Meet our Contributor:
Christian George Gregory is an Assistant Professor of Education at Saint Anselm College and was formerly a Lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in English Education. He holds two degrees in literature from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, was the recipient two fellowships from the NEH, a semi-finalist for the Bechtal Award, and garnered the JSTOR Lesson Plan award. He has written for multiple edited collections, as well as English Journal, English Education, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, the International Journal of Dialogic Pedagogy, and International Journal of LGBTQ Youth, where he serves on the Editorial Board. He is the former Program Chair for the AERA’s Queer SIG and currently serves on the judging committees for ALAN’s Walden and NCTE’s REALM Awards. He is a published poet and was a semi-finalist for the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices through Lamda Literary for his young adult novel, Two Davids. His research interests include the migration of queer theory to queer pedagogy, classroom discourse, and expanding the canon in English Education.
Christian George Gregory is an Assistant Professor of Education at Saint Anselm College and was formerly a Lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in English Education. He holds two degrees in literature from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, was the recipient two fellowships from the NEH, a semi-finalist for the Bechtal Award, and garnered the JSTOR Lesson Plan award. He has written for multiple edited collections, as well as English Journal, English Education, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, the International Journal of Dialogic Pedagogy, and International Journal of LGBTQ Youth, where he serves on the Editorial Board. He is the former Program Chair for the AERA’s Queer SIG and currently serves on the judging committees for ALAN’s Walden and NCTE’s REALM Awards. He is a published poet and was a semi-finalist for the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices through Lamda Literary for his young adult novel, Two Davids. His research interests include the migration of queer theory to queer pedagogy, classroom discourse, and expanding the canon in English Education.
Coming Out Amid Complex Identity in Queer Young Adult Literature
by Christian George Gregory
As I have written elsewhere, Young Adult Literature reached a publishing turning point after the surprising blockbuster sales of various series--Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games (Gregory, 2021). The effect was a proliferation in sales and titles, and an ancillary effect was how YAL nested other genres into what was once was the commonplace “coming-of-age” narrative. YAL splayed into a variety of sub-genres, all under the umbrella of YAL.
The Splay of Genres in Queer YAL
A similar trend of genre-splaying has occurred in queer young adult literature (QYAL). QYAL is now set in fantastic, mythic, and supernatural realms as easily as it situates itself into rom coms that normalize queerness. As a member of the Walden Awards committee this year, I read over 120 works of Young Adult Literature that evidenced this variety of sub-genres. This past year, queer works embraced an array of sub-genres. Among them: a profound tale of political and poetic activism (Libertad); a post-apocalyptic zombie narrative (Hearts Still Beating); a scavenger-hunt rom-com set in the world of country music (Every Time You Hear This Song); a BIPOC royal romance (Prince of the Palisades); a summer camp tale of frenemies who fall in love (Wish You Weren’t Here); a lesbian vampire story set in a historical Yiddish theater (Night Owls); a glossy cotton-candy romp (Hot Boy Summer); a Sapphic Much Ado About Nothing (Here Goes Nothing); a K-Pop Sapphic work of suspense (Gorgeous Gruesome Faces); and a tale of a prince and snake boy consort battling for control of a magical pearl (The Legend of the White Snake). Book analyst Kristen McLean notes that within queer literature there has emerged a “growth in fantasy, in general fiction, in sci-fi, and that really speaks to the richness of the story world and the fact that these things are cross-pollinating” (Patton, 2023). LGBTQ+ fiction sales have spiked in both Adult and Young Adult fiction, marking a “renaissance of gay literature.” The entry and splay of genre-based LGBTQ literatures has, in fact, inverted the hierarchy of coding books (the BISAC code), as McLean observed that many books list “LGBTQ+” as their secondary BISAC code.
A similar trend of genre-splaying has occurred in queer young adult literature (QYAL). QYAL is now set in fantastic, mythic, and supernatural realms as easily as it situates itself into rom coms that normalize queerness. As a member of the Walden Awards committee this year, I read over 120 works of Young Adult Literature that evidenced this variety of sub-genres. This past year, queer works embraced an array of sub-genres. Among them: a profound tale of political and poetic activism (Libertad); a post-apocalyptic zombie narrative (Hearts Still Beating); a scavenger-hunt rom-com set in the world of country music (Every Time You Hear This Song); a BIPOC royal romance (Prince of the Palisades); a summer camp tale of frenemies who fall in love (Wish You Weren’t Here); a lesbian vampire story set in a historical Yiddish theater (Night Owls); a glossy cotton-candy romp (Hot Boy Summer); a Sapphic Much Ado About Nothing (Here Goes Nothing); a K-Pop Sapphic work of suspense (Gorgeous Gruesome Faces); and a tale of a prince and snake boy consort battling for control of a magical pearl (The Legend of the White Snake). Book analyst Kristen McLean notes that within queer literature there has emerged a “growth in fantasy, in general fiction, in sci-fi, and that really speaks to the richness of the story world and the fact that these things are cross-pollinating” (Patton, 2023). LGBTQ+ fiction sales have spiked in both Adult and Young Adult fiction, marking a “renaissance of gay literature.” The entry and splay of genre-based LGBTQ literatures has, in fact, inverted the hierarchy of coding books (the BISAC code), as McLean observed that many books list “LGBTQ+” as their secondary BISAC code.
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Coming Out Narrative Fatigue
This inversion represents both the broadening and normalization of LGBTQ+ narratives that mark a cultural trend among publishers and readers of the post-coming out era. A common feeling, one voiced by a former student, was generally that ‘no one needs to read another coming out narrative.’ This sentiment suggests coming out narrative fatigue. Narrative fatigue can happen amid repetition in publishing and the arts, since often successful work is replicated less successfully than the original. One may look no further than the proliferation of teen “battle-to-the-death narratives” since Hunger Games. This fatigue may put off publishers from supporting coming out narratives. For this post, I offer a recent publication, Anthony Nerada’s Skater Boy, which returns to the coming-out narrative, and I would like to provide a means of thinking about the complexity of identity formation and fulfillment.
This inversion represents both the broadening and normalization of LGBTQ+ narratives that mark a cultural trend among publishers and readers of the post-coming out era. A common feeling, one voiced by a former student, was generally that ‘no one needs to read another coming out narrative.’ This sentiment suggests coming out narrative fatigue. Narrative fatigue can happen amid repetition in publishing and the arts, since often successful work is replicated less successfully than the original. One may look no further than the proliferation of teen “battle-to-the-death narratives” since Hunger Games. This fatigue may put off publishers from supporting coming out narratives. For this post, I offer a recent publication, Anthony Nerada’s Skater Boy, which returns to the coming-out narrative, and I would like to provide a means of thinking about the complexity of identity formation and fulfillment.
Skater Boy is a queer love story in which the protagonist Wesley “Big Mac” Mackenzie, a ‘punk,’ truant, and titular ‘skater boy’ falls for Tristan, an out and proud ballet dancer. The work is essentially it is a coming-out love story, with Wes coming into his identity through his love relationship as he navigates coming out to the Tripod, his skater friends, and his burgeoning interest in photography. In his preface and letter to the reader, Nerada claims that Wes’s challenge is not “just his sexuality [….] but the internal conflict of being gay while also being labeled a punk (something he never truly felt he was)” (Neruda, xii). In considering Nerada’s words, I offer that not only is there a splay of genre but also internalized identities. Here, coming out is not accepting his queerness, since Wes understands he is gay; rather, Wes’s journey is how to safely situate himself within his worlds of family, punk-friends, and school communities. Dialogical Self Theory is a particularly useful lens through which to consider Wes’s navigation toward fulfillment.
Skater Boy through the lens of Dialogical Self Theory
In their work on Dialogical Self Theory, Hermans and Hermans-Konopka chart the conditions of the post-modern self. They make the claim that dynamics that constitute the complexity of interpersonal relations such as “conflicts, criticisms, making agreements, and consultations” (p.190) also occur within the self. Thus, the self is a “society of mind” (p.190). This society of the mind is comprised of multiple identity positions, or "I-Positions"; that is, various ways in which we identify ourselves or parts of ourselves in the world. These I-Positions may include gender, gender identification, sexuality, ethnicity, cultural identification, or professional identifications (skateboarder, punk-rocker, artist, guitarist); They may include familial role or roles (son; sister; youngest; sibling; granddaughter or grandson); religious or spiritual affiliations (Muslim; Jewish; Catholic; Protestant; Agnostic; or Secular Humanist); or any other ways in which one has have come to understand oneself, such as introvert or extravert.
In Skater Boy, Wes is a skater, queer, a rebel, a son, an aspiring photographer, a trauma survivor, and someone (perhaps) with oppositional defiance disorder. The success of Nerada’s work is how coming out is part of an overall growth narrative that embraces multiple I-Positions. Wes never doubts his sexuality, but he does continue to repress it. But he represses other impulses as well: his patience, his creative talent, his ambition, his feelings of love in general. Wes’s wholeness comes not merely from coming out to his friends and family, but from arresting his self-sabotage, from reaching toward his ambition and talent as an artist, and from reconciling his love of Golden Girls with Metallica. Ultimately, he moves beyond the trap of the self-imposed/self-fulfilling label of ‘punk’ to some queer multi-hyphenate.
In their work on Dialogical Self Theory, Hermans and Hermans-Konopka chart the conditions of the post-modern self. They make the claim that dynamics that constitute the complexity of interpersonal relations such as “conflicts, criticisms, making agreements, and consultations” (p.190) also occur within the self. Thus, the self is a “society of mind” (p.190). This society of the mind is comprised of multiple identity positions, or "I-Positions"; that is, various ways in which we identify ourselves or parts of ourselves in the world. These I-Positions may include gender, gender identification, sexuality, ethnicity, cultural identification, or professional identifications (skateboarder, punk-rocker, artist, guitarist); They may include familial role or roles (son; sister; youngest; sibling; granddaughter or grandson); religious or spiritual affiliations (Muslim; Jewish; Catholic; Protestant; Agnostic; or Secular Humanist); or any other ways in which one has have come to understand oneself, such as introvert or extravert.
In Skater Boy, Wes is a skater, queer, a rebel, a son, an aspiring photographer, a trauma survivor, and someone (perhaps) with oppositional defiance disorder. The success of Nerada’s work is how coming out is part of an overall growth narrative that embraces multiple I-Positions. Wes never doubts his sexuality, but he does continue to repress it. But he represses other impulses as well: his patience, his creative talent, his ambition, his feelings of love in general. Wes’s wholeness comes not merely from coming out to his friends and family, but from arresting his self-sabotage, from reaching toward his ambition and talent as an artist, and from reconciling his love of Golden Girls with Metallica. Ultimately, he moves beyond the trap of the self-imposed/self-fulfilling label of ‘punk’ to some queer multi-hyphenate.
Navigating Internal, Conflicting Identity Positions
Initially, Wes contends with admonishing forces beyond the simple coming out narrative of self and external acceptance. He has a “rap sheet full of detentions,” a way Wes feels the school misapprehends and ‘criminalizes’ his behavior institutionally, even as he does “slam a kid into the lockers” (Nerada, p.10). Wes is out to himself, yet not to his mother or “The Tripod,” his two skater friends. What the novel does so effectively is to present characters in various states of denial, suppression, and expression of sexuality. Wes’s skater friend Brad kisses Wes when he is drunk, and his drinking exacerbates as he struggles with denial. In contrast, Tristan, Wes’s dancer boyfriend, claims his proud and out identity in his performance bio of The Nutcracker. For the author, these two figures represent Wes’s own feelings of repression and expression, and Wes careens between these expressions. In one troubling moment, Wes asks Tristan to “hide” from the Tripod, which, in effect, re-closets his boyfriend. Tristan responds, “I can’t be with someone who’s embarrassed to be seen with me” (Nerada, p. 179). Tristan provides a form of queer counsel, stating to Wes, “Coming out isn’t a one-time thing…You don’t think I get scared every time I meet someone new? I’m a Black gay man” (Nerada, p. 152). For Wes, Tristan becomes an important figure for clarity and change. Tristan’s very real fears—not only rejection but also violence—help Wes to identify his own fears of rejection from his mother and his friends, the Tripod, and the school community. As it turns out, these fears are ungrounded.
For instance, when Wes uses an Instagram post to effectively announce his queer relationship status, his fears are soon allayed at school when he was “like nothing ever happened” (Nerada, p. 189), even as his skater friend Tony is less shocked at the revelation than he is insulted that Wes didn’t tell him directly as his best friend, the narrative contends with the ever-shifting effects on Wes. When he comes out to his mother, the event is not trauma-based, but loving and supportive. The work ends with Wes’s fulfillment of multiple identities: in coming out, Wes concurrently submits his work to a photography context, applies to college, shows up for Tristan, and accepts his soon-to-be step-father into the family. Coming out is also coming into being through multiple identity pathways.
Skater Boy as QYAL for this Moment?
Let’s consider why a novel about someone not in denial of their sexuality yet fearful of external acceptance may be prescient for this moment. Activists, teachers, and librarians know that we are living in a time of anti-woke hostilities. Queerness is become recloseted with the “Don’t Say Gay” laws of Florida, and ‘ranked’ for internal division with J.D. Vance’s “normal gay guy vote,” suggestive of ‘abnormal’ queerness (Gomez, 2024). Yes, this is a regression, and a manically fast and furious erosion of rights. Even as queerness claims narratives space, political forces aim to efface identity, suppress, and divide a community at one time unified.
The pushback against DEI, trans rights, and even the threat to gay marriage have been laid out in Project 2025, which “articulates an authoritarian vision for America in which LGBTQ+ people, who comprise nearly 8% of the adult U.S. population (and 22% of Millennials), are stigmatized, marginalized, and relegated to second class status, and in which married mother-father families are privileged” (Cahill & DiBlasi, p.3). This blueprint is certainly the impetus of the administrations talking points and rhetoric on air and online. Much of this amounts to hate speech, which has consequently resulted in increased violence against the LGBTQ+ communities. It is within this context of active marginalization that queer and trans* youth reside. Even while they may self-identify, they face fears of marginalization, recrimination, and violence. Skater Boy serves as a narrative to find one’s path through the nettles, among the throng of potential foes. For young queer readers, they may discover an echo of both their own fears and a narrative toward queer growth and fulfillment that, even amid institutional counterforces of hate, are buoyed and supported by pockets of queer intimacies and love.
Initially, Wes contends with admonishing forces beyond the simple coming out narrative of self and external acceptance. He has a “rap sheet full of detentions,” a way Wes feels the school misapprehends and ‘criminalizes’ his behavior institutionally, even as he does “slam a kid into the lockers” (Nerada, p.10). Wes is out to himself, yet not to his mother or “The Tripod,” his two skater friends. What the novel does so effectively is to present characters in various states of denial, suppression, and expression of sexuality. Wes’s skater friend Brad kisses Wes when he is drunk, and his drinking exacerbates as he struggles with denial. In contrast, Tristan, Wes’s dancer boyfriend, claims his proud and out identity in his performance bio of The Nutcracker. For the author, these two figures represent Wes’s own feelings of repression and expression, and Wes careens between these expressions. In one troubling moment, Wes asks Tristan to “hide” from the Tripod, which, in effect, re-closets his boyfriend. Tristan responds, “I can’t be with someone who’s embarrassed to be seen with me” (Nerada, p. 179). Tristan provides a form of queer counsel, stating to Wes, “Coming out isn’t a one-time thing…You don’t think I get scared every time I meet someone new? I’m a Black gay man” (Nerada, p. 152). For Wes, Tristan becomes an important figure for clarity and change. Tristan’s very real fears—not only rejection but also violence—help Wes to identify his own fears of rejection from his mother and his friends, the Tripod, and the school community. As it turns out, these fears are ungrounded.
For instance, when Wes uses an Instagram post to effectively announce his queer relationship status, his fears are soon allayed at school when he was “like nothing ever happened” (Nerada, p. 189), even as his skater friend Tony is less shocked at the revelation than he is insulted that Wes didn’t tell him directly as his best friend, the narrative contends with the ever-shifting effects on Wes. When he comes out to his mother, the event is not trauma-based, but loving and supportive. The work ends with Wes’s fulfillment of multiple identities: in coming out, Wes concurrently submits his work to a photography context, applies to college, shows up for Tristan, and accepts his soon-to-be step-father into the family. Coming out is also coming into being through multiple identity pathways.
Skater Boy as QYAL for this Moment?
Let’s consider why a novel about someone not in denial of their sexuality yet fearful of external acceptance may be prescient for this moment. Activists, teachers, and librarians know that we are living in a time of anti-woke hostilities. Queerness is become recloseted with the “Don’t Say Gay” laws of Florida, and ‘ranked’ for internal division with J.D. Vance’s “normal gay guy vote,” suggestive of ‘abnormal’ queerness (Gomez, 2024). Yes, this is a regression, and a manically fast and furious erosion of rights. Even as queerness claims narratives space, political forces aim to efface identity, suppress, and divide a community at one time unified.
The pushback against DEI, trans rights, and even the threat to gay marriage have been laid out in Project 2025, which “articulates an authoritarian vision for America in which LGBTQ+ people, who comprise nearly 8% of the adult U.S. population (and 22% of Millennials), are stigmatized, marginalized, and relegated to second class status, and in which married mother-father families are privileged” (Cahill & DiBlasi, p.3). This blueprint is certainly the impetus of the administrations talking points and rhetoric on air and online. Much of this amounts to hate speech, which has consequently resulted in increased violence against the LGBTQ+ communities. It is within this context of active marginalization that queer and trans* youth reside. Even while they may self-identify, they face fears of marginalization, recrimination, and violence. Skater Boy serves as a narrative to find one’s path through the nettles, among the throng of potential foes. For young queer readers, they may discover an echo of both their own fears and a narrative toward queer growth and fulfillment that, even amid institutional counterforces of hate, are buoyed and supported by pockets of queer intimacies and love.
References
Cahill, S. and Connor DiBlasi. (2024). Project 2025’s Threat to LGBTQI+ Equality, Safety, and Health, Racial and Gender Equity, and Sexual and Reproductive Health. The Fenway Institute.
Gomez, H. (2024). Vance, in Joe Rogan interview, predicts Trump could win 'the normal gay vote’ NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/vance-joe-rogan-interview-trump-normal-gay-guy-vote-rcna178135
Gregory, C.G. (2021). From stacks to desks: A history of Young Adult Literature and the case for inclusion. In B. Maldonado (Ed). Arts integration and Young Adult Literature: Strategies to enhance academic skills and student voice. Rowman & Littlefield.
Hermans, H. J., & Hermans-Konopka, A. (2010). Dialogical self theory: Positioning and counter-positioning in a globalizing society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nerada, A. (2024). Skater boy. Soho Teen.
Patton, E. (2023). A renaissance of gay literature marks a turning point. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lgbtq-fiction-gay-literature-publishing-turning-point-rcna127922
Gomez, H. (2024). Vance, in Joe Rogan interview, predicts Trump could win 'the normal gay vote’ NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/vance-joe-rogan-interview-trump-normal-gay-guy-vote-rcna178135
Gregory, C.G. (2021). From stacks to desks: A history of Young Adult Literature and the case for inclusion. In B. Maldonado (Ed). Arts integration and Young Adult Literature: Strategies to enhance academic skills and student voice. Rowman & Littlefield.
Hermans, H. J., & Hermans-Konopka, A. (2010). Dialogical self theory: Positioning and counter-positioning in a globalizing society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Nerada, A. (2024). Skater boy. Soho Teen.
Patton, E. (2023). A renaissance of gay literature marks a turning point. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/lgbtq-fiction-gay-literature-publishing-turning-point-rcna127922
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