Alternative to what?

Last week, I posted about the term “Alternative Lifestyle” and asked friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter if they thought it was necessary to warn readers about LGBT content in YA books. Here’s what writers, parents, librarians and readers had to say:

“‘Alternative lifestyle’ sets up a separate but equal category for LGBT people, which imo is rarely helpful.”– @stacyking

“Alt lifestyle” is code, like it or not. I’d like to think no warning is necessary. A character/story is either compelling or not, despite orientation. Kind of like real life. It’s not all there is to a person.”- Sue Seeger

“In certain contexts, specifically, school libraries and classrooms, librarians and teachers will want advance notice, however they would want advance notice about a book’s content always, especially anything pertaining to sex/sexuality. Whether or not they inform the students… ‘Alternative lifestyle’ sounds like one lives on a commune!”– Shannon Babcock

“I don’t think gay when i think ‘alternative lifestyle.’ to me ‘alternative lifestyles’ are a lot weirder than that… speaking as a parent, there are times when i just don’t feel up to having to answer a whole lot of questions. There are times when you’re buying a gift for a neice or nephew and you don’t want to accidentally get something that would bother the kid or his/her parents. i would be more interested in warnings about hidden religious propaganda though. “– Jennifer Beer

“Why not ‘contains material pertaining to sexuality’, If it needs a warning at all?”– James Beddington

“I’m a bit disturbed by the sentence ‘a major character does make a lifestyle choice well into the novel’. The author does not present the story as the character making a ‘lifestyle choice’; rather, the reviewer considers that the character (and, presumably, real life people as well) are making a choice.”– Sarah Lolley

“Warnings about LGBT content? Absolutely not.”– Kate Muir Sedore

Thanks to everyone who participated in this interesting discussion.

And my own opinion? I think that knowing who you are and living according to your own true nature and values is not an alternative– it’s an imperative. I think all of my writing supports this statement in one way or another. And I think that if every person is true to her or himself, then there will be no dominant “lifestyle” to have alternatives to– each of us will live her own alternative, and hopefully, live it to the fullest.

PS: Not satisfied with novels alone, I have fallen back on an old habit and expressed this in t-shirt format. I think I’m going to be making lots more shirts because, essentially, I’m addicted.