like modern lesbian/gay identity itself; both are shaped by the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s… While we should distinguish contemporary, ‘explicit’ works from pre-Stonewall classics, we should not assume that such distinctions are easy or always useful." (114-115).
After Stonewall, there was a shift in children's literature where LGBTQ+ identities were represented more visibly, especially after the visibility of gay rights movements.
Explicit LGBT themes first appeared in young adult fiction; this was because adults considered books about sexuality more appropriate for adolescent readers. As Kidd notes, “John Donovan's I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip (1969), which appeared the year of the Stonewall Riots, was the first young adult novel to address homosexuality specifically. I'll Get There was controversial because it described a kiss and implied sexual contact between two boys” (114).
The legacy of this book appears in its multiple re-publications, such as I'll Get There, It Better Be Worththe Trip: 40th-Anniversary Edition (2009; Fig. 1.) The text demonstrates a shift from queerness as a tone, or a semblance, toward the explicit representation of LGBT identities. Donovan’s book is also representative of a trend that would impact the next couple of decades of LGBT representation, which is that almost (if not all) queer characters would be white cis gay men and women.
In the 1970s, picture books began to include anti-bullying messages for young boys with non-normative gender expression. The plots of texts like William’s Doll (1972; Fig. 2) and Oliver Button is a Sissy (1979; Fig. 3) follow effeminate boys who are bullied. The young boys have dolls or are called sissies, yet the books call for readers to show them compassion. These books were published during the early years of the Gay Rights Movement.
Trans and lesbian experiences emerged in young adult literature around the early 1980s. Novels like Annie on My Mind (1982; Fig. 4) follow the romantic relationship between two young women. Like past books with gay male characters, this novel marked a new age with the inclusion of lesbians characters. Other texts like Yentl the Yeshiva Boy (1983; Fig. 5) merged trans characters with different cultural backgrounds. The novel tracks a Jewish character’s transition to a boy. Yentl weave in trans themes, even if the word “transgender” is not explicitly mentioned.
Perhaps most famously, picture books like Heather Has Two Mommies (1989; Fig. 6) and Daddy's Roommate (1990; Fig. 7) reconfigured gay and lesbian relationships through parenthood. These books were attempts to normalize gay couples' ability to marry, adopt, and have children. They were also guidebooks for young parents to read with their children. However, both of these books were met with resistance. Heather Has Two Mommies remains among the American Library Association’s (ALA) Top Most Banned and Challenged Books (2010-2019), and Daddy’s Roommate was #2 in ALA’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 1990-1999.
More recently, picture books like And Tango Makes Three (2005; Fig. 8) strategically use representations of animal homosexuality, though this practice has also received some pushback from progressive readers. In the same vein as the previous books on parenthood, And Tango Makes Three naturalizes homosexuality and gay unions, albeit through two male penguins in a union raising an egg together. It has also been challenged and banned.
In 2010, the Stonewall Literature Award began to incorporate children’s and young adult literature through the creation of the Stonewall Children’s Literature and Young Adult Award (now known as the Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award). This award followed the Lambda Award, which has had a young people’s category since 1989. The first book to win the Stonewall Award was The Vast Fields of Ordinary (2011; Fig. 9).
There are still some disparities in which books receive the award. Laura M. Jiménez’s data shows that children’s and YA novels that win LGBTQ+ awards privilege novels with white gay, male characters and that stories about lesbians are always tragic. She also found that bisexual and transgender identities remain invisible or under-represented in books for young people (406).
In 2015, the award went to Melissa (previously known as George) (2015; Fig. 10), a novel with a trans protagonist. However, the prizing of LGBT novels with racially diverse characters has only occurred very recently.