Diversity in the News

April 4th - April 11th, 2013

CBC DIVERSITY/COMMITTEE MEMBERS IN THE NEWS 

• Matt de la Peña mentioned the CBC Diversity blog during his keynote at SLJ's Think Tank last Friday. Listen to the entire speech here.
• Four Latina bloggers band together to promote Latino literary talent to Latino readers and mainstream book publishers , via Latina Lista – mentions working with CBC Diversity!

ON OUR RADAR

• List: "Classic" young adult books by authors of color at Diversity in YA
• What Are “Diverse” Children’s Books? at Mamiverse
• My transgender novel is too personal to be propaganda by Cris Beam, author of I Am J (via The Guardian) -- “But literature, at its best, doesn’t live in this world of agendas and witch hunts, as tools for any side’s political purpose. Literature and its readers are in an alternate realm, and they’ll continue to meet in this quieter place.”
• A Different Light: On Identity at YALSA’s The Hub – reflects on the recent articles 
• “What Makes a Good YA Coming-Out Novel” (The Horn Book)
• “A New Way for Gay Characters in YA” (Atlantic Wire)
• The Holocaust: Rescue and Resistance | Focus On at School Library Journal – includes list of recommended reading
• “Are there any girl bears?”: Gender and the 21st Century Picture Book by Betsy Bird at Fuse 8

Diversity 101: The Transgender Perspective

Contributed to CBC Diversity by Cris Beam

I was honored when I was asked to write a Diversity 101 post about transgender identity. Honored and a little daunted. Because while I’ve written two books on the topic, I’m not transgender—and speaking about always ends up becoming speaking for. Which is part of the problem with gender representations in general: who gets to speak for whom? Especially in children’s literature where gender variance is, well, not so variant yet, I know I’m walking into hot water. The scarcity of GLBT (accent on the T) depictions yields strong opinions as to how we should talk—and write—about the few transgender characters we have. 

People used to say that transgender was an umbrella term to encompass all kinds of gender variance—from drag king to transsexual to the little boy who wears tutus to play with his trucks. While the umbrella concept’s fallen out of favor somewhat, the core idea is useful: there are a myriad of ways to express one’s sense of self.  Transgender is fundamentally an internal identity wherein one’s understanding of self is different from the body one was born with. The expression part is separate, and can range from wearing different clothing to undergoing medical procedures to doing nothing at all. The bottom line is, only transgender people can decide that they’re trans, and it’s up to the rest of us to support and celebrate that.