Oh, for the love of...

Okay, the notion of ownvoice is to elevate, to make sure we consider the people who live and breathe their experiences have the mic for some semblance of the majority of the discussion.

It is not "only people who are X can write X." It's a caution to consider "who is telling most of the stories about X?"

It's a way to make sure we're not silencing the very people we're supposedly helping appear in narratives.

It's not a club to shove downward, nor a crowbar to force a closet door open (closeted queer people are still queer people, thanks).

It's not a password into the world of writing X, saying do not enter without it.

And queerness confounds things on so many levels. Being closeted doesn't mean you're not queer.

Being queer doesn't mean you can't write harmful rep (even queer rep, and especially queer rep you haven't lived).

Ownvoice isn't a Get Out of Criticism Free card, either.

Ownvoices is looking at all the stories lauded and touted about a particular people and taking a second to make sure the very people those stories are talking about were included in the telling.

(I'd love to see that be a majority, but I know better than to wish on a star.)

Criticism that attacks an author's potentially undisclosed queerness is not okay.

Pointing out a particular narrative made some choices that kicked a queer reader out of the story is valid. (I read one m/m where a gay couple decide to honeymoon in Egypt. Um.)

Queerness is difficult. It's not monolith. There is no everyqueer. 100% agreed.

But asking that some (most?) of a list about, say, nonbinary main characters have nonbinary authors? That's not an attack on non-queer or closeted or *otherwise*-queer authors.

That's making room.

And on a "what can I do?" level as a reader? It doesn't mean you can never read outside declared, public ownvoice labels. Of course not.

But how consciously are you choosing what you're reading? Amplifying? Reviewing? Putting on "Pride" reading lists? (Are there intersections?)