Love Bytes says hello and welcome to author Francis Gideon joining us today to talk about their new holiday release “The Santa Hoax”.
Hello everyone!
My holiday YA romance called The Santa Hoax came out on December 1st with Harmony Ink Press. The protagonist, Julian, is a trans man who tries to figure out the best way to come out to his family and group of friends, while also falling in and out of love with two people, and figuring out the best present for a secret Santa exchange. It was such an exciting and fun story for me to write, and I’m really psyched to have it finally out there for other people to read.
Like Julian in the story, I’m also trans and bi. As I’ve said in other blog posts for this tour, it can be really easy to blur those identities together. Being bi is about who you fall in love with, whereas being trans is about who you fall in love as. Julian wants to fall in love as Julian and be someone’s boyfriend, and that’s what he tries to articulate to both Maria and Aiden, the people he’s in love with. Make no mistake, though–this is not a YA book with a triangle love affair. It’s mostly about a kid who’s trying to find the right words to articulate his desires to other people and himself. Oddly enough, one of the easiest ways to convey this struggle was through the gift-giving aspect of the story.
The entire reason why I wanted to set the story at Christmas was because the tension of gift-giving is something especially heightened for trans people (or maybe just me?). When Julian exchanges names with people for Secret Santa, they’re buying for him blind–and through an old name and old perceptions attached to that name’s assumed gender. Gift giving is an especially gendered task because the marketplace itself needs to find a way to appeal to as many people as possible, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to play onto assumptions and stereotypes. Look at any commercial and it can feel like you’re being assaulted with gender ideologies! (Or again, maybe that’s just me.) When he gets body lotion that’s clearly labeled FOR HER and bright pink, his gender dysphoria comes back full-force. This event becomes one that initially sparks his desire to come out, because if people are going to make assumptions about him, they can at least make the right ones.
That doesn’t mean that Julian embodies or embraces every last stereotype–not at all–but gift giving in the story becomes a highly symbolic act, one which his friends and family try to interpret and then use to show their acceptance for him. Julian covets certain objects, like the golden tie from the cover. For him, owning a golden tie means he’s now a man, or at least, can perform a certain element of masculinity. But if the golden tie is given to him–it means that the person who gave it to him accepts him as masculine. It can be a complex to parse out these assumptions with gender, especially since so many of us don’t think about it. But I assure you, there is a happy ending in all of this. Someone does give Julian the golden tie of acceptance, but you’ll have to read to find out who.
Thank you so much for reading this! Love Bytes is my last stop on this blog tour, so I hope everyone has a safe and happy December holiday. 🙂
Book Blurb:
When Julian Gibson realizes he’s transgender, he doesn’t think anything has to change. His parents and friends still call him Julia and think he’s a girl, but so long as Julian can still hang out with his best friend Aiden and read sci-fi novels with his dad, life seems pretty good.
Then high school happens. Aiden ditches him, and a new girl, Maria, keeps cornering him in the girls’ bathroom. A full year after discovering he’s transgender, Julian realizes life changes whether you’re ready for it or not. So Julian makes a deal with himself: if he can tell his secret to three people, it is no longer a hoax. What happens during his slow process of coming out leads Julian down odd pathways of friendship, romance, Christmas shopping, random parties, bad movies, and a realization about why kids still believe in Santa—it’s sometimes better than discovering the truth.
Buy Link:
Francis Gideon is a writer of m/m romance, but he also dabbles in mystery, fantasy, historical, and paranormal fiction. He has appeared in Gay Flash Fiction, Chelsea Station Poetry, and the Martinus Press anthology To Hell With Dante. He lives in Canada with his partner, reads too many comics books, and drinks too much coffee. Feel free to contact him, especially if you want to talk about horror movies, LGBT poetry, or NBC’s Hannibal. Find him at francisgideon.wordpress.com.