Amazon clusterfuck

Unless you're living under a rock, you've heard all about the Amazon clusterfuck, in which pretty much every GLBT book they sell has been declared "adult" material (ie, explicit) and been stripped of ranking AND availability on Amazon searches. To give an indication of what's considered explicit, Heather Has Two Mommies was included. Amazon says it was a glitch, but this is one hell of a glitch. It's more on level of a site hack.

In any case, I'm pissed off. On the off chance that this thing stays put, that's my bread and butter they're fucking with (to quote Metalocalypse). Most of my writing has GLBT characters and deals with GLBT issues. The main character in the series Colleen is working with me on? Gay as a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide (to quote Good Omens). The novel I started for fun a couple of weeks ago? MC is a 6'2" muscular bull dyke.

Me? I'm a 5'4" pudgy lipstick bi chick. (Why can't I have a cool term like "lipstick lesbian?") I don't appreciate being told--whether by glitch, hack, or executive decision--that I'm offensive, and I'm sure no-one else on the queer spectrum does, either. It's not exactly fun to grow up this way, and a lot of the books currently being censored are intended to help kids through the horrible "why am I this way, and how do I fix it?" phase that so commonly hits about the time you realise the captain of the girls' basketball team is way hotter than the guys' captain. That this could, if not fixed, impact my future income adds injury to insult.

In short, I'm angry. If it's deliberate, I'm angry that anyone could stoop to such a level. If it's accidental, I'm angry that Amazon's systems were so vulnerable to such a glitch. Whatever it is, they need to fix it. If nothing else, the amount of business they'll lose for the sake of alienating the queer community and its straight allies is far greater than what they'd bring in from opposing groups.