Meditations on the Ridiculosity of Romanticism

"I’ve had people tell me that they don’t feel that they could read a book with a lesbian main character because they don’t believe that they could relate to it. The difference between you walking out of a book store, frustrated at not being able to find a story that you could relate to, and straight people telling me they’re not certain if they could relate to a lesbian main character, however, are two vastly different things. It’s a straight world—almost every story in existence is straight, every myth and fairy tale we’ve been told, growing up, is straight, every movie, every commercial we see (or that gets any play or notoriety) is straight. When people tell me, “I don’t think I could relate” for ONE book, they’re not understanding the fact that we have to not relate ALL the time if we want to read anything. Obviously, there are wonderful straight stories that we both love, but we don’t have the luxury of being able to say “meh, it’s straight, don’t think I can relate to it!"

Sarah Diemer, Why Queer Girl YA Stories Are Important: A Dialogue on Project Unicorn by Its Authors. (via fuckyeahlesbianliterature)

(via imstillcookiedough)