Saturday 30 April 2022 The Guardian •National^37
‘Not all doom and gloom’
LGBT author on wave of
support since school ban
Libby BrooksA
few weeks after he
was banned from
visiting a London
school by the Roman
Catholic church,
Simon James Green
was confronted with an array of
protest paraphernalia.
The children’s and young adult
author, whose stories have been
applauded for refl ecting the upside
as well as the angst of queer teen
lives, was at an awards ceremony
in Bristol. A local school’s LGBT
society had made banners and
leafl ets proclaiming their solidarity,
and decrying “kids in Catholic
school locked in the closet”.
“It was so touching, so all-round
impressive,” he says. Neatly, it also
encapsulates the message of Gay
Club!, his latest and sixth novel ,which follows chess geek Barney on
his mission to shake up his school’s
LGBT society. “Pinning rainbow
fl ags to our club noticeboard won’t
change anything,” says Barney. “We
need to unite and fi ght. Campaign.
Be visible.”
The cancellation of Green’s
school event in March by the
Catholic archdiocese of Southwark
prompted a wave of outrage from
authors, parents and teaching
unions, as well as warnings about
a growing censorship of writing
about diversity for younger readers.
Less widely reported were the
letters sent by young people across
the country who wanted to support
Green and the students denied
their opportunity to talk about his
books. “They are passionate about
building a world that is better, and
they’re not going to stop ... They
recognise that people should be
who they are and be free to live
their lives and love who they love.”He contrasts the maturity with
which today’s teenagers discuss
gender and sexuality with his own
coming of age in a rural town in
Lincolnshire “where ‘gay’ wasn’t
even used as a slur – I grew up in
total ignorance of LGBT people,
partly because of section 28 [a 1988
l aw to “prohibit the promotion of
homosexuality” by local authorities
that was abolished in 2003 ].”
The banning was a brutal
experience, he concedes, and
“heartbreaking because it
completely misrepresents what I’m
trying to achieve in the books”.
Since his 2017 debut, Noah Can’t
Even, Green’s formula of humour
and technicolour characters has
re-drafted LGBT kids “as the
heroes, having a happy ending”.
“All I ever set out to do was show- particularly LGBT – kids that it’s
not all doom and gloom. You can
watch certain media and get the
impression that they always end
up dead at the end of the story,
there’s homophobic attacks and it’s
all misery. Those things sadly do
happen, but it’s not the only story. ”
All students benefi t from
recognising that, ultimately, “we’re
all going through exactly the same
thing”, he argues. “That whole
process of fancying someone for
the fi rst time and falling in love. It’s
a roller coaster for everybody, and it
doesn’t matter how you identify.”
▼ Simon James Green says his aim
is to show LGBT young people that
life is ‘not all doom and gloom’
PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID LEVENE/THE GUARDIAN