When the Trans March Ends Will the Children’s Books Keep Marching On?

by Maya Gonzalez

My family attended the San Francisco Trans March last week. In its 20th year, it is one of the largest and oldest annual events of its kind. Thousands of people filled Dolores Park and then the streets for hours. Glorious diversity pouring in from every direction! Gender EVERYTHING! The full continuum. The Trans March always calms me. For a brief moment, the world feels like a hot bath. My bones relax. I feel myself rest down into the water, cupped and contained in comfort. I can expand and just be. Safe and sound.

 

SF Trans March, 2023

People come from all over the SF Bay Area, the state, the country, even the world for that feeling. This year there was even a contingent of 3rd gender people who traveled all the way from India to perform on the stage.

Here, everything that makes you "weird or unwanted" in the "real world" is exactly what makes you valuable and necessary in this one. It's not just queer space. It's queer/TRANS space. OUTside. Under the sky and trees. In view of the city and the bay. It felt local and global.

I kept laughing with my partner because everywhere we turned we saw people who reminded us of the kids in our books and card deck. There's Gia! Hey Harvey! Hola Quetzal!

spread from our banned picture book, They, She, He easy as ABC

We intentionally created characters to be reflections of our community and make this powerful afternoon more accessible to kids. We wanted our materials to pass on what it feels like to be here--free from the constant pressure to conform , free to just BE, surrounded by community and support...As if the world was yours and you can relax all the way down into who you are. Besides awesome mental health benefits, there's also the added gift that freeing ourselves from gender oppression conveniently aligns humanity with the vast gender diversity reflected in nature. (Gender Wheel) Win, win, win!

spread from our banned picture book, They, She, He easy as ABC

Needless to say it felt good to be at the SF Trans March. It's been a super challenging year for Queer, Trans, Intersex people. And like a lot of folks our small press was hit hard with book bans and gag orders. In fact, I was heavily targeted in conservative media again earlier this month because someone used my work in a school. Looking around at everybody was healing, even revitalizing as I realized I was deep in community. As a parent I felt peace watching my kid in this space and their comfort with their self. 

 

 

Now, if the story ended there with a big rainbow bow wouldn't that be a lovely Pride gift?

 

....But the story doesn’t end there.

 

The park where the Trans March takes place is in a neighborhood that has been heavily gentrified over the last many years. The people who mostly populate the park have changed. For example, Mark Zuckerberg lived a block over until just last year. So on this magical day, sitting across from the park at a local cafe, was a group of kids with an adult enjoying their freshly squeezed juices. Locals? Most likely.

These folks live in an adjacent world. One in which openly pointing and laughing at people in the Trans March is acceptable. While I can understand that the adult may have been surprised, and quite possibly overwhelmed *thousands of queer/TRANS people and their families and allies marching is a powerful sight to behold!* it doesn't compensate for looking uninformed and ultimately inhumane. Passing that kind of behavior on to kids is getting tired. As adults we all have a few horror stories, but there were kids in the March, including our own.

My thoughts raced to the classroom, the playground. We use children's books as our tool of choice for change. Are they enough? In the face of the larger culture? Parents? Generations of discrimination? Everything?

Over the last 20 years I have personally watched the Trans March grow into the thousands.

 

Freeing gender isn't just the future for queerness, it's the future to creating a new world for all of us.  Our society is based on gender oppression and gender privilege. It's not about pronouns and definitions. We need to dive in and take the time to heal the deeper issues. It's time we understand that body and gender diversity are a necessary part of all realms of nature and as such should be treated respectfully or at the very least neutrally. It will take decades to undo the false education we are still giving our kids. 

Can children's books address something so deeply embedded in our culture? I'll be honest, I ultimately want to be effective. I constantly question what is the best method and how do I create lasting change? Children’s books?

 

On the walk home we had to push through our classic afternoon winds. Strong and persistent. The Trans March was veering right, heading downtown to the site of Compton Cafeteria and the first queerTRANS uprising in the US. Our family was veering left to go home after a long day. We could still hear thousands chanting and drumming behind us.

 

Pushing along in the wind my kid turned to me rather thoughtfully and said, "We're not asking for freedom. We ARE freedom."

 

I paused. That hot bath moment returned. That sense of self relaxing down into belonging. Being.
"Yes." I said, warming up against the cold wind.

Yes.

 

As we walked home I thought about the book I’m working on right now. The Gender and Infinity Book for Kids. It takes the gender conversation deeper in a kid friendly way because it positions kids’ inherent diversity within the context of nature and directly addresses the pressure kids experience to conform to stereotypical gender roles.

 

My kid continued to repeat the words like they were memorizing a secret spell. "We’re not asking for freedom. We ARE freedom." 

 

Just before we got home they said they should make a kids’ book about it. I couldn’t agree more.

 

Happy Pride month! Hope you got a moment to relax into your fabulous self.

Maya Gonzalez is an award-winning children’s book artist, author, activist and progressive educator. Maya's work addresses systemic inequity in relation to race/ethnicity, sexism and cissexism using children’s books as radical agents of change and healing, both personally and culturally. Maya co-founded Reflection Press, a POC, queer and trans owned independent publishing house that uses holistic, nature-based, and anti-oppression frameworks in their books and materials for kids and grown-ups. Maya is also the creator of the Gender Wheel, a tool to express the dynamic, infinite and inclusive reality of gender, and provides lectures and workshops to educators, parents and caregivers. 

Website: www.mayagonzalez.com
Instagram: @mzmayagonzalez and @genderwheel

 

60 Seconds in the Banned Books Big Chair... What Would You Say?

I'm just back from the American Library Association 2023 Annual Conference in Chicago, where I had the opportunity to be recorded in the very big chair for Banned Books week (that's happening in the fall, October 1-7, 2023.)

The chair was seriously big. I'm 6 feet 4 inches tall, and my feet didn't even touch the floor!

There was a line of librarians and other conference attendees taking turns recording their videos, and counters filled with banned books (classics and new favorites) for folks to choose from.

I'd signed up for a spot to talk about my nonfiction book for readers age 11 and up, No Way, They Were Gay? (Zest Books/Lerner) as it's gotten challenged and banned and called obscene just for sharing the real history and primary sources about men who loved men, women who loved women, people who loved without regard to gender, and people who lived outside the gender binary, across time and around our world.

"Do you know the passage you're going to read?" I was asked by the volunteer running things after I signed the release form.

"How much time do I have?" I asked - I hadn't seen anyone else's being recorded. It was a fifteen minute time slot, so I was thinking I'd have time to talk about the book and read a few pages.

"Between thirty seconds and one minute would be ideal." The volunteer told me.

One minute.

Sixty seconds.

So I didn't read from my book. I held it up, explained what it was, and spoke from my heart about how it was the kind of book that would have changed my life if I'd read it as a young gay kid... and how I hoped it would be available for young people today and tomorrow to read and be empowered by the real history of Queer people existing throughout time and around our world.

And I added that there's no such thing as a silent ally, and we all need to speak up and out against books being banned. Because books can change hearts. And if we all stand up together, we can change the world for the better.

I invite you to think about what you would say if you had 60 seconds to share about why you're against banning books.

The answer's important, as are you.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

The Power of Pronouns is NOT in the Asking

One Book's Mission to Defy the Status Quo

by Maya Gonzalez

Everything changes when you become a parent. All your beliefs and ideals come to call, along with memories of your own childhood. It can be a lot to navigate a new baby on top of all the gender assumptions that start piling on. This can be especially challenging if you’re a queer/trans parent.

“He’s a little man, she’s a pretty princess,” can be overwhelming on so many levels.

Those first few years my partner and I did our best, but by the time our kid turned 4, we had to get real for real.

Gender policing was coming in hot and heavy. We were seeing kids that we had known for years on the playground and in classes suddenly shutting down and adopting “appropriate gender roles.”

It was all a bit mind boggling, especially in San Francisco’s Castro district, a historically gay neighborhood. If it was happening here, how could we meet the incoming ocean of assumptions and stereotypes that lie beyond our city!?!? What’s more, how could we talk to our kid about it?!? 

My partner started using pronouns to interrupt the constant stereotypical gender messaging our kid was being served. For example, he would reference 6 different people from feminine to masculine who all used the same pronoun. Rigid ideas about “SHE wears this and looks like this” and “HE wears this and looks like this” started to melt away. It was a constant practice, but without a lot of complicated talk, our kid deepened their understanding of how to treat a person like a person without gender overlays. 

 

Original concept sketch by Matthew (with a little help from our then 4 year old)

In 2017, we published the first gender-inclusive pronoun book for kids, They She He Me: Free to Be!. We were actively using pronouns to break down assumptions with our kid at home and it was working beautifully. We put a lot of support and language in the back of the book to show adults how to talk to kids about it.

The trick with any book, of course, is how does it translate into the current culture? Home culture is often very different than school, work, grocery store, church or family event culture…

We weren’t encouraging our kid to ask for pronouns. We actively used a formal singular they or a person’s name. Personal pronouns became just that. Something personal. You learned pronouns through getting to know someone personally. More than anything this takes the pressure off of gender nonconforming kids to come forward with their pronoun in pubic or educational settings, either when no one else was, or when other people did and their pronouns did not interrupt gender assumptions.

 

Sample spread from They She He Me: Free to Be!

There’s zero risk when someone shares their pronouns and they fulfill assumptions. There’s potentially nothing but risk when someone shares their pronouns and they do not fulfill assumptions. As Queer/Trans parents of a nonbinary kid, we were acutely aware of this power dynamic and wanted to create a dynamic that could support our kid not just now, but throughout life.

Sample spread from They She He Me: Free to Be!

 

When I realized our pronoun book was often being framed as a way to ask for pronouns, instead of address and break down the underlying stereotypes attached to pronouns, I was concerned.

I appreciate that any kind of progress is being made for Queer/Trans people in our society, but sharing and asking for pronouns is a slippery slope. It lays all the responsibility, pressure and emotional work on Queer/Trans people, including kids, to come forward and often be vulnerable.

Sometimes QueerTrans people are not ready to share their pronoun and are forced to mispronoun themselves and also give others permission to mispronoun them. Sometimes they are still discovering, are in a time of flux or even fluid. Sometimes it’s not a fully safe environment. Sometimes it’s not anyone else’s business. No matter the reason, a one size fits all of asking for pronouns has gotten into place. In fact, it has become a signal of safe space, but it isn’t always, especially for kids. Sharing pronouns doesn’t fundamentally change assumptions. In fact, a person’s assumptions could potentially remain fully intact.

 

In 2019 we took our pronoun kids from the book, gave them names that followed the alphabet and made an educational card deck. We wanted to create more reflection and hoped that actually playing with 52 gender nonconforming kids on upper and lower case letters would make understanding gender diversity even more accessible. A lot of what we learned about gender we share in the mini support deck, including what we call the Pronoun Protocol.

The cards are not about learning more pronouns or the importance of pronouns. Pronouns are how we use language to translate ourselves into the culture. They’re valuable. But if we’re after real respect and lasting change, we have to go deeper. We need to deal with the assumptions that are tied to pronouns, which means being able to see those assumptions.

The Playing with Pronouns card deck helps us notice how we all make assumptions about who people are, even who people get to be based on their body assignment at birth or how they look or act or dress or even what pronoun they use.

For kids it means staying open and curious. For adults it means looking at how we have been taught to categorize people and have discomfort with the unknown. It means looking at ourselves and what gender assumptions we fulfill. Were these conscious choices? Or were we unconsciously corralled into place? Are we doing that to kids?

Lasting change means taking responsibility for the assumptions we’re taught and how we perpetuate them inside and out. Are we ready to let people be exactly who they are without knowing what pronoun they use? Because as much as pronouns matter, what matters more is everyone feeling respected and perfectly free to be exactly who they are all the time no matter what. I want that for my kid. I want that for me. I want that for everybody.

They She He Me: Free to Be! is still twisting and turning through the culture. There are now a plethora of pronoun books. It has been a tornado of a ride and we’re still not done.

All I know at the end of the day is that learning to treat each other like people instead of gender roles is a huge leap into a new world. It’s a lot more than pronouns and I’m ready for it!

Let’s heal deeper and be freer this Pride!

Learn more about the card deck: www.playingwithpronouns.com

Maya Gonzalez is an award-winning children’s book artist, author, activist and progressive educator. Maya's work addresses systemic inequity in relation to race/ethnicity, sexism and cissexism using children’s books as radical agents of change and healing, both personally and culturally. Maya co-founded Reflection Press, a POC, queer and trans owned independent publishing house that uses holistic, nature-based, and anti-oppression frameworks in their books and materials for kids and grown-ups. Maya is also the creator of the Gender Wheel, a tool to express the dynamic, infinite and inclusive reality of gender, and provides lectures and workshops to educators, parents and caregivers. 

 

Website: www.mayagonzalez.com
Instagram: @mzmayagonzalez and @genderwheel

YA Authors on Instagram - 21 cool things you can do (besides say "I have a book out")

So what's an author to do over on Instagram? (Especially if you promised your kid you won't dance on it.)

Shailee Shah over at BookBub did this roundup of 25 Authors Running Fantastic Book Promotions on Instagram that provides a bunch of examples, which inspired this post -- and because all lists are subjective, I've gone ahead and added a bunch of my own favorites, too.

Check out these posts and ideas:

Elise Bryant - recommend other people's books, and model different outfits the characters might wear!

Jennifer Niven - share things you love 

Tahereh Mafi - images from launch week

Alexandra Bracken - playing both sides of a conversation with your character about their story

Kalynn Bayron - countdowns

Danielle Paige - giveaways of other people's books

Sandhya Menon - chatting with readers (with sparkles!)

Dahlia Adler - run a preorder campaign

Ransom Riggs - post inspiration images

Ryan LaSala and Nicola Yoon - share personal reflections on your author journey

Julian Winters and Angie Thomas - celebrate anniversary of a book first meeting its readers (baked goods seem important here)

Brian Selznick - share art that's being auctioned off for a cause

Rainbow Rowell - highlight fan art with your appreciation

Adam Silvera - celebrate your birthday

Laini Taylor - post on your writing process

Libba Bray - comment on absurd news (helps if it fits with the humor of your books!)

Amy Spalding - cover reveal

Federico Erebia - share good news (like starred reviews!)

Daniel Nayeri - offer an excerpt from a new book

Sasha Lamb - share images of your book in the 'wild' 

Elisabeth Acevedo - writing about and on life in a way that makes people want to read your books

This is a bonus -- it's MG, but so cool - Michel Guyon's photo art from the Instagram feed for Archibald Finch

Michel Guyon - create elaborate images of moments from your book (with books) and put yourself in the photos!

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Color Me INFINITE PRIDE

 

Conveying the Deeper Stories Through Art

by Maya Gonzalez

We know that art can heal.  But how do we get there? 

More than just illustrating text, how do we use art to tell the unspoken stories beneath the words? The stories of belonging, of pride, of freedom to be… How do we as creators reach in and express out in a way that kids can feel these deeper messages when they look at our books...

...even if no words are spoken.

In-process art from The Gender and Infinity Book for Kids

 
I lost my voice once. It was gone for years. If I did write something, I would hide it away. It was back when much writing was still done by hand or on a typewriter. I would take the pages of an accidental poem or story and fold it up and slip it between random books on one of my shelves. I couldn’t handle what I was writing then, but I trusted that one day it would be there when I needed it or maybe understood it better.
 
During that time of mostly silence, I invested in my visual vocabulary. I poured my heart into my drawings and honed the language of the nonverbal. My art began as a place to heal and find my own reflection, but the stronger and more embodied I became, the more my art came in service to my community. On the journey, I let go of my own image and focused on conveying my growing experience of belonging. This is what I healed into and this is what I wanted to pass on, especially to LGBTQI+ and BIPOC kids.
 
In my picture book illustrations I use all the things that healed me in real life. One of the most important things is somatic awareness - or awareness of the body. Holding hands, laying in the grass, looking up into the sky…I use physical experience and sensation as a touchstone to show that my characters are in their bodies, connected to others and in their environment. They are present and they belong.

 

Creating Safe Space on the page - art from I Can Be...Me!

In I Can Be...Me! written by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by me, the kids have the freedom to freely explore who they are without stereotypical gender expectations or pressure to conform. To this end of full and free embodiment, the kids have their own space, take up space, make space, create space, and feel their safe space--to be and do everything they want to. More than clothes and activities, their freedom and presence is visible in their body postures, and their spatial relation to the page. Up front, in your face, full circle, all around…

Creating their magical, mythical safe space was probably my favorite part. I still imagine myself there.

Exploring perspective and experience to convey belonging
In-process art from The Gender and Infinity Book for Kids

 

In my upcoming Gender and Infinity Book for Kids, the kids are a part of nature’s massive flow of infinite diversity all around them. I play a lot with perspective and experience. Kids are looking up into the trees, swimming underwater, gazing into the night, dancing amidst all the different elements of the earth. They are in their bodies amidst the lush and colorful flow of nature. Later in the book the imagery goes stark with pink and blue gender boxes on white backgrounds conveying the pressure on kids to conform in comparison to the lushness of nature’s diversity from the opening spreads.
 
I want to create illustrations that plumb the mystery of our being and celebrate our infinite diversity in a way that kids can feel in their hearts beyond words. People say nice things about my work, but I can’t know for sure if I’m catching infinity or conveying real inner freedom and belonging. I’m still working on it. Sometimes the only thing to do is to go nonverbal and play. 

Grab some color pencils and color some Pride with me!
INFINITE PRIDE! Happy pride! 

Download your Infinite Pride coloring page on the Gender Wheel website. 

Learn more about the Infinite Diversity of Nature:

Maya Gonzalez is an award-winning children’s book artist, author, activist and progressive educator. Maya's work addresses systemic inequity in relation to race/ethnicity, sexism and cissexism using children’s books as radical agents of change and healing, both personally and culturally. Maya co-founded Reflection Press, a POC, queer and trans owned independent publishing house that uses holistic, nature-based, and anti-oppression frameworks in their books and materials for kids and grown-ups. Maya is also the creator of the Gender Wheel, a tool to express the dynamic, infinite and inclusive reality of gender, and provides lectures and workshops to educators, parents and caregivers. 

Website: www.mayagonzalez.com
Instagram: @mzmayagonzalez and @genderwheel