In June, nonprofit children’s book organization We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) announced that it would stop using the term #OwnVoices, in favor of authors’ specific descriptions of themselves and their characters. WNDB said that use of the term has forced authors to self-identify in ways that are uncomfortable or dangerous; some diverse identities, such as disability or LGBTQ identities, aren’t self-evident. The hashtag has also become a way to police marginalized writers, “questioning authors who do have lived experience about whether they ‘count’ as ‘diverse enough’ to write about that specific community (for example, in making multiracial or bi+/pansexual authors […]
