Separating Urban Ficiton and LGBTQ+ Fiction

If I were in a position of choosing between separating Urban Fiction and Queer Fiction from the rest of the general fiction section of the collection, my first instinct would be to reject the idea. Especially if it was prompted by patrons feeling "uncomfortable" about having these works housed in the general adult collection. This pressure does feel as though it is coming from a place of prejudice and segregation. 

Urban Fiction may commonly contain overtly explicit themes, but these themes are also commonly found in other parts of the general fiction collection. Sexuality is prevalent in romance and relationship fiction. Visceral violence is easily found in detective and war fiction. These other genres are not separated from the general collection due to these themes, nor the identity of their authors, so we are left to wonder what exactly it is about urban fiction specifically that makes these patrons uncomfortable. And yes, the works are indeed fiction and not indicative of the entire lived experience of any marginalized group, yet they may be indicative of *a* lived experience of *some* of that group, whose circumstance of race in the context of the American history and society give them less opportunity for a spotless, conformist way of life. Often these people are ignored by those that are made uncomfortable by the life they have to live or what they look like, so keeping the works within the general collection forces those uncomfortable people to better see (and hopefully come to empathize with) those marginalized groups. Separation may contribute to the invisibility marginalized groups feel in American society.

Further, if those people are made uncomfortable not by the actions within the works but rather the people within them, to allow separation of these genres from the general collection gives the inch needed to segregate *all* works by or merely containing the marginalized groups. Often, having a single gay character in a work makes it a "gay" story to many critics and readers. Gay fiction often follows the same exact story structure and plot conventions of stories with straight characters, so some queer authors may feel confused and resentful that their work must be singled out. Marginalized people exist in the world. To segregate works based solely on the inclusion of these people within a story is to sanitize and skew the view of the world. If those people are invisible, it is easier to write off their stories, their experiences, their humanity and their rights.

However, while segregation may help further the invisibility of marginalized authors and stories within the collection, it may also (perhaps counterintuitively) increase visibility of these works and authors. For a library patron, to search and try to find a work within the collection may already feel like a daunting task. If we were to group the entirety of fiction together, and sort only by author alphabetically, it may become much more cumbersome and frustrating for that patron to find these works. They may get lost within the surrounding collection, swallowed by the enormity of the stacks. Separating the works helps to make the selection process much more convenient and expedient to the patron. In that way, separation may ultimately be the more useful way of organizing the works. Making a display to attract patrons to that separation is easier and more eye-catching than small stickers on spines. To mark and gather the works together under the identities of the author and subjects may help to increase the volume and visibility of those voices.

In 2022, Netflix released a true-crime drama series titled Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story from showrunner Ryan Murphy about the titular serial killer. Among the controversies of retraumatization of the victims' families, glorification of the murderer, the exploitive nature of the true-crime genre, was another interesting controversy. Netflix had tagged the series as an LGBTQ+ interest show. Unsurprisingly, many people, queer and not, took to social media to deride the decision as insensitive, offensive, and another example of wildly disingenuous "rainbow capitalism". All of which, are valid. And the pressure eventually caused Netflix to remove the tag from the show.

However, was it necessarily "wrong" to apply this label to the show? The show creator (who is queer) staunchly argued in favor of the tag (Wang 2022). The show indeed emphasizes that the discomfort with the sexuality of the victims and their races lead to the injustices by police in writing off multiple blatant instances of crimes by the murderer. Does labeling the show LGBTQ+ then emphasize the tragedy of that injustice and emphasize it as an important event in the history of homosexuality and the American justice system? Or does it further scandalize the story and make it exotic? Is the viewer watching to honor the victims' memories or to rubberneck? Is the creator making the story to highlight injustice or to entertain for a quick buck? Perhaps it all can be true at the same time. And for a public library to tag works this way is a completely different context than a for-profit streaming service. But it is interesting that such a conversation originated not from the contents of the show itself, but by the label and sectioning applied to it.