Rise of the Sensitivity Reader: OVERZEALOUS GATEKEEPING ON RACE AND GENDER IS KILLING BOOKS BEFORE THEY'RE PUBLISHED--OR EVEN WRITTEN..

• Author: Rosenfield, Kat

ALBERTO GULLABA JR. was the type of author that publishers dream of having in their catalogs. A first-generation college grad, a child of working-class immigrants, and the recent recipient of a Master of Fine Arts degree from the prestigious University of California, Irvine, program, Gullaba was a debut novelist with a gift for visceral and vivid prose. His first book, University Thugs, had all the makings of a smash hit. A work of character-driven literary fiction steeped in immersive vernacular, it tells the story of a young black man named Titus who is trying to make his way at an elite university in the wake of a criminal conviction--all while the school is bei ng rocked by racial scandals, not unlike the racial reckoning that consumed so many American institutions in the summer of 2020.

Gullaba's agent knew he had something special, and he was excited for a big submission push. But on the eve of sending the manuscript out to publishers, the agent suggested Gullaba update his bio to emphasize his racial identity. Publishers, he reasoned, would be excited to support a young black writer fresh on the literary scene.

There was a problem: Gullaba is Filipino.

"We had never met in person," he tells me, laughing. "I guess you can't really judge who's black or not based on a name like Alberto, and Gullaba is just ethnically ambiguous enough that it could be from Africa? I don't know."

What was clear, immediately, was that something had changed. The agent wasn't excited anymore. Actually, he seemed downright nervous, and he started asking for significant changes to the manuscript.

"The guy's frightened," Gullaba says. "God bless him, that's the reality of that world."

At first, Gullaba was asked to add an Asian character--east Asian, specifically, perhaps a Pacific Islander. Then it was suggested that Titus' wingman, the biggest secondary character, should also be assigned an Asian identity. And there was one more bizarre twist: Another agency employee, who we'll call Sally, was brought in at the eleventh hour to read the book and provide additional feedback.

"My agent was like, 'I don't want to do this, it makes me very uncomfortable,'" Gullaba says. "But then he says it."

Sally, the agent explained, was black.

Known as sensitivity readers, or sometimes authenticity readers, consultants like Sally are a growing part of publishing, hired to correct the pre-publication missteps of authors who don't share the same traits--or "lived experience," to use a favored buzzword--as their characters.

The sensitivity reader's possible areas of expertise are as varied as human existence itself. One representative consultancy boasts a list of experts in the usual racial, ethnic, and religious categories, but also in such areas as "agoraphobia," "Midwestern," "physical disability, arms & legs," and (perhaps most puzzlingly) "gamer geek." Another one lists individual readers with intersectional qualifications: Depending on the content of your novel, you might hire a white lesbian with generalized anxiety disorder or a bisexual, genderfluid, light-skinned brown Mexican with a self-diagnosis of autism. Every medical condition, every trauma, every form of oppression: Sensitivity readers will cover it all.

Unsurprisingly, the rise of sensitivity readers has proved controversial. Those who support it insist that they're no different from subject matter experts, not unlike the physician who proofreads a medical thriller to make sure the science is right. Critics, on the other hand, balk at the idea that being a member of a given demographic...