Am I a LGBT Writer? Hmmm, Maybe

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.