WEIR HOUSE has three transvestite
characters, all of whom are gay or bisexual.
Even so, I don't think of my book as a "story about gays and
transvestites." It is the story of
Collin Weir, and the fact that he dresses up in women's clothes is just one
aspect of his personality. At the time
the narrative begins, Col has other things to worry about than the question of
gender displacement. He has become the
caretaker of the family bones. He is
concerned for his own sanity, and for the fate of his loved ones. The fact that he began cross-dressing as a
boy, putting on the clothes of his murdered mother is important to the story,
but it is not what defines Col as a person. Rather it is his keen sense of
family loyalty, misguided though it may be, and his determination to save the
unsavable.
Gay and cross-dressing characters
appear in some of my other works as well, but I have never come to the keyboard
with the thought "I think I'll write a story about a gay
person." Rather a story begins
speaking to me, and some of the characters who are involved happen to be gay or
transgender.
Does that make me a LGBT writer, or even a writer of LGBT literature? Possibly, if one focuses on that single presence within my work. But even as cross-dressing is not the sum of Col Weir's identity, neither is it the sum of my work. Nor is it the sum of anyone who may qualify for the label "transvestite." There is more to them than that.
