But it seemed impossible to envision a happy ending for us. Is that how all relationships feel? Perhaps. Our relationship felt like uncharted territory. I went to college in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the buckle of the Bible Belt. Queer love was shown as something healing, a bright spot among the darkest moments in Celie’s life.Ī few years later, I came out as a lesbian. Seeing Celie and Shug’s ending-even if it wasn’t a fully happy one, and they experienced significant amounts of pain and trauma along the way-felt like a revelation. Can this please be gay?” When I reached the scene where Celie and Shug were sexually intimate, I remember my jaw dropping and looking around the empty room where I was reading to see if anyone else was seeing this.Īt the time, I wasn’t out to myself or others, although I had many queer friends. As I read it, I thought, “This is gay, right? I’m pretty sure this is gay.
Despite being a voracious reader and seeking out queer stories, I stumbled into my first queer book without any awareness of its sapphic content. The first book I remember reading with a queer protagonist-not a book with a hilarious gay best friend, not a book that made a queer person the punchline-was The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
