
Today marks a special date in history.
As many of you will know, today is the first day a same-sex couple can legally marry in England and Wales. Campaigns for this right for equality have been active since the legislation to allow same-sex marriages in England and Wales was passed by Parliament in July 2013, and then coming into force on 13th March 2014. Olivia Grey decided to mark this pioneering day by celebrating a story that also bypassed the ‘norms’ of society, which helps to bring our world up to date with the ever-changing nature we hold together as humankind.
We featured this story in our LGBT month in February and because it was such a success with our readership due to a powerfully relatable story, IWG interviewed Rachel Gold, author of the pioneering novel Being Emily. A story which is the first of its kind with a transsexual girl giving it its voice, describing her struggles in raw detail with inequality in a society that is behind with the times.
[*Editor Note: There is a glossary at the end for LGBT jargon].

Where did the inspiration for Emily's story come from?
I worked at an LGBT newspaper for about seven years and made a lot of friends in the trans community, including Kate Bornstein, who was very instrumental in showing me what I, as a cisgender woman, could learn from trans women. Then I was also in a four-year relationship with a trans woman—though I dislike saying it that way because it makes it sound like that’s her defining characteristic and it certainly isn’t. I wanted my trans women friends to have a novel that was realistic but basically optimistic about their lives.
I also had a lot of frustration that cisgender people treated trans women like an alien species that they just couldn’t wrap their minds around—and I wanted to use the power of a first-person narrative to put readers sympathetically inside of the mind of the trans character.
Since its release back in 2012, Being Emily has been praised for its bold attempt to break the barriers of 'generic fiction'.
Did you expect to be winning awards such as The Moonbeam Award (in Young Adult Fiction under Mature Issues) and The Golden Crown Literary Award (for Dramatic/General Fiction) with Emily's story?
I didn’t expect to win awards. I showed up to the Golden Crown Literary Society conference pretty sure I wasn’t going to win and then a number of people asked me if I’d prepared an acceptance speech and I started to get nervous. It’s a great encouragement to win awards with my first novel and I’m very grateful.
What makes me particularly proud of the awards is the higher profile it gives YA novels about trans characters. Kirstin Cronn-Mills, who’s also from Minnesota and who wrote about a FTM protagonist in her 2012 novel Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, also won a number of awards—and I think when you put both of our novels together it points to a shift in YA literature.
In the review published on the IWG website during our LGBT month in February, we said that it was important that literature moves along with the times.
As today marks a point in history, being the first day ever where a same-sex couple can get married legally, do you believe that we may see more LGBT fiction on the mainstream best-sellers list?
If the growing popularity of LGBT themes and characters in television and literary awards is any indication—yes!
The tough part is how you define LGBT fiction. We’re certainly seeing more LGBT characters in fiction, for example the wonderful character of Savedra in Amanda Downum’s The Bone Palace. She’s a trans woman character and that’s central to the plot, but the book is categorized as Science Fiction/Fantasy, which it is. So is it also an LGBT book? I don’t know that I would call it that.
I hope we’ll see both more LGBT fiction and fiction with LGBT characters in the near future. It’s really important for people, particularly young people, to see themselves reflected in fiction. That’s one of the ways we add to our imagination of how our lives can be; if you never see positive images of people like you, it’s much harder to imagine all the ways your future could be great.

Do you think that it is useful or important that an author can relate to their characters while writing them?
Absolutely! I put WoW in Being Emily because I thought that being able to express your inner self through a game first is an experience that’s really important both in the trans community and outside of it. I hope it helps lots of cis gamers relate to Emily.
Also I wanted to show some of the positive aspects of gaming because I think it’s still portrayed negatively in the media much too often.
In terms of main characters, I think if you’re not relating to them in some way as an author, it can be hard for your readers to relate to them. Of course there are some genres where it’s less important to relate to the characters, but in young adult literature relating to your characters opens up the door to make them really compelling to your readers. The characters play an alternative reality game while getting to know each other and the gaming community proves to be instrumental later on as well. I wanted to have heroic gamers in this book, who make a difference in the real world, to highlight some of the problem-solving and community-building skills that gamers develop.
Also, for fans of Being Emily—you will get to see Emily and Claire in Just Girls as friends of the main character Tucker. Emily and Claire’s lives didn’t have enough drama to warrant another novel right away, but I wanted readers to get to see how their lives turned out in the few years after Being Emily.
Being Emily was a very traditional coming out story and for Just Girls I wanted to take things up a notch. There’s some deep material in there and there’s also some really fun romance as Ella, the trans girl main character, tries to sort out her dating life.
Lastly, do you have any advice for up-and-coming creatives in the industry?
My best advice is: persist! It takes a long time to learn to write well and can take a long time to sell a novel. Often the writers who succeed are the ones who kept at it.
Also: practice. Some people say “write every day” but that’s not always practical and it can make you think that you should be drafting every day. Sometimes you need to research, read books, figure out how another author did something that impressed you, or go deeper into an aspect of writing that’s hard for you. I think it’s more accurate to say, “Work on improving your writing every day.”
To help to bring to light some of the terms used in Rachel's work, we have put together some of the most popular words and phrases which Emily encounters on her journey. This is not an exhaustive list of LGBT terms but it will help those who are wanting to understand terms that they may have heard of before but do not know the definition of.
ASEXUAL
A person who does not feel or has any sexual feelings for another person who identifies as a sexual person. A popular example of an asexual character is Sherlock Holmes.
BISEXUAL
A person (either male or female) who is attracted (either emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally) to individuals of both genders, or who ientifies as a member of the bisexual community.
CIGENDER
A term that describes people whose gender identity generally matches their birth gender, i.e. a person who was born as female who also identifies as female. In other words, this term encompasses those who do not identify as transgender. Derived from the Latin root “cis,” meaning “on the same side.”
COMING OUT
To announce one's sexual identity or gender identity. It can be used by people who wish to tell others about their true sexual or gender identity. It is a popular term used by many homosexual people when they have admitted their preference for being attracted to members of the same sex. For example, actress Ellen Page recently 'came out' to the public as a lesbian woman.
CROSSDRESSER
This would be an individual who enjoys the act of dressing up or wearing the clothes belonging to a member of the opposite sex. It is important to mention that cross-dressing is not indicative of sexual orientation i.e a man who dresses in female clothing does not automatically a homosexual. People cross-dress for a number of different reasons.
FTM
An abbreviation for female-to-male transsexualism. This person will most likely prefer masculine pronouns due to their preferred gender identification.
GAY MALE
A man who identifies as part of the gay community, or someone who is sexually, emotionally, romantically, affectionately, or relationally attracted to other men.
GENDER
This is a binary sociological construct defining the collection of characteristics that are culturally associated with maleness or femaleness.
GENDER IDENTITY
How one perceives oneself as either a man, woman or otherwise.
GENDERQUEER
This is a gender identity which does not accept that all genders can be explained upon the binary male/female protocol.
HETROSEXUAL
This is a term that encompasses males and female who do not identify themselves with the gay community, and are generally described as 'straight'. They are people who are emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally attracted to members of the opposite sex.
LGBT
Stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. GLBT may also be used. At times, a Q will be added for Queer and/or Questioning, an A for Ally, an I for Intersex and/or a TS for Two- Spirit.
LESBIAN
A woman who identifies as part of the gay community, or someone who is sexually, emotionally, romantically, affectionately, or relationally attracted to other women. Bisexual women may or may not feel included in this term.
MTF
An abbreviation for male-to-female transsexualism. This person will most likely prefer feminine pronouns due to their preferred gender identification.
PANSEXUAL
A person who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally attracted to people regardless of their gender identity or biological sex.
SEX
Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
The direction of sexual attraction towards others. Includes (among others) a same-sex orientation, male-female orientation, a bisexual orientation, and a pansexual orientation.
TRANSGENDER
An umbrella term describing individuals whose gender identity does not match with that assigned for their physical sex. Includes but is not exclusive of transsexuals, genderqueer people, and crossdressers. It refers to anyone whose behavior or identity falls outside of stereotypical expectations for their gender. Transgender people may identify as straight, gay, bisexual, or some other sexual orientation.
TRANSSEXUAL
Term referring to a person whose gender identity consistently differs from what is culturally associated with or expected from his/her biological sex at birth. Some choose to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. Commonly shortened to 'trans', this is the main theme in Emily's journey.