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Juno Dawson
Contents (8)
  1. CONTENTS
  2. A NOTE ON THE STORIES
  3. FOREWORD
  4. INTRODUCTION
  5. ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND ARTISTS
  6. RESOURCES
  7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  8. COPYRIGHT
cover

CONTENTS

  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. A NOTE ON THE STORIES
  3. FOREWORD
    Juno Dawson
  4. INTRODUCTION
  5. DIVE BAR
    Caroline Bird
    Art by Saffa Khan
  6. PENGUINS
    Simon James Green
    Art by Alice Osema
  7. ON THE RUN
    Kay Staples
    Art by Alex Bertie
  8. THE PHOENIX’S FAULT
    Cynthia So
    Art by Priyanka Meenakshi
  9. AS THE PHILADELPHIA QUEER YOUTH CHOIR SINGS KATY PERRY’S ‘FIREWORK’…
    David Levithan
    Art by Steve Antony
  10. ALMOST CERTAIN
    Tanya Byrne
    Art by Frank Duffy
  11. THE OTHER TEAM
    Michael Lee Richardson
    Art by David Roberts
  12. I HATE DARCY PEMBERLEY
    Karen Lawler
    Art by Kameron White
  13. THE COURAGE OF DRAGONS
    Fox Benwell
    Art by Kristen Van Dam
  14. THE INSTRUCTOR
    Jess Vallance
    Art by Kate Alizadeh
  15. LOVE POEMS TO THE CITY
    Moïra Fowley-Doyle
    Art by Fatti Burke
  16. HOW TO COME OUT AS GAY
    Dean Atta
    Art by Leo Greenfield
  17. ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND ARTISTS
  18. RESOURCES
  19. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  20. COPYRIGHT

A NOTE ON THE STORIES

The stories in this anthology deal with the struggles faced by the LGBTQ+ community. On page 350, we have included a list of resources to help you if you are affected by any of the issues raised in this book or would like to find out more.

FOREWORD

When I was a little girl, I didn’t know I was a little girl.

Or rather, as soon as I knew there was any sort of a difference between boys and girls I knew, without hesitation, that I would definitely prefer to be a girl. What I wasn’t aware of was that parents who are told they got a baby boy, might actually have a baby girl. I didn’t know that a whole bunch of these babies grow up and decide to do something about the gender they were assigned at birth. I certainly didn’t know the term ‘transgender’.

My ignorance existed for several reasons. The first, I guess, was the education of my parents. They, like the vast majority of parents at the time, had never heard of transgender people. Although I continually asked my parents when I was going to metamorphose into a girl, they didn’t know that was a ‘thing’ any more than I did. I can’t, and have never, blamed them.

The second reason is worse because it was so cruel. I was born during the political reign of a woman called Margaret Thatcher. Here we need some historical context. Against the background of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which was inaccurately attributed to gay and bisexual men, public attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people were at an all-time low in Britain, with the British Social Attitudes Survey reporting that seventy-five per cent of the population felt homosexuality was ‘always or mostly wrong’.

In the middle of this negativity came a children’s book. It was called Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin. You guessed it, it’s about a little girl who has two dads. When the Daily Mail newspaper got wind that this book was being stocked in a school library, they splashed it across the front pages, causing a moral panic which eventually led Thatcher’s Conservative government to introduce a piece of legislation called Section 28.