Girl Books And Boy Books

 Note: this is partially from a Tumblr post yesterday that I’ve since added to.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with how, when I go to the library, the fiction seems to be divided up into “girl books” and “boy books”, and I don’t think it’s that this is at all new but that there are  many more “girl books” now released that it’s become more noticeable. The “boy books” are written by men with practiced blindness do not acknowledge gender as a factor in them at all as gender is dictated by society as Not The Purview of Men And They Are Therefore Exempt From Any Understanding Lest Anyone Think Them Kinda Faggy, and the “girl books” are entirely about how women are treated badly in Society Because They Are Women And Not Men, And This Is The Only Gender Conflict That Matters. I have read much of both types of books — because they’re like 95% of all books — and find neither relatable at all. I am sick of both of them and they seem to take up the entirety of the bookstore and once I understood this it’s nearly destroyed my love of reading. Every single book I pick up is about a totally alien planet inhabited by complete strangers who find my very existence offensive to their sense of reality. And this is my real life, too, and it’s why I still try to write despite the fact that I struggle to read so much.

And I can’t say it’s because I only desire to read books about myself and people exactly like me, because, again, nearly all I’ve read has been either girl or boy books. A decent amount of my reading list has been romance novels because it’s one of the only genres out there where men can have genders and this can be good, which is one of my major complaints of “girl books” otherwise — and it’s bizarre that romance novels are constantly belittled and segregated into “wish fulfillment” whereas the woman-solidarity endemic to “darker” stories is equally as fantastical as men with genders existing and that possibly being good. 

And you’d think that with so many queer books coming out now I’d be more engaged but I’m not, because so often it’s used as an excuse to further segregate boyness and girlness in books rather than cross any barriers. And I do feel like there are huge issues with a lot of the transmasculine books that have been published, but mostly in that they’re entirely presented in a way that’s palatable to the public, and it’s maybe not a them problem but a me problem in how it’s even more painful to read a book that’s supposed to be ‘like me’ only to realize it’s not ‘like me’ at all and it’s merely ‘about me’ except it’s not accurate to me, specifically, at all. 

I continue to write but unfortunately so much of what I read has gone into classics and that makes me feel unable to engage at all with traditional publishing and the industry. I’d like to read other things but somehow it’s easier to read things that you know are steeped in metaphor you can reinterpret rather than… girl books and boy books.