“Unbury Your Gays”: Why Queer Joy in YA Needs to be Celebrated
I recall the first time I consciously encountered a queer character: Kurt Hummel in Ryan Murphy’s ‘Glee’ (2009 – 2015), and seeing Kurt’s character navigate the bullying and ridicule he did at school, and develop as a character. I loved his character, and I loved his love story for all of its ups and downs and hypocrisy, how Kurt could be ridiculed for texting a boy he met in a record shop and accused of cheating, but Blaine’s cheating on Kurt was enabled by other characters because Kurt was living his best life in New York. Watching and investing in Kurt’s arc and character, and watching him end up having a loving marriage with his high school boyfriend, Blaine was so fulfilling as a viewer. Even if the means to get them back together seemed outrageous and convoluted.
But while ‘Glee’ was many things such as unrealistic and satirical, they covered many themes and experiences young people may endure, having harrowing episodes about a school shooting, tackling eating disorders, the idea of outing closeted LGBTQ+ characters, bullying, the use of slurs and how you shouldn’t use them at all. But Ryan Murphy never buried his gays. His LGBTQ+ characters lived happy lives, even if they struggled through significant hardships to get to their happily ever afters.
The “Bury Your Gays” trope; the act of killing off queer characters in a story, has been one of the greatest banes of the lives of LGBT people as they seek to find literature where they can see themselves. Watching a character that you identify with being killed off for the character development of the other characters has never been pleasant, but it has a significantly weighted meaning when the character is the token LGBT representation in the story.
In the 2010s, though more so in the first half of the decade, there were very few LGBTQ+ stories that were popular, it is up for debate whether this was due to a lack of known demand, and therefore a lack of stories being published, a lack of marketing, and therefore a lack of sales, or a lack of stories to tell – but I doubt it was the third option.
It is worth noting the significance of Section 28: a UK nationwide act which dictated that local authorities across the UK, should "not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" nor should they "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". This means that in the UK, it was essentially illegal to share media which pertained to queer life and queer joy, and that LGBTQ+ people should not be shown to be “acceptable”. Section 28’s chokehold on the way LGBTQ+ people could share their lives was only lifted in 2003. But the after effects of a lack of positive representation and a lack of knowledge or education demonstrates the need for these stories of joy.
It is worth remembering that it wasn’t until 2014, that gay marriage was legalised in the England, Wales and Scotland, meaning that same-sex couples could get married, and have access to the same rights as a heterosexual couple. This was a huge move at the midpoint of the 2010s, signifying significant change in public opinion. Northern Ireland was behind the rest of the UK’s curve, finally making this change in 2020.
The United States of America was not far behind England in their blanket legalisation of gay marriage, overturning bans on gay marriage in the remaining states which had yet to legalise and recognise gay marriage, in 2015.
It is also worth acknowledging the time it takes for industries to adapt to social change, so while the idea of gay marriage and LGBTQ+ representation was becoming more popular in the mid-2010s, in align with the legalisation of gay marriage, it wasn’t until the late 2010s and early 2020s where a large boom in LGBTQ+ stories being released by new authors in the Young Adult genre. Not only does it take time to write a book, but it takes years from authors signing a publishing deal with houses like Penguin, Hachette or Simon and Schuester, for these stories to find their ways onto shelves.
Since the legalisation of gay marriage, there has been a significant uptake in queer representation in the media. This representation is multifaceted, and has come through real people and their courage to be authentically themselves, irrespective of media scrutiny such as Elliot Page (who came out as a lesbian in 2014, and as a trans man in 2020), Kristen Stewart (who came out as bisexual in 2017) and Jacqueline Wilson (who came out as a lesbian in 2020). But the progress in LGBTQ+ acceptance, normalisation and representation is also clear through the successes of queer cinema such as ‘Moonlight’ (2016) winning Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars, the release of television programmes which depict life as a LGBTQ+ person and member of the community in a positive light like the 2018 reboot of ‘Queer Eye’, and Alice Oseman’s ‘Heartstopper’ (2022), or more gut-wrenching depictions of the hardships older members of the LGBTQ+ community have endured, such as ‘It’s A Sin’ (2021) and BBC acquiring RuPaul’s Drag Race, and hosting Drag Race UK from 2019 until its final season this year. We have come a long way since the flamboyant and fabulous Kurt Hummel danced onto our screens in 2009.
There are many sad stories which follow queer characters, tragedies readers will go into knowing that these characters are doomed, such as Hanya Yanigihara’s ‘A Little Life’ (2015) or Madeline Miller’s ‘The Song Of Achilles’ (2011), or even Adam Silvera’s ‘They Both Die In The End’ (2017). But the difference is, that while in the early 2010s, it was hard to find queer stories even if you were seeking them out as a child, now, there is a wide spectrum of choice, and you can decide to read genre fiction involving queer characters, tragedies like the aforementioned titles or joyful, positive stories about life and success.
You can read about real people, you can watch stories that are true to life in the painful gritty details, or the unfathomable joys of normal life.
While in the past you could find many heterosexual love stories which fit desired tropes or plot devices, it is only recently that the same is being able to be said for queer stories. You can find rivals-to-lovers stories like ‘Café Con Lychee’ by Emery Lee (2022) or ‘The Henna Wars’ by Adiba Jaigirdar (2021), or sports romances such as ‘She Drives Me Crazy’ by Kelly Quinlan, ‘Playing For Keeps’ by Jennifer Dugan or ‘The Passing Playbook’ by Isaac Fitzsimmons (2021), there are even LGBT time travel and alternative universe stories such as ‘New Adult’ by Timothy Janovsky (2023) and ‘Straight Expectations’ by Callum McSwiggan (2023), LGBTQ+ stories that represent the queer experience across cultures, instead of simply through the lens of white Britain, America or Canada, (while David Leviathan and Becky Albertali have done invaluable work for normalising LGBTQ+ stories in YA, they didn’t tell stories that represented everyone) like stories by Dean Atta (author of YA novels in verse ‘The Black Flamingo’ (2019), ‘Only On The Weekends’ (2022) and ‘I Can’t Even Think Straight’ (2025)), whose characters are frequently Greek-Cypriot and Adiba Jaigirdar, (author of YA novels ‘The Henna Wars’ (2021), ‘Hani and Ishu’s Guide To Fake Dating’ (2021), ‘The Dos and Donuts of Love’ (2023) ‘A Million To One’ (2023), and ‘Rani Choudhury Must Die’ (2024)) whose characters are frequently Bengali.
The normalisation of loving the same sex, the normalisation of experimenting with gender and presentation and understanding that you are worthy of love and respect is so important, and was not a message that was previously declared to the teenagers of before. The added fact that authors are able to normalise being LGBTQ+ across different cultures and be accepted and loved unconditionally by their families is imperative to demonstrating that queer joy is not just exclusive to the young queer white men.
Seeing the YA genre in particular, grow, watching authors tell stories based on their own cultures and experiences as part of the LGBTQ+ community is incredibly special and heart-warming. It felt like finding queer stories was impossible when I was growing up. If they were published, they seldom got attention.
That was, until Becky Albertali’s ‘Simon Vs The Homo Sapien Agenda’ was adapted into the 2018 movie ‘Love Simon’, featuring a bunch of teenagers living their normal lives, except, one of them happens to be LGBTQ+ and is deeply closeted.
I read the book during my first year of university, and getting the opportunity to watch the film on the big screen with a group of friends, all of whom this story resonated with was an incredibly evocative experience. Despite us knowing the outcome, and the movie itself being a LGBTQ+ romcom, I can recall catching every one of us near tears or actively weeping during the film. It was a healing experience, and a moment that, in my opinion, truly signified the normalisation and change toward sharing queer joy in the media.
The act of killing off a tokenised character definitely still occurs in media, however, there are ample projects in the YA and New Adult space which identify and actively subvert this trope, such as ‘You’re Not Supposed To Die Tonight’ (2023) by Kalynn Bayron and ‘The Blonde Dies First’ (2024) by Joelle Wellington, which call out the tropes of black characters, blonde characters and queer characters being killed in horrors, thrillers and slashers. It is these books which are going above and beyond to not only make readers uncomfortable because they too will recognise the tropes, but also subvert them by misdirecting their readers.
In 2026, the sixth and final volume of ‘Heartstopper’ was released, offering readers glimpses into the happy ending ahead for Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring. Watching a generation of young LGBTQ+ readers flock to the story of two young men finding love and navigating the turbulence of being a teenager approaching university was fantastic. Teenagers grapple with so much between the ages of fifteen and eighteen and it was such a poignant story of bullying, confidence, self-love, acceptance, friendship and, notably queer joy.
When I first broached the topic of unburying your gays in 2019, I had no idea that Young Adult fiction was about to receive a boom in LGBTQ+ stories through Alice Oseman and the ‘Heartstopper’ graphic novels gaining attention. Had you told me then that there would be LGBTQ+ relationships across most genres, without the need for characters to be killed off, I would have been astounded at the progress made in publishing since I left university.
I am so proud of the progress being made by the publishing industry to share more queer stories. I hope to sink my teeth into an array of LGBTQ+ stories as they continue to be published. Queer stories deserve the limelight. Queer stories deserve celebration.
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