“What a Cross-Dressing Lady Knight Taught Me About Gender and Sexuality”
“My freshman year at Saint Francis began in the fall of 1999, a time when there were very few YA novels about gay teens. But even if more had existed, I would have been too afraid to read them: afraid both to be seen with these books, and afraid to identify with their main characters. The Song of the Lioness series let me think about the experience of being closeted in a way that was safely distanced from my real life. In Alanna, I found a heroine who thrives despite her inability to come out, and despite the psychological costs of remaining in the closet.
The novels also held another truth, one I wouldn’t be able to fully register for another few years: how important it is to fight back against all those voices — both outward and inward — that claim that being either female or effeminate is disgusting and shameful.”
