Pride, Community, and Why Own-Voice Stories Matter

I love meeting readers at Pride events. Don’t get me wrong—as an autistic person, tabling at events is hard in general. It is sensory and socially overwhelming. There are some events that I come home wondering why I even bothered. These are the times when I hear comments about how weird what I write is, or even feel unsafe.

Pride is different. I get to spend all day talking to people to whom I do not have to explain myself. These people do not have to explain themselves to me either. This is the community that I write for—queer and neurodiverse. I met both at Pride.

This past weekend, I had so many amazing experiences. One was an in-depth conversation about the nature of autistic representation in fiction. This is something I will write more about in the future, when I have the time to put my thoughts down properly on the page. I have a lot of thoughts. However, the general topics include being allowed to tell our stories, and that our stories do not need to be tragic.

Tales of tragedy were a common topic last weekend, regardless of identity. People want autistic, trans, and queer representation that does not tell them they have to hate themselves. This seems like a simple request, but finding rep like this is hard. It is even harder for identities that are not talked about as often.

I write about aromantic and asexual identities in science fiction and fantasy. You would think that it would be easy to find aro/ace representation outside of romance—it is not. There are aro/ace individuals who love reading about romance. That is fantastic. However, not all of us are as thrilled with that.

When I realized I was aromantic, it was the most freeing experience … even more so than my autistic diagnosis or my non-binary and asexual identities. I tried so hard to make romance work, and I failed so hard. I couldn’t realize what was wrong with me. To know that there was nothing wrong with me, that I am just different, and that I never had to pretend again—it is a relief to this day. To see aro/ace recommendation lists that are entirely romance books breaks a part of my soul. I know, dramatic … but honest.

This isn’t to knock those books. Every identity exists on a spectrum. I prefer to write about relationships beyond romance and sexuality. Even my characters who have relationships are not romantic. They are more the realities of everyday life. Because those stories need to be told as well.

Being able to share these books with other aro and ace individuals is priceless.

My author tagline is “Find yourself in fiction” because I believe that autistic, non-binary, trans, aromantic, asexual, and queer individuals deserve to see ourselves on the page. I know how excited I am to find other authors who write about these identities. It is why I share recommendations with you all. It isn’t enough to have just one person telling our stories. There is such intersectionality in our communities that we need a variety of voices. People who have their own lived experience are loudly putting these identities on the page.

Some part of me hopes people pick up my books and better understand identities that are not their own. I want neurotypical, cis, and straight people to read my books. I want our identities to be normalized to stop us from being political targets. I aim for people to understand that autistic people become adults, that trans people just want to live our lives, and that being aro/ace is just a different way to experience human connection.

Mostly, though, I write for people within these identities. Or people exploring these parts of their identity. I do not write light and fluffy books—even my cozy paranormal mystery series—but my characters do not hate their own identity. It is part of them. Their identity shows on the page in terms of exploration, behaviors, and acknowledgement—but not self-hate. We get enough of that from authors writing about preconceived notions of us.

This is why own-voice books are so important.