Memoir, autobiography, and diary are three closely related genres that fall under the umbrella of life writing. All of them are nonfiction texts (or as close to nonfiction as possible) written by the author about the author’s own life. Because of widespread homo- and transphobia, stories of LGBTQ+ lives were not numerous or widely available in the mainstream until fairly recently. Furthermore, many LGBTQ+ people grow up without any LGBTQ+ role models in their lives, and LGBTQ+ history is rarely taught in schools. These circumstances make life writing especially important, because these stories serve as windows into parts of people’s lives—and the history of the broader community—that were previously secret or unknown, and they provide valuable representation for young people trying to figure out what their identity or identities mean to them.
This section focuses on life writing by LGBTQ+ authors written in English in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Exceptions to this categorization are noted. For the purposes of this section, memoir refers to a text about a particular period or aspect of the author’s life written in retrospect, autobiography refers to a text intended to provide an overview of the author’s entire life, and a diary is a text or texts originally written not for publication but for the author’s private purposes, written contemporaneously with the events it describes.
A Brief History of LGBTQ+ Life Writing
Most LGBTQ+ life writing from the beginning of the twentieth century or earlier are diaries and letters, intended only for private reading. These texts were later found and published after the authors’ deaths by family members or by scholars if the author was an important historical figure. Examples in this category include the diaries and letters of Virginia Woolf (written 1915–1941, published after her death by her husband and her nephew) and letters from King James I (written in the 1620s). These texts are significant because they demonstrate the diverse presence of same-gender desire throughout history—a presence that is often denied or erased.[72]
In the mid-twentieth century, although some fiction and nonfiction containing LGBTQ+ characters and themes was accepted by mainstream publishers, publishers typically refused to publish any work in which the LGBTQ+ characters had a happy ending or that seemed to promote homosexuality. Fiction was more common than nonfiction, because even if the fiction drew on the author’s own experiences, writers could credibly avoid public scandal. Self-censorship also played a role. For example, when The Diary of a Young Girl(also known as The Diary of Anne Frank) was first published in 1947, her father did not include the passages in which Anne wrote about her feelings toward women. This omission reflects Frank’s desire to protect his daughter’s privacy and reputation and to not distract from the main focus of Nazi oppression by including controversial material.[73]
Most memoirs written by LGBTQ+ people who lived in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s were published much later in their lives, after the 1969 Stonewall rebellion and further decades of gay activism made these topics less risky and controversial in the mainstream and after the authors had more well-established careers. Examples in this category include Esther Newton’s essays written in the 1970s and 1980s collected in Margaret Mead Made Me Gay(2000) and her memoir My Butch Career(2018), Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals (1980) and Zami: A New Spelling of My Name(1982), Douglas Crimp’s Before Pictures(2016), and Samuel R. Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue(1999). In addition to publishing life writing, these authors were also outspoken activists, academics, and artists, but their books were mostly published by small feminist publishers or university presses willing to publish LGBTQ+ scholarship.[74]
The 1980s brought the AIDS crisis, and the mass suffering of the LGBTQ+ community inspired many more memoirs and diaries, as people struggled to cope with their own illness and the illnesses of their friends and loved ones. For example, the playwright Larry Kramer is now most famous for The Normal Heart, a play about a man caring for his dying lover based on Kramer’s own experiences. Kramer also published a collection of nonfiction called Reports from the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist.[75]
Additionally, even though more LGBTQ+ writers were able to get their life writing openly published during this period, some of the works describing mid-twentieth-century LGBTQ+ life still take the form of diaries published posthumously. For example, Susan Sontag, who wrote about LGBTQ+ issues, including AIDS, across her career, wasn’t publicly out as bisexual until 2000 and rarely spoke about it. Sontag’s son published her diaries in two volumes in 2008 and 2012, in which she discusses her sexuality much more openly.[76]
Alongside the legal and social gains made by the LGBTQ+ community from the 1990s onward, LGBTQ+ memoirs have also become increasingly common, developing into a subgenre of their own complete with common structures and tropes, discussed later. However, representation is still an issue within this broader umbrella. Gay memoirs are the most common and visible, with bisexual and trans memoirs being much harder to find. Within the already-small category of trans memoir, most of the books are by trans women and trans men; as of early 2020, there appear to be fewer than fifteen memoirs published in English that represent nonbinary or genderqueer lives. As with most forms of media, the range of experiences reflected in LGBTQ+ memoir also reproduces other social inequities, including racism, sexism, and classism. The modern age offers many more avenues for sharing life writing beyond traditional publishing, including blogs, YouTube videos, and social media. Because anyone with internet access and a little bit of privacy can use these platforms, the field of LGBTQ+ life writing is much more diverse online.
Tropes and Themes in LGBTQ+ Memoir
Because most memoirs take a narrative form, they typically follow the same structural patterns of fiction. Whether they follow the traditional pattern of rising action, climax, and falling action or use another narrative structure, almost all narrative requires some sort of conflict to engage the reader. Some types of conflict and narrative arcs common in LGBTQ+ memoirs are the following:
gender or sexual self-discovery
coming out
living with AIDS
gaining sexual experience
physical and social transitioning
loneliness
struggling with intersecting social identities
Additionally, some memoirs written by LGBTQ+ authors may center on another aspect of the author’s life, so the conflict may not center around sexuality or gender identity at all.
Aside from the common conflicts and story arcs, many LGBTQ+ memoirs also share themes or grapple with common questions:
How to approach writing, knowing the stories will be seen as emblematic of the entire community?
How to write honestly while not perpetuating stereotypes?
How to write about loved ones who might not want to be written about?
What’s the right balance between showing that the author is “normal” versus embracing all the things that make the author different?
Should LGBTQ+ memoirs also always be activism?
Where is the line between an empowering self-representation and a dehumanizing self-commodification?
Another common theme that may surprise readers is that many LGBTQ+ memoirs spend a lot of time discussing the pieces of media that played vital roles in constructing the author’s identity or identities. This is because, much of the time, LGBTQ+ people grow up not knowing any (or not many) people like them or at least not people who are out. So they turn to books, movies, and other media to find role models and figure out who and what they want to be. One popular example of this is Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which is a memoir written as a comic book (a subgenre known as graphic memoir) by Alison Bechdel.[77] In the book, Bechdel describes how, when she started college, she didn’t know any lesbians in real life, so she read as many books by and about lesbians as she could find. She discusses only one or two of these books directly, but the illustrations show more than a dozen lesbian books scattered throughout the panels.
However, important identity-forming stories aren’t always viewed positively by LGBTQ+ memoirists. In Trans: A Memoir(2016), Juliet Jacques explains that she didn’t know she was a trans woman for a long time, in part because all the representations of trans women she found in movies and books seemed very unlike her and all their stories focused on hormones and surgery. At that stage, she didn’t think she wanted those things; she just knew she liked wearing dresses and makeup. In the book, Jacques spends a lot of time discussing her changing relationships with words like gay, trans, transgender, transsexual, transvestite, hermaphrodite, and drag queen. If she had seen more positive and more diverse stories by and about trans women to read during her teens and twenties, she might have been saved a lot of confusion and pain.[78]
The role of LGBTQ+ narratives in giving LGBTQ+ youth a sense of comfort, identity, and community makes LGBTQ+ memoir especially important, since memoirs are real stories of real people. Therefore, how these memoirs represent the queer experience is especially relevant.
Criticisms of the Genre
The integral role LGBTQ+ narratives play for LGBTQ+ youth is also the source of one of the major criticisms of the genre. What kinds of stories are being told or not told? What is romanticized? What experiences are being portrayed as integral to being LGBTQ+? The answers shape how queer youth come to understand themselves and their place in the world.
The criticism of memoirs specifically is that if memoirs are narratives and narratives must have conflict, then most LGBTQ+ memoirs tell stories of queer conflict, pain, trauma, or suffering—even if they end happily. Juliet Jacques, Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts, 2015) (figure 11.21), and Jacob Tobia (Sissy: A Coming–of–Gender Story, 2019) all consciously discuss their concern over this issue in their memoirs, but none of them find a conclusive answer. An overabundance of messaging that queerness equals suffering is harmful not only to LGBTQ+ youth, but also because it reinforces the fears of well-meaning parents who dread having an LGBTQ+ child because they believe that means their child will never be happy.[79] As Tobia puts it, “The classical trans narrative . . . glamorizes trauma,” and “those of us who don’t fit the classical narrative end up either having our stories edited and reedited until they fit, or end up having our voices silenced. And that’s fucked.”[80]
Figure 11.21. Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts. (Deborah Amory.)
Another issue in the field of LGBTQ+ memoir is the tension between self-representation and self-commodification and the need to please different audiences. Juliet Jacques openly states in her memoir that she would have preferred to write a history of trans people in Britain or an overview of societal issues that trans people face, but publishers were only interested in her narratives of her own experiences.
Jacob Tobia ponders their intended audience and purpose at length in their memoir, Sissy. On the one hand, they want to provide some of the nonbinary representation that they never had growing up. On the other hand, they hope parents of nonbinary kids will read the book to understand their own kids better. They’re not “here to teach you Transgender 101,” but they do also want to educate the public about the diversity and complexities of gender and identity, with their book as one lesson in a wide pool of experiences.[81] In short, it’s impossible to write for any one intended audience or literary purpose without leaving important things out.
Representation and commodification become even more complicated when we consider people other than the author of a memoir. Tobia admits their parents are not always portrayed in a positive light in the book and talks openly about their discussions with each of them as they were writing. Is it ethical to portray someone in a way they’re not comfortable with, even if they give you permission? In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel tells the story not only of her relationship with her own lesbianism but also of her late father’s relationship with his own sexuality. She reveals that her father repeatedly pursued teenage boys and had emotional problems that Bechdel attributes to his sexual repression. Is she exploiting her father’s troubled life to write a compelling book?
An even more difficult example of this issue in LGBTQ+ memoir is in The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. In the book, Nelson writes extensively about her relationship with her genderqueer partner, Harry, and her portrayal of their relationship and what it can reveal about gender, sexuality, and parenthood is one of the main reasons for its critical acclaim. However, in the book she says Harry is “a very private person,” a self-described “epileptic with a pacemaker . . . married to a strobe light artist.” When he read the first draft of the book, he said he felt “unbeheld—unheld, even,” and he asked her, “Why can’t you just write something that will bear adequate witness to me, to us, to our happiness?”[82] Nelson says that after that conversation, they went through the draft together and discussed revisions that would make him feel more accurately represented, and he even wrote some passages for her to include in the book later on. However, the situation of one partner’s career depending on writing about her life, and the other partner feeling deeply hurt, creates a complex web of emotions, pressures, and responsibilities that can’t help but shape both the relationship and the book.
Despite the ethical dilemmas inherent in the genre, LGBTQ+ memoirs play an important role in queer activism, identity formation, and historical study. They provide an opportunity for LGBTQ+ people to share their stories with each other and with the world, for personal satisfaction and political action. The professional market for this genre continues to expand, although it still lacks in much needed diversity, and the internet provides billions more opportunities for people to read and share writing about their own queer lives.
Where and how does the book you chose fit into the history and common themes of LGBTQ+ life writing as discussed in this section?
Which of the common questions shared by LGBTQ+ life writing listed in the “Tropes and Themes in LGBTQ+ Memoir” section do you see represented in the book being reviewed?
This section brings up some tensions and complications inherent in representing one’s life and loved ones in a story to be sold—how building conflict into a narrative can feed into a “queerness equals suffering” message; how the publisher’s view of the market or audience could influence how a story is told or if it is told at all; how the depiction of loved ones can often be out of their control. How would you approach some of these complications if you were going to write about your life?
Key Questions
Are you familiar with any of the fields of LGBTQ+ literature explored in this section? How were you first introduced to LGBTQ+ literature?
Should an author’s gender or sexual identity be a factor in identifying whether a literary text is LGBTQ+? What criteria would you suggest using to identify LGBTQ+ literature?
What influence do you think literature can have on a reader? Have you ever been personally affected by a literary work?
What tropes are common across LGBTQ+ literary fields? What tropes are specific to a field?
Check Your Knowledge
Contributed by Has Arakelyan, Rio Hondo College
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Why did many early LGBTQ+ life writings, such as diaries and letters, remain unpublished until after the author’s death? A) They were written in languages no one could read.
B) They were always intended for public audiences.
C) Widespread homo- and transphobia made public sharing risky or impossible.
D) Publishers preferred only fiction.
2. What is a major criticism of the LGBTQ+ memoir genre discussed in the chapter?
A) The genre glamorizes trauma and overemphasizes suffering.
B) Memoirs are always fictionalized.
C) Memoirs never address identity.
D) Only trans men write memoirs.
3. According to the chapter, what is a unique challenge for LGBTQ+ memoirists regarding their intended audience?
A) They must always write for academic scholars.
B) Memoirs are never read by LGBTQ+ youth.
C) They only write for their family members.
D) It is impossible to write for one audience or purpose without leaving out important perspectives.
4. How do LGBTQ+ memoirs often serve young people who are exploring their identities?
A) By providing fictional role models
B) By offering real stories and representation that may be missing in their lives
C) By focusing only on historical events
D) By avoiding any mention of media or culture
5. What ethical dilemma is highlighted in the chapter regarding the portrayal of others in LGBTQ+ memoirs?
A) Whether to use real names or pseudonyms
B) Whether to include photographs
C) How to balance honest storytelling with the privacy and feelings of loved ones
D) How to avoid discussing activism
How do LGBTQ+ memoirs function as both personal narratives and tools for activism or community building?
In what ways does the overemphasis on trauma in LGBTQ+ memoirs affect both queer youth and the broader public’s understanding of queer lives?
Discuss the ethical challenges memoirists face when writing about family members, partners, or others who may not want to be included in their stories.
How has the rise of digital platforms (blogs, YouTube, social media) changed the diversity and accessibility of LGBTQ+ life writing?
What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of memoirs that focus on “universal” queer experiences versus those that highlight unique, intersectional identities?
Multiple-Choice Questions - Answers
1. C) Widespread homo- and transphobia made public sharing risky or impossible.
2. A) The genre glamorizes trauma and overemphasizes suffering.
3. D) It is impossible to write for one audience or purpose without leaving out important perspectives.
4. B) By offering real stories and representation that may be missing in their lives
5. C) How to balance honest storytelling with the privacy and feelings of loved ones
