The Publeconomist

RedRoom.com is an online social networking community for writers, publishers, editors, etc., but it’s mainly for writers who want to share their work with others. Writers maintain an online presence through blog posts, articles, or even uploading a book or short story. It’s a pretty cool site!

inGroup Press has an account on RedRoom, and I’ve lately been posting on our RedRoom Blog. After I posted our submissions guidelines as a blog post, I received a strange comment:

“mnn………how about the writings of a regular person in a regular life with some dips and some highs, some light and darkness but always, always reality?”

I’ll admit, when I first saw this I was slightly stunned. Maybe our submissions guidelines are worded differently than many other publishing companies, but the guidelines don’t ask for material that’s unnatural or that isn’t real. Was this writer mocking me? By making an account on RedRoom, was I reaching out to a group of writers who aren’t ideologically in line with inGroup?

I kindly explained that we’re an LGBT publishing company, and avoided the use of that dangerous word regular. I explained to this writer that we publish LGBT material, and can’t be everything to everyone, otherwise we’ll lose touch with our market. And, it’s still hard for LGBT voices to be heard in the mainstream, so I like to think that I can help LGBT writers who may be turned away by other publishing companies.

And then the reply came, in a single sentence: what does LGBT mean?

Of course my submissions guidelines looked strange! I don’t know if I was more shocked that this writer didn’t know what LGBT stood for, or disappointed that I’d grown so close to the term that I never recognized the need to expand the acronym. Needless to say, our submissions page now expands the acronym within the first sentence.

I’m not sure why I was so surprised that a native English speaker had never heard the term “LGBT” before. I’m constantly exposed to this term, every single day, and I had forgotten how many people have absolutely no exposure to “LGBT.”

I commented back to the writer, and explained more about what LGBT meant, and why we’re a LGBT publishing company. I never got a response, but at least I felt better, knowing I’d explained the acronym to someone. And more importantly, the reasons why it’s important to represent and publish this material. It’s unhelpful when people like Tom Ford say that they don’t consider themselves gay, because they don’t like labels. Gay isn’t a label, rather, it’s a word, with powerful implications and history. For someone like Tom Ford, his sexual identity and practice might be protected from social impediments because of his stature, celebrity, and wealth. But what about gay couples in Rhode Island who were hurt by the awful veto this week by the state’s governor?

Whether or not I’m protected from political and social consequences of being gay, I shouldn’t pretend like sexual identity doesn’t matter. I’m proud that I’m gay, and that I’m doing things to help LGBT people. As long as millions of dollars are being spent by organizations like Focus on the Family to seize our rights, then I will call myself gay. And I ask that any census please count me as a gay man, living with another gay man in a same-sex partner household. By refusing to associate ourselves with words that we consider to be labels, we’re simply making ourselves invisible at a time when LGBT people in our country are still fighting for rights and acceptance.

Not to mention, it’s a slap in the face to the people who’ve spent their lives achieving us these rights. If you’re inherently gay, then acknowledge it. It doesn’t mean you have to tell everyone, or anyone. But if you’re Tom Ford and an interviewer asks you whether or not you’re a gay man, then just say you are. It doesn’t take that much effort. And it may avoid an unfortunate situation where lots of your young fans will begin to separate themselves from the larger LGBT movement.

Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday.

Anthony DiFiore, Publisher