Speculative Fiction Guide: Queer SF

Introduction to Queer Speculative Fiction

So many of our speculative fiction stories, like any of our media, has skewed cisnormative and heterosexual. However, there have been speculative fiction storytellers challenging our limited views of sexuality and gender throughout the history of speculative storytelling. Stories centering queer characters have increased in recent years as well. There is great opportunity in speculating through story of ways people can live free of the gender binary and heteronormative expectations. Speculative fiction also is rife with imagery that allows people to project themselves to imagine worlds that are intended as heterosexual to contain queer elements. 

As Dorothy Allison says, "Images of different worlds can be transferred into life narratives more complex than, "It Gets Better," to shape readers' queer futures as easily accessible books become portable queer worlds."

Queer Speculative Fiction TV and Movies

Queer representation on our screens has struggled to take hold, but our small(er) TV screens have done a better job of providing us with speculative fiction stories with queer characters than our movie screens. The list below are some recommended TV series and movies depicting differing levels of queer characters. Some of these are more explicitly queer than others.

Queer Speculative Fiction Books

The majority of the books that follow are Young Adult books. There are many more adult speculative fiction books with queer characters.

Some Recommended Articles

Steven Universe Beautifully Fosters Non-Binary Self Love

https://www.tvguide.com/news/steven-universe-self-love/