Lambda Literary Awards Masterpost

[elf]

Clarification of Lambda Literary Foundation Policy Guidelines of Nominations, 2009 Lambda Literary Awards, from Katherine V. Forrest, Interim President, Board of Trustees

Older Posts (Pre-Sep 25 or so)

Alan Chin: Discrimination at the Lambda Awards

Jane at Dear Author: Regarding Gay Romance

Boys Next Door Blog: No room for the heteronorm?/An Update

EREC: Lambda GLBT Book Awards Go Heterophobic

Teddy Pig at The Naughty Bits: Lambda Literary Award: No Straight People Allowed!

Fiona Glass: New rules for the Lambda Awards

Selah March: A lynching in the making

Erastes: A Little Miffed
erastes A Little Miffed (Same post; different journals; different comments)

Lena Prodan Where I Don't Want to be

Loving Venus – Loving Mars: Lambda Fail

Newer (Sep 25 & later)
Erastes in meta_writer Lambda's Explanation of the New Guidelines and my comments
erastes Lambda's Explanation of the New Guidelines and my comments (Same post; different journals; different comments)

c_smith_author The Lambda Literary Award has just sidelined itself as an arbiter of good GLBTQ fiction.

rm on the Lambda Literary Awards and the art of disappearing

torachan Oh, ew.

belleweather It's OK to be an Ally, Sheesh!

elisa_rolle LGBTQ Award: Setting rules

Rebecca Day: That Lambda Thing

Kate McMurray: authenticity and audience redux

Hayden Thorne: On the LLF Controversy

Ask Nicola: Lambda Literary Award guidelines clarification

Victor Banis: The Little Lost Lamb(da)s –Some thoughts by Victor J. Banis

EREC: Quoth: Lambda Redux

Teddy Pig at The Naughty Bits: Lambda Literary Foundation: We Can't Hack A Level Playing Field So

Teddy Pig at The Naughty Bits What Would Victor J. Banis Do?

leethomas Recently, the Lambda Literary Foundation instituted new guidelines for its awards

lee_rowan Lammys... ye gods.

mjaedin My opinion on the Lambda Literary Awards

kiernankelly Lamda Awards Shun Straight Ally Authors

duskpeterson The Lambda Literary Awards and gender

Queerty: New Rule: Straights not allowed to compete for Lambda Literary Awards

sparkindarkness This? This is my not amused face. The Lambda Awards

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keeva shocking, i tell you
kynn shocking, i tell you (Same post; different journals; different comments)

Ann Somerville: Straight* women – it’s not about you

Ann Somerville: Lambda Literary Foundation Policy Guidelines clarified

Ann Somerville: You know what’s really wrong with the m/m genre?

Christian A. Young: The new Lambda Literary Foundation Policy Guidelines and you.

emmacollingwood LAMBDA Literary, Act II: The official statement

gloss [ oh, shut up ]

lunesque So. The Lambda awards thing.

likespring this is also just like prop 8.

kiernankelly Deleted Entry

kynn the bahleeted kiernankelly post
keeva the bahleeted kiernankelly post (Same post; different site; different comments)

kynn fight lies with the truth

elf Lambda=11=5+(2x3); Hail Eris

ivorygates Your Monthly Wank

kaligrrl once more into the breach with EPIC FAIL!!!

kellidunham What's that sound? Oh, it's straight people whining!

rockeandroll I am not a person who usually comments on this stuff

fiction_theory I have no clever nickname for this

jazzypom From my fandom corner

Karnythia at The Angry Black woman: Dear Straight Cisgender People Who Are Showing Out
Karnythia at Alas, a blog: Dear Straight Cisgender People Who Are Showing Out
karnythia Dear Straight Cisgender People Who Are Showing Out
karnythia Dear Straight Cisgender People Who Are Showing Out (Same post; different sites; different comments)

Seeking Avalon: On Isms: The Lambda Awards, Homophobia, Privilege & Racism

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sparkindarkness Lambda Awards – disagree if you must, but put the privilege and homophobia away

eumelia My own fuzzy opinion about Lambda Literary Awards

gehayi DVD Commentary: Lambda Literary Awards

shemale So Lambda has stated that they will take into consideration…

dubious_virtue A lynching in the making (Same post as one from previous roundup; different site.)

dubious_virtue More re: Lambda Lit versus the Breeders
Selah March: More re: Lambda Lit versus the Breeders (Same post; different sites; different comments)

lanning well, now, here's a to-do

strangetwn_god Lambda Literary Wank

karjack Mini-rants

babel A few things.

Towleroad: Lambda Literary Foundation Announces New Rules, Leadership

TeddyPig: Because Someone Asked

Seeking Avalon: On Isms & Idiots (Part 2)

Seeking Avalon: On Isms & Idiots (Part 3)

emmyjag Lambda Literary Awards: Breeders need not apply

senior_witch Got into internet wank

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erastes I’ve just received this charming diatribe in my inbox (Comments turned off.)

logovol Mi fetiche no es credencial (Post in Spanish)

kynn cue the wtf chorus

keeva Does linkspam need a new tagline?
kynn Does linkspam need a new tagline? (Same post; different sites; different comments)

gwailowrite False Allies in Straight-fail

flourish Lambda Awards kerfuffle

spoggly re: Lambda Awards

angrylemur People are idiots, Tuesday edition

abigail_roux Oh, what a tangled web we writers weave sometimes.

sparkindarkness Lambda Bingo!

sunhawk note one on being a good ally

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kaigou lambda, literature, voices, and also, I live in the taj mahal.

kynn o dear god no

duskpeterson My letter to the Lambda Literary Foundation (this one's a few days old)

Erastes at Speak Its Name: The Lambda’s by T J Pennington

homasse Another Fail

moniquill Dear Lambdafail wangstbitches:

sparkindarkness BINGO!

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la_fields Quick: Someone define me

catherineldf An organized rant about the Lambda Awards

chicklet_girl *puts on flak jacket*

Brent Hartinger at After Elton: Should You Have to be Gay to Win a Lambda Award?

elgraves Some thoughts
ellie Some thoughts (Same post; different sites; different comments)

chasingtides Lambda, Discrimination, And Are You Seriously Saying That?

Teddy Pig: The Founder Of The Lambda Literary Awards Speaks His Mind

senior_witch More links

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sanguinity Ten Dollars and a Lawn Sign

Sharon Wheeler Awards kerfuffle

KD: M/M or Gay?

pyrephox Oh, Lambda, wherefore art thou? Deny thy community and refuse thy name...

zephyrprince Changes to the Lambda Literary Awards

ein_myria Chatter about λ

stoneself m/mfail and intersectionality and cisgendered privilege and more

Comments

[keeva]

My comments:

keeva: shocking, i tell you
kynn: shocking, i tell you (Same post; different journals; different comments)

[logophilos]

Straight* women – it’s not about you
http://logophilos.net/blather/?p=2127

Lambda Literary Foundation Policy Guidelines clarified
http://logophilos.net/blather/?p=2139

You know what’s really wrong with the m/m genre?
http://logophilos.net/blather/?p=2147

[logophilos]

Just saw this:
http://likespring.livejournal.com/733277.html

[keeva]

The deletions have begun. The kiernankelly post was removed, after the racist and privileged statement "Yeah, they celebrate straight allies. So long as we don't drink from their water fountains." was challenged.

[elf]

I'm *so* not dealing with tracking removals. Sometimes, people lock them down after they get the Linkspam notification; I figure that's fine--on the one hand, I don't follow the Metafandom policy of "only posts that allow public comments, remove on request;" on the other, I figure people who want to avoid attention from not-their-f'list can lock it down for a week or two.

IceRocket turned up several posts that had already been deleted or locked in the last few days.

I'm a bit conflicted on where I personally stand in all this, and fortunately probably don't have time to write a thoughtful post about it; I don't need to piss off a new swarm of people with my thoughts on sexual identities, community relations, and politics. (I'm sure I'll annoy people here & there with my comments anyway. But I won't have much time for those; I can't access the journalsphere from work.)

[keeva]

I'm not expecting you to update the post, but I'm just mentioning it for people who try to follow the link and end up wondering if you got the URL wrong.

[torachan]

Oh my what!? D: Dear kiernankelly, Being an ally, you're doing it wrong!

screencapping

[kaizoku]

Speaking of which, is anyone capping posts for future reference/mockage?

[keeva]

BTW, for the record: I think this particular linkspam post does a disservice to the issue by only putting the supposedly "controversial" passage up front, and not an explanation of what the Lambda Literary Awards are, their mission statement, or their rule about self-identification.

It's saying "here's the stuff people are mad about!" but not actually providing a fair and honest view of the situation. In my opinion, skewing the issue in this particular direction is irresponsible (and possibly an expression of privilege).

[elf]

I've added the mission statement; this will probably serve to make the bias appear to go the other direction (from the mission statement, it's unclear why there would be any controversy; since I couldn't verify whether the mission statement has changed since last year, I'm not calling it the "new" mission statement).

I'm not straight. What type and level of not-straight isn't something I discuss in public. The LGBTQetc community is very much my community; I'm not looking at this as an outsider.

[keeva]

They can change their mission statement whenever they like, though. They're not an organization of cis, straight people.

If giving accurate facts makes the "bias go in the other direction" then perhaps you should consider that an indictment of the original bias.

[sparkymonster]

Thank you for doing this.

[lilitu93]

Karnythia's done a post on it here:

http://karnythia.livejournal.com/1385798.html

(Sorry I didn't link the name to the account - have never learned how to do that, and I'm posting from work. Yeah, I know it's in the FAQ somewhere.)

[elf]

User names at Dreamwidth:
<user name="username"> for a Dreamwidth user;
<user name="username" site="livejournal.com"> for an LJ user. (Replace lj.com with ij.com or jf.net etc. as appropriate.)

And thank you for the link.

[dharma_slut]

[Bad username or unknown identity: Dubious Virtue] has these two
http://dubious-virtue.livejournal.com/5706.html
http://dubious-virtue.livejournal.com/5626.html

whose side?

[stoneself]

hey elf,

just checking. you're siding with the people with straight privilege?

Re: whose side?

[elf]

Erm. I'm siding with the people who think this was not a great move on the LLF's part. Some of those people are straight. Some are not. I'm not siding with the people who think this was a perfectly reasonable and sensible move, and nobody should've had any reaction to it. Some of those people are straight; some are not.

I'm still sorting out facts and rumours and hints of backroom drama; I don't intend to hit any absolute decisions, but overall, so far, I think this was a step backwards for LGBT relations with the rest of the world.

"Having an LGBT only lit award:" fine concept. Much approval for that. Yes, absolutely, we should have safe-space and community-focused awards that celebrate quality writing that expresses our own values, without the chance of rewarding some outsider who happens to hit on the right combination of phrasing and plotbits that make the story sing to us, without any requirement of real understanding from the author herself.

"Changing a lit award for LGBT-themed stories, to one that requires LGBT authors:" less fine. This isn't creating safe space; it's slamming doors that used to be open. At the very least, much drama should've been expected.

Re: whose side?

[amadi]

"Changing a lit award for LGBT-themed stories, to one that requires LGBT authors:" less fine.

And if that was what happened here, you'd have a point, but it isn't.

Re: whose side?

[jame_alec]

So, what part of their mission statement did you find confusing that would lead you to believe that their organization was in any way about straight cis people?

The Lambda Literary Foundation is dedicated to raising the status of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.

Emphasis mine. By your logic, it's just as unfair to not give an award to an author that's queer but doesn't write queer stories, even though that's plainly not at all what the organization or the award is about.

Re: whose side?

[stoneself]

in summary, i'd say you're siding with the people with the privilege here.

giving the privileged people the benefit of the doubt. really?

privileged entitled people are having a shit fit about "reverse discrimination" and you personally are focused on how the people with straight privilege are offended?

you have totally missed the point of this community.

you started this linkspam, as i understand it, to point out the evil wrong things llf did to straight m/m writers.

focus on the privilege.

Re: whose side?

[(Anonymous)]

"Changing a lit award for LGBT-themed stories, to one that requires LGBT authors:" less fine. This isn't creating safe space; it's slamming doors that used to be open.

How? Maybe if you lived in ideal world where everyone and their work was treated equally I'd agree. But in world with spaces where gay authors work is devalued because of their sexuality and not given an equal space to work with compared to their straight/cis counterparts why shouldn't they? I hate hearing things like "wow look how open minded x author/actor/movie maker is for taking on lgbt themed work" while when gay authors do the same it's thought of "oh of course you would do that". Yes some might have a little trouble because of their story's theme they can easily rest on that fact that they aren't lgbt and can just say they're "expanding their horizons", "exploring" or the same annoying "open minded" comfort line I used above when it comes talking to some homophobic publishers, readers or whatever is needed to go get their story published, praised or read.

Gay authors might be told not to be "too out" with their identity for fear of alienating some people who wouldn't want to see a "gay production" but rather a one with a good degree of separate they can dissociate themselves with (Gay is icky after all - just not when I'm making money off it)*. Others might have problems with co-workers boyfriends/girlfriends or fetishizing spaces like yaoi fangirl/yuri fanboy/t-chasers where their work isn't respected as it should be.

I think this also gives a place where budding gay artist can see people who are gay and successful giving some hope and inspiration to people who believe there is no work or success in writing gay novels as a lgbt or queer person.

So at the end of the day; I don’t see this as a real restriction as much as it is widening the door for a more clearer space for queer artist to be respected and held in the same esteem their straight counterparts would get normally. And I think if people really cared that much they should show support to them or wish them the best instead of throwing fits and saying hurtful vaguely homophobic things like calling lgbt uppity or saying "all the qualified people have been left out" of the Lambada awards.

I also understand that some queer people disagree as well and I think the same thing can pretty much apply to them as well.

*Example: http://www.towleroad.com/2009/02/new-york-artist.html

Ch~Wa

(I hope you can unscreen this comment after I post it.)

Re: whose side?

[elf]

That said--I'm trying very hard to be impartial in linkspam collection. (Which is fairly easy, actually; once the metastorm gets going, I barely have time to gather links, and no time to read & think about them.)

If there are some that are particularly and directly offensive (I mean, as in name-calling, rather than by abstract concept), I'm happy to tag them with warnings to brace before clicking. (I'm happy to tag the abstract-insulting ones too, but identifying those is much harder.)

Re: whose side?

[keeva]

...and no time to read & think about them.

That's been clear from your attempts at commentary on this issue, which invariably lean toward excusing cis, straight privilege and furthering oppression against LGBT people.

Re: whose side?

[keeva]

So: Yes, you're right, she's siding with the people with straight privilege.

[nile]

Apparently this has been recently documented at http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/LambdaFail

However, myself, knowing I would rather make sure all sides are covers, came to post and if anyone could endeavor to be unbiased, they can edit the page. However even if a bias problem occurs, no big deal....it can be labeled as a conflict and FanHistory can find people to help resolve that issue.

Thought I would share so the issue is covered properly.