Pride Month is back, and it’s time to celebrate the beautiful diversity of the people of the LGBTQ+ community!
Over the last few decades, the LGBTQ+ community has made significant progress in legitimizing their cultural significance in the literary world. A 2022 report from NPD BookScan shows that print book sales of U.S. LGBTQ+ fiction are continuing to surge in the adult, children’s, and YA categories, and in 2021, sales reached 5 million units, more than double than in 2020!
There is no question that representation of the LGBTQ+ community is a vital asset to the writing community, and we want to celebrate their contributions by examining one of their most notable symbols; the rainbow flag!
The LGBTQ+ Rainbow Flag
In 1978, gay rights activist Harvey Milk asked Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and a drag queen, to design a symbol of pride for the gay community to promote their cause and have a unifying symbol for the many diverse cultures that are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
When asked later in an interview, Baker said, “Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie. A flag really fit that mission, because that’s a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, ‘This is who I am!’” Viewing rainbows as natural flags found in the sky, he adopted eight colors for the stripes, with each color representing a specific aspect of gay life; pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit.
Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag
After a number of redesigns, a new flag was commissioned in 2021 to fully represent the growing diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. Called the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, it was created by Valentino Vecchietti of the UK’s Intersex Equality Rights organization and is now universally recognized as the flag that represents the larger LGBTQ+ community.
The new flag was designed to represent the many groups of people fighting for inclusivity within their community, incorporating the original colors of the pride flag and adding six more colors. Along with the original six colors, it now sports a chevron with colors to represent the marginalized LGBTQ+ communities of color, HIV/AIDS patients, and trans and non-binary persons. A purple circle on a yellow background is representative of the belief that all people, regardless of sexual orientation, are unbroken, whole, and have the right to make decisions about their own bodies.
The evolution of the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag is a visual record of the gay pride movement as well as the community’s growing diversity and its goal of inclusivity. We salute all those who fight for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community and wish them a great Pride Week as they celebrate the advances they’ve made in being seen!
The LGBTQ+ writing community is thriving in 2024, and Chanticleer is proud of the many great authors we get to work with throughout the year!
We invite you to take a look at the work of just a few of the amazing authors we’ve worked with and their writing that touches on the LGBTQ+ community!
ABOMINATION CHILD
By Erika Shepard
Abomination Child is a coming-of-age novel, a piece of historical fiction, and a lesson to us all. Erika Shepard tells the story of Brianna, a young girl growing up in Missouri during the 1960s, struggling to be accepted.
Within her community, Brianna is seen on the outside as a boy, and everyone knows her as Brian. She confides in her older sister Liz, who supports her and helps her face a world that doesn’t understand. Spanning many years, Abomination Child follows Brianna’s journey of survival, hoping that one day she’ll be able to live freely as herself.
Brianna’s – known then as Brian – troubles start after his father learns that he dressed in girl’s clothes at a school Halloween dance. Deeply conservative and religious, Brian’s father hits him for what he believes is an abominable perversion caused by the Devil. For Brian, it’s as simple as knowing he is really a girl, a girl named Brianna.
SHE HAD BEEN A TOMBOY
By Sandra Bowman
She Had Been a Tomboy: Raising a Transgender Child, a Mother’s Journey by Sandra Bowman is a deeply revealing memoir about a protective mother who watches her sensitive child grow into someone who is familiar, yet new.
This moving narrative tells the story of her two children: how they were born and how they grew. She Had Been a Tomboy hops from one period of the children’s lives to another, showing how the elder child matures and how the female within slowly blooms into being, little by little revealing herself.
But the long journey to realization and understanding of self was not easy, nor was it gentle.
THE MOONSTONE GIRLS
By Brooke Skipstone
In The Moonstone Girls, award-winning author Brooke Skipstone unravels a story about seventeen-year-old Tracy Franks. Tracy has a secret that in 1968 could have deadly consequences. You see, Tracy is gay.
In her hometown of San Antonio, Tracy is forced to hide behind the “girl next door” facade, never allowing her true identity to emerge. Her only confidante is her brother, Spencer. He understands her turmoil exactly because Spencer is also gay.
Neither teenager feels free to talk about their true feelings with their family, especially their father, Art. Art constantly scolds his son for his feminine behavior, his desire to become a pianist instead of joining the military. Though he also shows his displeasure with Tracy, she, unlike her brother, fights back, but only in the privacy of their home.
WALTZING A TWO-STEP
By Dan Juday
Dan Juday’s memoir Waltzing A Two-Step is a humble and compassionate look at his formative years.
Born a few years after the second world war, Dan experiences a peaceful and happy childhood in rural Indiana, moving frequently before the family settles on a rural area of land named Springwood in Clinton County, Indiana. The Juday family were devout Catholics and enrolled Dan and his siblings in Catholic schools until the family moved to Springwood. Public school became the only option for the siblings. There Dan does his best to fit in but his status as a minority Catholic in a mostly Protestant community in the 1950s brings its own challenges.
For Dan, his struggles don’t stop there.
UNANIMITY: Spiral Worlds Book 1
By Alexandra Almeida
Alexandra Almeida probes the philosophical and ethical depths of wealth, technology, pop culture, and religion in a world ravaged by global warming through her sci-fi adventure,Unanimity: Spiral Worlds #1.
Readers will delight in the gradual reveal of both the technology within the story and the dramatic history between many of those involved with the creation and evolution of that technology.
Tom, a screenwriter, works with Harry, the genius inventor of the world’s most popular AI (artificial intelligence) app, to create a simulation that will nudge people toward acting morally.
UNSIGHTLY BULGES (A Trailer Park Princess Cozy Mystery, Book 2)
By Kim Hunt Harris
Salem Grimes has a lot of goals – lose more weight than her friend Trisha, find a dress for the upcoming date she doesn’t really want to go on, and keep her dog, Stump, from throwing up on the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, solving a murder (again) isn’t on her to-do list, but Salem is thrown into another mystery completely against her will when she sees a body in a Sonic dumpster.
When her BFF Viv, an 80-ish firecracker of a woman with a penchant for expensive shoes, hears about it, she can’t wait to get started cracking the case. After all, she and Viv have already solved one mystery, and Viv is convinced their unofficial PI firm, Discreet Investigations, can find the murderer. But the ladies quickly realize they have their work cut out for them when the victim is identified as CJ Hardin, golden boy physician and local Hope for Homes organizer who recently “came out” in a very public way and stirred up a huge controversy in Lubbock, Texas.
Controversy and theories swirl since CJ was thought to have run off days earlier with the $200K in funds from a recent Hope for Homes fundraising effort. When the murder is labeled a hate crime, Salem, Viv, and their newest partner Dale find themselves in some scary situations, including an altercation with Rambo the fighting rooster. Between being laughed at by one hot police detective she’s had crushed on since fourth grade, fighting her urge to drink herself “cool” in order to keep from throat-punching Dale, Salem has to find a killer before the community implodes.
We would like to wish all the people of the LGBTQ+ community, and those who love and care for them, a very Happy Pride Week!
Thank you for joining us in celebrating the people of the LGBTQ+ community!
Do you have a LGBTQ+ themed book that deserves to be discovered? You can always submit your book for an Editorial Review with Chanticleer!
Lucy Carol – 
Salem Grimes has a lot of goals – lose more weight than her friend Trisha, find a dress for the upcoming date she doesn’t really want to go on, and keep her dog, Stump, from throwing up on the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, solving a murder (again) isn’t on her to-do list, but Salem is thrown into another mystery completely against her will when she sees a body in a Sonic dumpster.
