Lesbian sheroes in herstorical fiction are viewed with suspicion. How, critics ask, can an author know what lesbians could get away with in times past with only a few first-person records available? We have proof women’s opinions were ignored, their triumphs and words erased from public record. We know men’s writings from/about these time periods reflect patriarchal societies doling harsh punishment to women who dared assert themselves. Women, the argument goes, were so repressed that it is disingenuous to portray lesbians (or any woman) in herstory as powerful in her own right, who embraced her own identity and lived outside the heteronormative community standards.
My answer is simple: people are inherently the same now as they have been in the past. Sure, the rules of societies change throughout herstory, with times of great repression and others of more freedom, but the emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of humanity do not. The rules of the game may change over time, but the players remain largely the same.
My lesfic sheroes, set in times and places that are not here and now, react to historical stimuli in as varied and diverse ways as any modern character. Integrity, pride, dreams, adaptability, the drive to succeed and be loved, are human qualities as valid for lesbian protagonists in fiction as they are for any other characters that might be male and/or straight.
Well-written characters illuminate universal truth. As long as lesfic readers’ search for relativity, the sheroes of herstorical lesfic will triumph.
Genta Sebastian is an award winning author with a backlist that includes YA novels, science fiction, lesbian erotica, and romance. Located in the thriving art center that is the Twin Cities, she is a professional storyteller with vast experience in entertaining audiences of all ages (and most proclivities). A traveler by nature, she tours the continental U.S. entertaining folks from all walks of life. With her work often compared to authors John Steinbeck and S.E. Hinton, her love of people, with all their frailty and failings, brings a rich breadth and depth to her characters and settings. Her next novel in the When Butches cry series will be out in 2018
