Why Are We Like This: Heartstopper Models Respectful Queer Discourse, so Why Aren’t Fans Listening? A guest post by Laura Shovan
Heartstopper is having a moment. The last installment of Alice Oseman’s YA webcomic—which will eventually be published as the series’ sixth and final graphic novel —began posting on October 1. The third season of Netflix’s hit adaptation dropped last week. Amidst the media blitz, reaction videos, and fan posts surrounding season three’s premiere, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between storytellers and readers/viewers.
Heartstopper is the crush-worthy love story of two high schoolers, openly gay Charlie Spring and “rugby lad” Nick Nelson. But their romance isn’t all drifting leaves and popping hearts. Charlie’s mental health struggles and Nick’s complicated path to understanding his sexuality resonate with teens and adults. The main characters’ supportive, loving group of mostly queer friends—whose roles are expanded in the TV series—add to the appeal.
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One of Heartstopper’s central themes is that it’s rude, even dangerous, to speculate on someone’s else’s sexuality. That information is private, to be shared if, when, and how a person is ready. Throughout the story, Nick is told by adults he respects and by his queer friends that he doesn’t owe anyone details about his identity or who he’s dating.
But some fans aren’t getting the message. In 2022, one of the show’s lead actors, Kit Connor (Nick), was so severely harassed on social media for being straight-passing that he felt pressured out himself as bisexual on Twitter. He was 18 at the time. If this sounds familiar, it should. Similar harassment has led several YA authors who write LGBTQIA+ characters to go public with their queer identities, often reluctantly.
Where is the disconnect? And what can we do about it?
I asked several YA authors in the LGBTQIA+ community for their thoughts, including Becky Albertalli (Imogen, Obviously), Kalynn Bayron (Sleep Like Death), Adiba Jaigirdar (Rani Choudhury Must Die), and David Levithan (Wide Awake Now), who is the U.S. editor of Oseman’s YA novels. I also spoke with Danielle DuPuis, LGBTQIA+ Initiatives Specialist for a large public school system in Maryland, and teen services librarian and author Sara Ryan, whose queer middle grade novel Mountain Upside Down will publish in 2025.
Ryan said that Heartstopper’s ensemble cast portrays a wide variety of queer experiences, but also has “that comforting vibe. What I most often hear from adults who are into this series is that they wish there was something like it when they were teens.”
That sentiment is echoed on the Heartstopper fan podcast, “Why Are We Like This,” an essential resource for those who’d like to do a deep-dive into the show and comics. Listeners wrote in about why Heartstopper resonated with them. Their messages are love-letters to the series’ gentle, honest exploration of eating disorders, bisexual erasure, the trans experience, asexuality, and more.
“Every character’s story is told with so much care,” Albertalli said. “Not just the queer awakening stories, but who they are and what they’re figuring out and thinking about. It’s so deeply relatable.”
“Alice perfectly marries realism and romanticism in her books,” Levithan added. “She shows how wonderful love can be (between boyfriends and among friends), but also shows that it takes a whole lot of work.”
DuPuis noted that Oseman, who has written every episode of the Netflix series, asks questions that model what to do when a friend shares information about their identity or their mental health. Oseman’s stories are “normalizing that it’s okay to ask for help,” DuPuis said.
Oseman has said, “There is power in simply seeing your feelings written in a book and consequently knowing you’re not alone.” Could the need to see oneself reflected in a book drive fans’ demand for authors to share identities with their fictional characters?
Jaigirdar said that when we ask this question, “The history of how marginalized identities have been represented in popular media…can’t be ignored. I’m speaking as someone who was a queer teen of color and didn’t think I could be an author because I barely ever saw queer representation. But when I did, it wasn’t for people who look like me.”
The issue of representation is “something I think about all the time,” Albertalli said. “I remember…being asked that question in an auditorium full of people and being put on the spot. ‘Why did you write this book? Are you queer?’”
Like Connor, Albertalli was accused of queerbaiting after her debut novel, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, was adapted into the film Love, Simon. Traditionally, the term queerbaiting refers to a marketing ploy, such as a television show that teases queer content in order to attract an LGBTQIA+ audience, but never delivers on that promise. More recently, the term has been used to call out perceived-straight storytellers for appropriating queer culture.
Ryan said that accusations of queerbaiting lobbed at authors and celebrities comes from the unrealistic expectation that, “If you’re going to be part of this community you have to be an ambassador, a representative. And if we’re talking about teen readers, especially teens who are newly out themselves, they often feel very strongly about wanting to know who is and who is not in the LGBTQIA+ community.”
That thinking can devolve into gatekeeping, which has resulted in some fans targeting authors of queer stories who are not openly out. This is in stark contrast to Nick Nelson’s coming out arc in Heartstopper. Nick comes to terms with being bisexual over the course of the first three graphic novels. In Volume Two, Nick tells his openly gay friend Tara Jones that he’s dating Charlie, but adds, “I feel like…I don’t really understand myself enough yet. Like, I’m not even 100% sure what I identify as.” He is given both the time and the privacy to develop an understanding of his sexuality.
Oseman makes it clear that not having control over one’s coming out process can be traumatic. Part of Charlie Spring’s backstory is that he was outed at school a year prior to the events of Heartstopper. The severe bullying he experienced is only hinted at, but its impact on Charlie’s mental health is evident.
So, do storytellers owe it to readers to reveal that they share a lived experience with a book’s characters?
“No. Not at all. Writing a work of fiction does not obligate an author to disclose anything about their own identity,” Levithan said. “And that is completely not what the call for diversity is about. The only thing an author owes to readers is to ‘get it right’—to draw characters with depth and nuance, who are not stereotypes or caricatures.” That depth and nuance is key to Heartstopper’s success.
Levithan said publishing diverse stories is about “making sure that attention is paid and encouragement is given to the underrepresented; it is not saying you have to write only according to your identity, nor does it mean (and it horrifies me to have to say this) that you’d have to out yourself or pin your own identity down publicly in order to publish a book about any identity.”
Jaigirdar added, “As creators we are always going to have to make personal choices about … what we want our readers to know about ourselves.” She said that the entire publishing industry, including authors and readers, must “put in the work… to undo a long history of harm perpetuated against people from marginalized backgrounds.”
Bayron gets why teens might have a “natural curiosity about who the author is. I am fine sharing my identity but I think readers need to understand that some people may not be able to be so open. We have to respect that.”
One way to build that respect is by encouraging teens to curate the stories they engage with. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with seeking out books that you know are written by queer authors,” Albertalli said. “That’s very different than demanding that books are only written by authors who share the identities, particularly queer identities, that their characters have. And that is certainly very different from the active interrogating of the author to demand that information.”
Adults, whether they are parents, educators, librarians, or authors, must model these boundaries as an aspect of how we teach media literacy. DuPuis advocates for coaching teens that admiring an author, “also means that I’m respecting that person as a human. That means I’m giving them their space…to let them do the creative things they do that bring me joy. If I’m in a room with somebody and they’re talking trash about [an author] it’s me standing up and saying, ‘Hey, that’s an unfair statement,’” or asking where the person got their information.
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Ultimately, Jaigirdar said, “We need to think larger than one book or author… How am I contributing to creating a system where nobody should feel pressured to come out, but queer children and teens are still able to find and read books that resonate with them, and authors who make them feel represented?”
With Heartstopper, Oseman is working toward creating that system.
The books and show have “been able to capture the hearts and minds of so many readers because [Nick and Charlie’s] story is relatable,” Bayron said. “One of the best things about Heartstopper is that it examines all the ways in which queer people exist. The entire premise is that these are normal, everyday lives.”
Resources
Albertalli, Becky. “Reaction to Kit Connor’s coming out tweet.” Instagram, 1 Nov. 2022.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CkbHR9LudEZ
Ellis, Rowan. “The Rise of Heartstopper.” Rowan Ellis, YouTube, 3 Oct. 2024.
Ellis, Rowan. “The Public Dystopia of Queer Speculation.” Rowan Ellis, YouTube, 3 Oct.
2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWmAw451sFE&t=2910s
Leiser, Savy. “Kit Connor, Heartstopper, and the DANGERS OF BISEXUAL ERASURE.”
Savy Writes Books, YouTube, 18 Sep. 2024,
Mackenzie, Hannah. “Heartstopper’s Repeated Clarification of Nick’s Bisexuality Is More Important Than It Seems.” Teen Vogue, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/heartstoppers-bisexuality-more-important-than-it-seems. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
Hullett, Ashley and Alyssa Ryan, hosts. “0.04: Season One Wrap Up.” Why Are We Like This: A Heartstopper Podcast, Spotify, 3 May 2023. (Start this episode at 29:00 to hear listeners’ messages about why Heartstopper resonates with them.)
Meet the author
Laura Shovan is an award-winning author and poet. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA program in Writing for Children & Young Adults and mentors teens in the Navigating the Margins writing program.
Socials:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurashovan/
Website: https://laurashovan.com/
Filed under: Guest Post
About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on Twitter @CiteSomething.
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