I swear every freaking year these jackasses come up with the most brain dead crap imaginable.
I am talking about the “Lame Duh!” Literary Foundation & Eyeliner you remember them with their Pioneer Award right?
Anyway, here is an excerpt from their new award entry guidelines…
The Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) seeks to elevate the status of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.
As such, it should be noted that the Lambda Literary Awards are based principally on the LGBT content, the gender orientation/identity of the author, and the literary merit of the work.
ELEVATE! damn, last time I heard something so “elevating” some perfume soaked drunk bitch bar queen sneered “breeder” at a friend of mine who he thought was straight. She was a lesbian, but that was beside the point. There is nothing “elevating” about a literary award organization suddenly promoting heterophobia. These are not “gay people” they are pathetic assholes whom I in no way want representing me or my community.
The historical point of this award has been to recognize “excellence” in “the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature”. The book was important not the sexual orientation of the author who happened to write it. This whole thing seems wrapped up in that old chestnut argument that a gay writer writes a more “authentic” gay story. Which is all a buncha bull. I would love to hear someone say a gay writer has no business writing a straight character or women have no business writing a male character. You don’t understand me!
What this new wording says to me is gay people can’t “cut it” in the “real literary world” because I guess their gayness permeates their writing so Lambda Literary’s main purpose now is to mindlessly cheer lead heterophobia so us poor unappreciated gay folks can fight the system or whatever. I wonder how they plan to authenticate the writers sexuality? Who gives the best blow job?
I expect a full apology from these fucktards should be in the works soon after they get some bad press for this.
I’m gonna say a bad bad thing… I’m gonna say it! They are so fucking ghey.
Tags: Lambda Literary Foundation, Wank
veinglory wrote,
What an idiot move.
Link | September 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
erastes wrote,
Thank you, Teddypig – I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought she was going mad.
As I said on my blog. It’s a book award. Not a “pat on the back for being gay” award. The fact that it’s self-submitting has always bothered me. I’m fairly sure you can’t self-submit to the Man Booker (hey, I could be wrong, here) but, like the Eppies, and others, I find that they are just awards which create a lot of funds, and I don’t know what happens to those funds. If they were industry led, they’d be a hell of lot harder to crack, but they’d be more impartial? I don’t know. Maybe not.
Positive discrimination is not non-discrimination. I’m quite happy for this discrimination to stand as long as no preference is given to non-gay writers for all the other awards. Surely to god, no-one wants that. After the Eppies taking a good stand this year, this seems like another step back.
The thing is that how do they KNOW who is gay and who is straight, who is trangendered, who identifies as Queer, who is bisexual? If I say I’m bisexual, what’s the criteria for that? Are they going to check equipment like the athletics association? Get references from former bed mates? I don’t, in my bio, say “Erastes is a bisexual author” – and in fact my own publisher has labelled me as straight – god alone where they got that from – making assumptions again, I supposed. But not all gay or lesbian authors put that on their bios, either. What this smacks of, with these new guidelines is that the committe say “ok – we know for sure this guy is gay, and we don’t know about this guy, and this is a woman, so the gay guy wins.” I’m sure this isn’t what actually happens, but that’s the impression they are giving.
I’ll be writing to the awards and I’ll keep you posted as to what they say, but I wanted to say, again, thank you. Your views are really important.
Sorry for going on quite so much.
Erastes
Link | September 17th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
The thing is that how do they KNOW who is gay and who is straight, who is trangendered, who identifies as Queer, who is bisexual? If I say I’m bisexual, what’s the criteria for that?
That is just it! It’s creating this “celebrity thing” around the author, not the writing. It’s saying they are awarding “who” you are not because you can “write something” that would ever actually sell or be read.
Is LLF pissed off about Brokeback Mountain?
I don’t get it but LLA has always struck me as suspect as I have shown before and built around favoritism which this whole wording cements in stone.
Link | September 17th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Donna wrote,
Is it bad that I now want to enter just so I can put “gender: female” and “sexual orientation: I like dick and Scarlett Johansson” on the entry form?
Link | September 17th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
K. Z. Snow wrote,
I wonder if authors will also be disqualified for writing outside their orientation. Like, do lesbian writers of m/m fiction make the committee’s heads explode, because there’s an “authenticity of experience” conundrum built into lovers-of-women writing about lovers-of-men?
You know, piss on it. That’s my attitude toward RWA as well. This whole “And the prize goes to…” game has always struck me as little more than a revenue generator for the organizations running these contests. It’s readers whose opinions ultimately count, and I’m willing to bet the vast majority of readers either don’t know or don’t care about any industry awards.
Link | September 17th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Emilie wrote,
So, essentially, the Foundation is making itself more and more ghettoized? Sure, I get awarding people on literary merit, and whether the book has GLBT content. But asking the author for a sexual orientation/identity check is ridiculous. It it they’re worried that women could write as well as men, and not just in the lesbian categories?
Why would they feel so threatened? There are a number of GLBT writers whose work is internationally recognized. Why would they feel they’re not on the same playing field with everyone else?
Link | September 17th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
veinglory wrote,
The thing is I can see having an award for GLBT writers, or an award for GLBT writing–but specificying both seems rather narrow especially as they never did it before.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 8:52 am
TeddyPig wrote,
The thing is Emily that GLBT writing is easy to define because that’s just the subject matter.
Cut and dry, is it in the story or not?
The writers sexuality is a whole different matter.
I can hear the infighting and backstabbing whisper campaigns going on already. She’s not a “real” lesbian, she’s bi so she should not get that award. This is becoming about who you are and who you know and who you blow, not what you write or how well you write it.
They are a private group and as I have stated many times before private groups can recognize who and what they want. Despite how ignorant they look like to anyone with a knowledge or respect for good writing.
My problem is they repeatedly imply they represent the “gay community” which is where they cross the line.
On that note I find any promotion of entry criteria that does not provide a level playing field “for all” no matter who or what you are as insulting and not in line with the all inclusive political nature of the gay community.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Cat Grant wrote,
I downloaded the actual entry form, and it doesn’t ask authors to self-identify. So I’m puzzled as to why they included that clause in the rules about the author’s sexual orientation.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Emilie wrote,
God knows there’s already enough infighting about what a “real” lesbian is. I didn’t realize the Foundation was a private group — I thought it was a more general sort of thing.
A number of m/m romance authors are bisexual women. A few m/m writers say in their bios that they feel at least kind of transgendered. So would they qualify to compete or not? That’s just another reason why I don’t see how that rule could possibly be enforced.
Let us know if you hear more about it.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
Cat,
They will let anyone enter and GIVE THEM MONEY but I think you are wasting that money because of the fact it says in writing that CERTAIN people will get preference. They are stating this is a prejudiced award only given to a select group.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Selah March » Blog Archive » A lynching in the making. wrote,
[...] The Lambda Literary Foundation has changed the guidelines for the Lambda Literary Reward to reflect … [...]
Link | September 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Nicola Griffith wrote,
Katherine V. Forrest, the new interim President of the LLF Board of Trustees, has written a letter clarifying the 2009 Lambda Literary Award guidelines. I’ve posted it on my blog:
http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2009/09/lambda-literary-award-guidelines.html
Link | September 25th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Mike wrote,
Nail. Head. Hit.
I’m glad there’s gays like you out there, i know some scum who would probably call you a homophobe for making this post.
Link | October 14th, 2009 at 7:13 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Mike I am so used to it.
What is really amusing is that many of those people who call me homophobic are straight.
Amazing how they feel they know more about being a gay man than I do.
Link | October 14th, 2009 at 7:40 am
adam smith wrote,
I hate that word “Breeder”. It’d be like me going up to someone Gay and calling them a “Fag” or whatever is the insult flavor of the week. I’ve had several Gay roommates call me a breeder before and you know what, pushing past the insult, if there weren’t a few of us breeders out here, the human race would die in one generation. Mind you, I would have to include anyone who is impregnated in the breeder category since Lesbian, Bisexual, or Straight, if you’re getting pregnant, you’re breeding.
But why would anyone want to alienate a group of people who aren’t against them in any way? I mean if it’s in jest, fine, no worries, I can shoot back “Queer!” or something like that. But if it’s meant to be mean, that’s just wrong. I don’t walk up to random Gay people and insult them based on what I think their sexual preferences may be. I really don’t care. I don’t think one group is better or worse than any other group.
Link | March 12th, 2011 at 10:14 am