The Importance of Gender in the Marionettes Saga

My friend and I were once walking down the Great Hill of Despair (AKA, our high school was built into the hills, and her mother parked down at the bottom because traffic was always atrocious -- which often meant a long walk in unbearable chaparral heat). She had been reading the first iteration of the Marionettes Saga, and she asked me in her signature forthcoming way, "Is Yuuhi gay?"

I was all a-stutter then, because he wasn't gay. He had tendencies that weren't the norm for traditional masculinity, but I didn't know how to argue this when I was only seventeen and Tumblr didn't exist yet. How could I defend something I didn't yet understand?

The second iteration provided a more profound Yuuhi, and I say "profound" because he was twice as much himself, freer about his interests and what he liked. He still wasn't gay. I still couldn't explain it.

Even as I was writing the current iteration of the first book, I still didn't quite understand it, and I had pretty much given up trying. But after Tumblr happened in my life, I finally understood. A friend of ours, and now one of our critique partners, read the near-final draft of Dance in Shadow and Whisper, and she was also just as frank when she asked, "Is Yuuhi gay?"

By this point, I could finally explain him. FINALLY. Not once had I ever tried to change him (he certainly wouldn't let me), but now I was in the right place to say, "No. He's gender fluid."

In traditional YA, especially of the urban fantasy and paranormal romance kind, the love interest(s) tend to hit the usual tropes when it comes to masculinity and sexuality. Yuuhi doesn't. He dresses nicely and could predict for you what will be "in style" for the upcoming season, and he knows how to balance a silhouette in his fashion doodles. He enjoys shopping and he could put on a mean dress and rock some mascara.

But that doesn't make him gay.

(Yes, he's bisexual -- he knows what he likes and he's 100% open about it, but it's safer to say that he likes everything.)

It took me a long time to understand that gender identification does not equal sexual orientation. Once I finally got to this point, I could confidently explain why he is the way he is. He knew it all along, which was why he never let me change him -- he just had to wait for me to catch up.

Most of the characters in both the Marionettes and Monsters series don't have rigid sexual orientation, that part was easy to figure out. The harder part was finding out how they saw themselves when it came to the signs on public bathrooms that marked the women's and the men's.

Kali was my guide in the first book in helping me understand how she identified her gender. Her sister acts as her sole feminine role model throughout her life, and while Kali emulates her, she's also self-conscious about how she doesn't look quite like her sister, and she gets it into her head that dresses don't look the way dresses should on her body.

Kali does a lot of physical training and toning, and it shows on her body. Her sister, however, is slender and more like what Kali thinks is supposed to be feminine. So, when she dons a dress, she feels like she's playing dress-up. That doesn't mean she doesn't like to wear dresses, but it does mean that she isn't confident in the way she looks in dresses.

I love this part of Kali, and it gets tackled throughout the later books. She has to find out that there is more than one kind of beautiful. It's definitely a message that I needed to hear in high school. I wished I'd had.

I'm stoked that the inclusiveness of gay characters is starting to gain traction, what with gay characters getting less side treatment and also dying less, but the theme of gender is often largely ignored in mainstream YA fiction. I can't tell you how many times I picked up an UF/PR book hoping to find a gay main character, but I can tell you I haven't yet picked up an UF/PR book thinking I might find a gender fluid main character.

At least I get to write about them.