I’m a Gen Z. No question, I have always understood myself to be some delineation of El Gee Bee Tea Que. I cannot recall a time in which I could not google various lezzie-adjacent subject matter, which is to say that my queer self-discovery had less to do with finding resources than identifying the ache that prompted such resource reconnaissance attempts. Internet aside, people in the Midwest are sometimes great at delivering proclamations of identity from out of their truck window. Like, I get it, I get it. I’m a dyke. Anyway.
I’m a dyke who reads a lot.
Unfortunately, teen me was reading a lot of dykeless books. Until the past year, I don’t believe I’d read a single speculative fiction book with a lesbian protagonist in general, much less a genderqueer one. My entire being has been shaped by speculative narrative, and part of the speculative project has always been sounding for myself in cracks between sentences. My fantasy of reading science fiction and fantasy was that someone like me could be in it.