Eada Friesian

I made a post on Instagram a few weeks back about why representation in books matters, and I needed to write more than I could there. I hope (and somewhat know) that you all feel the same, so I’m preaching to the choir, but we need books with representation in them, books where we can see ourselves. 

I remember growing up, not being very interested in reading, because what I knew to be reality behind books wasn’t represented. There weren’t books with queer main characters, there definitely weren’t romance books out there with queer main characters. 

And I loved reading romance books. 

But everything was so het-centric, that it started to wear down on me. I found love in other genres where love wasn’t the main point of the book. But it just wasn’t enough. 

So when I started writing, I wanted myself to be in the pages. Not myself in terms of character personality, but in terms of my sexual orientation, in terms of who I love, and in terms of who others can and do love. And I have enjoyed and adored every minute of my writing and publishing journey. 

Why do we need this? 

Because love is love is love is love. 

We need to know that our love is common, special, amazing, and normal. We need to know that we are not alone in this world and believe that there is hope in the future. We need to know that we’re just as amazing and normal as everyone else. 

That’s exactly why representation matters. Representation in all forms, from lesbian to bisexual/pansexual, to mental health and disability. We need to know that we’re here for a reason, and we’re not to be ostracized or put down. 

Because love is love is love is love. 

I wanted to see more books with me in it. I want to see more movies and television shows and more people like me on the news and just in the grocery store. And until we normalize what we look like (which is just like everyone else, btw), then we can’t just walk around with the full confidence of a middle-aged white man. 

Jenna Ortega said that in an interview once she was told to do something like she was a middle-aged white man, and now she’s taken that into her every day life, and I love and adore it. We should all be able to walk around with that amount of confidence and poise and lack of fear. (We’ll leave the douchiness behind, though!)

We deserve to be exactly who we are without consequences. We deserve to love exactly who we love without fear. And until we normalize who we are, until we continue to fight back in the ways that we can and currently do, then we’ll never get what we deserve. 

And we deserve everything.