Gender and Sexuality = Writing Your Truth

Dreams and Inward Journeys, Chapter 6

This month’s chapter in Dreams and Inward Journeys is a juicy one — Journeys in Sexuality and Gender. I also had some trouble figuring it out.

My first thought is: there is absolutely a place (many places!) in children’s books for stories about gender and sexuality. Gender and sexuality are parts of life, and kids need books about life.

However (second thought): these are not the sorts of books I tend to write. What do I, someone who writes about a cow with a clipboard and a rock on an existential journey, have to say about gender and sexuality?

What occurred to me, after reading all the pieces in this chapter, was that stories about gender and sexuality are about the truth of a person (whether that person is you or a character) and about that person recognizing, owning, and embodying that truth, even if society has other ideas about how to be. So, maybe you have many stories in you about this truth through the lens of gender and sexuality, or maybe your character’s truth that they’re realizing is through a different lens. Essentially, this chapter is about letting your character live in their truth.

What’s clear from the readings in this chapter is that humans have been thinking about gender and sexuality forever. So it’s worth thinking about in terms of your book, generally (or maybe specifically) in an effort to make your characters as fully drawn as possible.