“Since we’re talking about acting up and speaking out in YA literature, I would be remiss to not start by talking about an experience in which I had to act up and speak out at a major YA literature conference.

As some of you may know and some of you may not, I had a challenging experience on Saturday at a panel that was supposed to be about disproportionately banned and challenged books. Most of the panelists came to talk about that topic, but one of the panelists did not.

I’m not going to name this panelist. I don’t care enough about her to elevate her by doing so. If you want or need to know, you can probably look it up. Later. It was section L.06, and she wasn’t me, she wasn’t Michael Cart, she wasn’t Sabina Khan, she wasn’t Joan Kaywell, and she wasn’t Tillie Walden.

She was allegedly there to talk about challenges to Latino texts for young adults, but when asked she passed on that, claiming that Latinos were not disproportionately challenged at all, that in fact the major concerns she had were for the marginalized groups in this country: straight people, Catholics, and the police.

Her comments included the following:

• LGBTQ people make up only three to four percent of the population, so why do we need all these books for so few kids?
• Books like The Hate U Give paint cops in a bad light and are dangerous.
• Parents have a moral responsibility to protect kids from LGBTQ texts.
• Gays are mentally ill and that the average gay man only lives to 39.

By the way, on that last fact: I pushed back and said that sounded wrong and if not wrong, probably taken from the middle of the AIDS epidemic. She assured me it was modern. Someone from the audience fact checked her. It came from The Family Research Council, considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, from 1994, the height of the epidemic, and had long since been debunked as a myth.

She did this all, she brayed about the tragic, horrible deaths of so many young gay men, with a confident smile on her face.

So: Homophobia is not new to me; I’ve been dealing with it all my life. But I definitely didn’t expect to encounter it here. At NCTE. In a panel discussion. By a panelist. My shield was down, and I got, as they say, triggered.

I was the first to counter her. First nicely, trying to engage her in dialogue, and then, when it became clear that she wasn’t there for a conversation, not as nicely. I was angry. My hands were shaking up there on the stage.

I was not alone in my anger. The other panelists were also angry. So was, it seemed, just about the entire audience, who had come to hear about strategies to overcome the disproportionate challenges to these books.

I’ll tell you: I’ve spent a lot of the last couple years looking for ways to connect with people who feel differently than me. Because a part of me still believes that we are all the same. That we are all connected.

Saturday I found my edge. I found the place where I will not–cannot–equivocate.

When it comes to young people who are marginalized, whether for reasons of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability… there is no conversation to be had about whether their lives have as much value as the lives of other kids. I won’t engage in that conversation. I will not give credence to an “other side” of this argument, because there is none.

I know first-hand what these books mean to LGBTQ kids. I’ve received so many messages—emails, tweets, Facebook messages—from young people who wanted me to know what my books did for them. That they ingested them, they clung to them, that these novels carried them in difficult times. I assume all LGBTQ YA authors have similar stories. The fact is that books are powerfully different than movies or TV shows. They feel more personal, and the connection is quite powerful. So yes, these books save lives.

And those who wish to restrict young people’s access to those books? They put young lives at risk.

This is a health and safety issue. According to the CDC, LGB youth are five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth. For trans youth, the number is far higher. More than half of transgender male teens who participated in a study by the American Society of Pediatrics reported attempting suicide, as did nearly 30 percent of transgender female teens. Among non-binary youth, the number was over 40 percent.

When this idea was brought up, this panelist inferred it was because LGBTQ people are mentally ill.

She is wrong. The reason the numbers are so high are because of the bigotry of people like this panelist, of people who tell LGBTQ youth that their lives are less important than the lives of straight kids.

I know this too well. My life almost ended at 27. And it was a lifetime of being called a fag and hearing that I was dirty and sinful and wrong and perverted that led me to that place. And when I woke up in the hospital after my stomach was pumped, I knew that I could not spend the rest of my life running away from the pain. That I had to face it head on. Which I try to do but even at 48, believe me. The urge to not feel is so great, because sometimes that rib crush is unbearable.

Words like hers are powerful and destructive and harmful. There were no high school kids in attendance, but there were some young (college aged) people, and I saw the looks on their faces. The hurt. The dismay. I wanted to hug each of them and say, No. This is not about you. This is about this woman and her stuff. Not about you and yours.

Another panelist, debut author Sabina Kahn, is the parent of a bisexual child, and she spoke powerfully from that capacity. I thought about how I don’t have kids, and then, quickly, I realized that I most certainly do.

LGBTQ youth are my kids. And I’m a fierce papa bear and you do not come after LGBTQ youth. Let’s widen that. You do not come after marginalized kids. They, too, are my children. We’re adults, and this panelist is free to believe whatever bullshit she wants to about me. Where I draw the line is when she advocates against my children.”