Funny Gyal

Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult 2022 Finalist Instead of remaining silent, she chose to speak out Thats the power of one person. Barack Obama The inspiring story of Angeline Jackson, who stood up to Jamaicas oppression of queer youth to demand recognition and justice. When Angeline Jackson was a child, she wondered if there was something wrong with her for wanting to kiss the other girls. But as her sexuality blossomed in her teens, she knew she wouldnt grow out of it and that her attraction to girls wasnt against God. In fact, she discovered that same-sex relationships were depicted in the Bible, which she read devoutly, even if the tight-knit evangelical Christian community she grew up in believed any sexual relationship outside of marriage between a man and woman was a sin, and her society, Jamaica, criminalized homosexual sex. Angelines story begins with her traumatic experience of corrective rape when she is lured by an online predator, then traces her childhood through her sexual and spiritual awakening as a teen falling in love, breaking up, coming out, and then being forced into conversion therapy. Sometimes dark, always threadbare and honest, Funny Gyal chronicles how Angelines faith deepens as a teenager, despite her parents conservative values and the strict Christian Jamaican society in which she lives, giving her the courage to challenge gender violence, rape culture, and oppression.