Diversity (And the Lack Thereof) in Gay Romance



Can we sit down and have a little chat? Just you me and the other 3.2 billion people with an internet connection? Cool. Because today, I want to praise you and then immediately talk about uncomfortable subjects. They tell me that's the best way to get people to enter a conversation like that.

So first off, why I think you, and all the other romance readers, are the best to talk about diversity and inclusion with. Romance is about love and light and laughter. The end always has the involved parties getting together and living happily, either for now or ever after. And while some of that is escapism, a way to get out of our sometimes less-than-lovely world, a lot of that is because that is aspirational. For a romance reader, everyone should get that moment at the end of the book where he hires a baker to spell out his proposal in 525,600 cupcakes, one for every minute of the year.

And believe you me, that kind of openness and love is a rare, hot commodity these days. Romance readers are something special. That's why I think the diversity and inclusion talk is important.

Now I'm not the first to go into this. At all. Not even a little bit. It's been a hot button issue within marginalized groups for literal decades in this industry, and lately it's been all over the mainstream romance community at long last. There are a ton of great resources out there to help find inclusive romance. Here's Women of Color in Romance, which helps filter through books to find romance written by authors of color. It helps them get out there in an industry that seems to be trying to squash them out of existence (Here's looking at you, Harlequin. You should honestly be ashamed of yourself.)

But because 1: I don't want to be the white guy standing up and speaking for authors of color inside the genre and 2: I have different experiences that are more applicable to a different topic, I'm going to let their words stand for themselves. I'll have links to various resources and various discussions about and from authors of color. It's by no means exhaustive, and I encourage you to jump down this rabbit hole yourself.

Instead of all that, I'm going to talk very specifically about gay romance, and our utter and complete lack of diversity. And I'm going to take my fair share of the blame on it: I never thought about it. Not for the first few years I was writing and publishing gay romance. Fucking everybody in my books was a white dude.

I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one by a long shot. And I'm also, again, not going to talk about author struggles. But I will signal boost out some authors of color in gay romance. There's a Goodreads list with lots of books on it, and a list of queer POC authors (Note: not everyone on that list writes gay romance, but plenty do, and it's a good cause aside from that.).

No, I'm here to talk very narrowly about including diverse characters in our gay romance. Because one area I can speak on is about being a gay man. And let me tell you, gay POC are not feeling it. They are not feeling welcome in their own community, and that's some fucking bullshit if you ask me.

Media is a step toward inclusion on a larger scale. And while the primary audience for gay romance is women, it's also the only romance that gay men have. Every guy deserves to not only see himself get rescued, but to see himself as the prince, or the knight in shining armor.

And gay romance is a great place to do just that. While it's not universally true, because nothing ever is, gay romance readers are already primed and ready to go when it comes to inclusion and diversity. You're already reading gay romance. It's why I try so hard to include people from all walks of life. And yeah, I fall down in a lot of areas. I'm terrible at including religious diversity in my romance, for one. I tend to just write a cavalcade of atheists. But I make an effort to include POC as main characters in my romances, because I think it matters.

And I think it matters that we read them to. I'm not at all suggesting you go buy all of my books (I mean, you can, but not for this reason.). But I am suggesting you try them out. Try out a book with a culturally Jewish hero. Or a Japanese American. Or a Chinese hero. Try books where the point of view isn't exclusively white. Because I think you, oh glorious romance reader, are capable of making good, positive change.

And I think sometimes that change starts with nothing but a little book.

Linkity-Links I Promised You




Comments