Issues surrounding gender and sexuality are fundamental determinants of either a liberated or restricted human experience, and comprehensive sex education has been recognized as an essential mechanism to help youth process their gender and sexuality in a standardized, open, safe, and healthy atmosphere. In the absence of such education, Y novels…

This essay explores the complex relationship that exists between the romance plot and the romanticization of the antebellum South in Raina Telgemeier's critically acclaimed and commercially successful graphic novel, "Drama." The text's use of a "Gone With the Wind"-style musical as its romantic and thematic pivot point…

LGBTQ representations in media and novels, especially in young adult (YA) literature, have become more recurrent and reliable in recent years. While little research exists on youth and transgender stories, existing LGBTQ texts predominantly deal with men, chiefly White gay men (Cart & Jenkins, 2006; Garcia, 2013). To address this imbalanced…

Tensions and contradictions in my personal practice and in the extant research prompted this study of preservice teachers' responses to trans-themed young adult literature. I adopted a self-study methodology to identify and address the shortcomings in my practice of including trans-themed literature in a Literature for Adolescents course. Through…

As research on transgender and gender nonconforming children and youth becomes increasingly prevalent in literary scholarship, educational possibilities arise for teachers of children's and young adult (YA) literature in various classroom settings. This article provides a brief history of literature for children and teens containing queer and…

Although trends in young adult literature (YAL) indicate that authors are constructing more positive renditions of gay characters, curricular and pedagogical choices seem to remain quite unsympathetic and "conservative," reproducing harmful stereotypes. This paper contends that the kiss in YAL can symbolize the physical, social, and…

This article explores four adolescent novels published between 1999 and 2010 specifically for the intersections of Christian faith and lesbian and gay sexual identities. Using cultural, queer, and ideological theories, the piece makes distinctions between progressive and traditional depictions of both Christianity and LGBTQ teen protagonists in…

This paper uses a case study approach to examine how the heteronormative nature of one middle school setting and classroom environment shapes the climate of safety, support and learning for LGBTQ students when they are engaged in studying a novel with a gay character. Heteronormative environments inform and shape positioning of and by students and…

Since the publication of the first young adult novel to deal with issues of sexual identity, John Donovan's ("1969") "I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip", over 200 novels have been published centered around gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) characters and conflicts (Cart and Jenkins, "2006", "The Heart has…

Although often used as secondary sources, written texts are powerful sources of data for qualitative researchers to explore power networks and broad ideological perspectives. As such, I present in this paper an analytic process that draws upon multiple analytic frameworks--constant comparative analysis, discursive textual analysis, and traditional…

Louise Erdrich's early poem "The Strange People" portrays a dynamic understanding of gender echoed in many of her later fictive works. Narrated by a speaker who is half antelope, half woman, the poem details the relationship between a masculine hunter and his feminine prey. The poem suggests that gender is experienced as a wound, a site of…

While LGBTQ people may no longer need be considered the "invisible minority," LGBTQ books are often taken to be positive or affirmative based on their mere inclusion of gay people as characters. The authors believe the catalog of LGBTQ texts must continue to increase in both quantity and quality and that teachers must explicitly engage students in…

Authors of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) adolescent novels have recently moved away from addressing the "problem" of sexual identity and have instead focused on personal and societal "acceptance" of non-normative sexualities. Within the increasing number of "acceptance" titles published depicting gay males,…

Few pieces of GLBTQ fiction have received the popular and scholarly acclaim awarded to Alex Sanchez's "Rainbow Boys" series. Although "problem novels" are rarely taken seriously as literature, the books--the first novel in particular--have joined the few pieces of GLBTQ literature incorporated into educational discourse and curriculum. In this…

A lesbian teacher, recently returned from four years in Japan and teaching an intermediate ESL class in a public community college in New York City, struggles with addressing the issue of her own sexual orientation while using a novel with a protagonist who is questioning his sexual identity. The evolution of gay/lesbian and/or queer theory…