Sound off on your LGBTQIA pet peeves!

thejenmath

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I'm really glad you're going to write LGBT+ characters; they are absurdly underrepresented.

My biggest pet peeve with these is that I've never once read a character who's outright said, "I'm bisexual." Maybe I just haven't found that book, but every time I see a character who is romantically interested in both genders on TV or in the movies or read them on a page they're gay or straight and can never be both and it drives me nuts that bisexuality isn't taken seriously anywhere.
 

edutton

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My biggest pet peeve with these is that I've never once read a character who's outright said, "I'm bisexual." Maybe I just haven't found that book, but every time I see a character who is romantically interested in both genders on TV or in the movies or read them on a page they're gay or straight and can never be both and it drives me nuts that bisexuality isn't taken seriously anywhere.
Tess Sharpe's FAR FROM YOU does, for one. Amazing book.
 

emdash

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I'm really glad you're going to write LGBT+ characters; they are absurdly underrepresented.

My biggest pet peeve with these is that I've never once read a character who's outright said, "I'm bisexual." Maybe I just haven't found that book, but every time I see a character who is romantically interested in both genders on TV or in the movies or read them on a page they're gay or straight and can never be both and it drives me nuts that bisexuality isn't taken seriously anywhere.

The protagonist of Malinda Lo's Inheritance series claims the label bisexual, and there's a point at which she grapples to find the word and apply it to herself. That series in general doesn't hesitate to have characters outright naming and discussing their identities.

In media in general this is absolutely a problem. Some people avoid labels, but it seems like the percentage of LGBT+ and especially bi characters in fiction who just give "I don't like labels" as their explanation surpasses that.
 
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Julia Joy

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I'm really glad you're going to write LGBT+ characters; they are absurdly underrepresented.

My biggest pet peeve with these is that I've never once read a character who's outright said, "I'm bisexual." Maybe I just haven't found that book, but every time I see a character who is romantically interested in both genders on TV or in the movies or read them on a page they're gay or straight and can never be both and it drives me nuts that bisexuality isn't taken seriously anywhere.

Mine, too. Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Lynburn Legacy" has a canon f/f couple in which both the bisexual girl and the lesbian discuss their identities candidly which I found to be nice. I've noticed a lot of the time lesbian characters don't get to have the "do you like boys too" "No, just girls" conversation in a way that doesn't seem to demean one orientation or the other, but this series pulled it off very well. The bisexual character also deals with internalized biphobia in a way I found very relatable.
 

Keobooks

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The protagonist of Malinda Lo's Inheritance series claims the label bisexual, and there's a point at which she grapples to find the word and apply it to herself. That series in general doesn't hesitate to have characters outright naming and discussing their identities.

In media in general this is absolutely a problem. Some people avoid labels, but it seems like the percentage of LGBT+ and especially bi characters in fiction who just give "I don't like labels" as their explanation surpasses that.

I'm wondering how you'd feel about the premise of my WIP, then. The characters are mostly all queer and out at the beginning, and they have a very strong belief that their orientation is simple and easy to label. But several of the main characters fall into situations that make them question their identity. Examples:

Aroace guy gets involved with a straight guy. They both feel like they are still their original labels, but they made a one off exception for each other. When I imagine these characters as adults, I think they break up after less than a year after "happily ever after". Aroace liked the experience but never gets involved again. Straight guy ends up identifying pan.

An agender born female who has recurring dreams about turning into a fairy princess. They secretly fear it's internalized genderqueer phobia. (It isn't.) as an adult - I think they will still be happily agender and aroace. (This is the main character, mad because their QPP hooked up with a guy.)



There are also non quiltbag issues. Like a "stoner" and a "biffy" girl become friends. Guy who assumes he's "colorblind" discovers he has more than few embarrassing racist stereotypes. Girl learns she doesn't have to lose her quirky personality when she takes her psych meds.
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One thing I really love about the YA genre is that when the story ends, the future is wide open. The characters are in their teens from start to finish. We see just a snapshot of their lives. There's no guarantee they'll end up with the same identity they had as a teen.

Not all adults are a solid number on the Kinsey Scale - and for YA aged people, identity is in flux -- not just sexual/romantic/gender. The radical punk rocker grows up and ends up a conservative "suit". The school bully opens up an ice cream shop and is known for being a big sweetheart, National Honor Society student ends in jail twice (arson) (sexual assault)All these cases are real life examples of people I went to high school with.

I didn't have a specific moral or message in mind, but as I write, it's ending up sort of a, "You're more than just a label" theme. It's a story I wish I had as a teen. I get sad when I think of friendships I missed out on because we were in different cliques. Missed out on romantic possibilities because the person was the "wrong" gender.

I wish we could all learn that it's OK to go outside your comfort zone when it comes to friendship
and romance now and then.


Slightly off topic: Do you guys think of who your characters might end up as when they become adults? I do. It helps me flesh them out, but maybe I just overthink stuff.
 
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JinxKing

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Honestly one thing I'd love to see more of as a reader, especially in YA, is gay guys who are allowed to be feminine without it being campy, overbearing, or written in a condescending manner by a straight author. The minute a gay male character is written as feminine, authors tend to turn them into walking stereotypes and make it a big joke, but it would nice to see them treat a feminine male character like an actual human with a complex identity, not just as a cheerleader for a white girl who's falling in love with an abusive paranormal creature lmao.

The only good example that comes to mind is Raffaele from Marie Lu's Young Elite's series. He's feminine without it being painted in a negative light or turned into his sole character trait.

One thing I'd like to see as an author is for book reviewers to stop misgendering & deadnaming trans characters in their reviews like it's nbd.
 

thereeness

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For LGBTQA+ tropes that I hate....I hate tragic endings. Almost every single movie I've watched or book that I read has had the relationships between the queer characters ending in some kind of tragedy and I'm sick of it. Let the characters be happy, damnit. I also hate lesbians seen as overly sexual and turned into some kink fetish. Or bi characters written as "confused" to where they don't know what they really want. I also agree with JinxKing, I'd love to see more guys allowed to be feminine and not have it turned into some campy joke. I also can't stand the "family and church rejection" tropes and the "coming out" stories. There's more to life than coming out stories.

As an ace lesbian myself, I stand by what I wrote in my intro thread: I let my characters be people. Just people. Yes, their sexuality is a part of who they are, but it's not their only defining feature. Their entire lives don't revolve around the fact that they may like girls or guys or both or neither, just like real people. I'd like to see writers treating their queer characters as just people. Their sexuality may come up, but in a casual way, it's remarked upon, and things move on.

I'd also love to see more ace, demi, trans, genderfluid, gender queer, and poly characters in the leading roles, where they're portrayed just the same as their non-queer counterparts. Where they can be badass and have a love interest and be triumphant and respected and just...be the hero.
 

travelgal

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Not all teens are confused about their sexuality, right? If straights know they're straight and gays know they're gay by whatever age, why shouldn't bis?

My character Cecile is hardly confused. When her mother is advising her about not kissing too many frogs and waiting until she's married, she's thinking, "What about girl frogs? At least they won't get me pregnant." Yeah, she's pregnant, and her ex-boyfriend is stalking her, hence the lecture in the first place (the mother doesn't know she's pregnant, she just knows about the stalking). Cecile's getting an abortion.
 

Fallen

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I think what irked me is that LGBT+ issues are usually all that's represented, in that all a character will be coming to terms with is sexuality or gender. Not many take into account a trans kid who's also dealing with autism, for instance, the stigma that comes with: oh you just feel different because of the autism: you're not really trans, and a good psych-doctor will sort you out etc.

I have an f2m trans kid who is autistic, and the two, when they're first coming into their own, they offer their own beauty and rage as far as acceptance go. We've just taken part in YA charity anthology to raise money for the Being Me charity.
 

edutton

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Not all teens are confused about their sexuality, right? If straights know they're straight and gays know they're gay by whatever age, why shouldn't bis?

My character Cecile is hardly confused.
Same. My MC isn't expecting to be bi, but when she starts falling for a girl she does a lot of reading (because that's what she'd do :)) and in the end basically says, "Huh. Okay, then."
 

kuwisdelu

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I think what irked me is that LGBT+ issues are usually all that's represented, in that all a character will be coming to terms with is sexuality or gender. Not many take into account a trans kid who's also dealing with autism, for instance, the stigma that comes with: oh you just feel different because of the autism: you're not really trans, and a good psych-doctor will sort you out etc.

Or struggling with being AMAB and really, really wanting to be a girl despite people telling you about a certain asshole researcher's theory of autism being "extreme maleness" or other such bullshit. The intersection of autism and gender is a frustrating, anger-inducing mess.
 

catesquire

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Seconding the "doomed" and "psycho" LGBTQ+ characters.

I'm also sick of books that are only about LGBTQ+ issues. Being cisgender would make for a boring plot; being any flavor of queer does not make things interesting, either. It can be part of things, but I'd love for it not to be the main part.

I would also love to see more fantasy stories where it's normalized--where LGBTQ+ characters exists in fore and background, living their lives like regular people, and no one points out how special they are. (On that note, I'd caution against hiding it behind in-world fantasy words. If your character is gay, it shouldn't take a preceptive reader to figure that out: it's just a part of them. Hiding it risks relegating it to "I'm subconsciously embarrassed by this, or otherwise nervous about including it, so I'm hiding it from readers" status. Just show it in context and move on.)
 

Antipode91

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I'm gay, and my main character is gay.

Before I get into tropes, I wanna say I've actually have a lot of back-and-forth with how I view it. For instance, some people say they hate when gays are portrayed in negative ways. If you've seen The Mist tv show, the main gay character does some pretty bad things, and it's in relation to his gayness. While others say they hate how gays are "safe" from negative plots.

I get both angles. Homosexual representation in media is a pretty new thing. So I get the need to make sure that we represent them in positive light. We don't need gays to be portrayed more negatively, because they already are. At the same time, they are equal to straights, and are equally able to do negative things.

Thus, I'll say this: I think homosexual characters should be open to anything, from being the saving hero, to being the horrible villain. However, their villainy shouldn't be related to their homosexuality in unrealistic ways. For instance, in the Mist tv show, the gay character rapes his female best friend, because he doesn't have any love, and doesn't want to be alone. Everyone treats him poorly for being weird and gothic. Granted, the show was canceled, and it's possible the direct they would had taken was that bullying can lead to mentally disturbed individuals, which is a better route. Yet, it comes off like being abused leads to being gay, which is... sigh.

As for tropes. I don't read books that are gay-themed, because I read books for plot, and not for social issues. So I'm probably not the best gay to ask about tropes. That said, from what I've seen, I also hate when gay characters don't get any kind of happy ending. That said, I don't usually like stories where it's entirely a negative ending regardless. Bitter sweet is more powerful.

I don't like it when being gay is their identifier. I deal with this in life, too, which I simply laugh off. However, if I'm introduced to a group of friends, or new to a workplace, somehow, me being gay is brought up. Who cares? No one brings up when someone is straight. In the same vain that it's annoying to read, "Cathy was pretty and bright," it's annoying to read that a character's identifier is that they're gay.

In my fantasy action adventure book, my MC is gay, but you don't even "know" that until the very last page, when he kisses a guy. I kinda did it for two reasons. One, I wanted my book to be marketable to people. I wanted (straight guys mainly) to be able to read the whole book, see how awesome the MC is, and how crazy the plot is. Fall in love with it. Relate to the what seems like intense friendship between these two guys. And then at the very end realize he's gay, and think to themselves, "Yeah, but he's awesome." I wanted its subtleties to allow the reader not be threatened by his gayness, and slowly become open to it at the end. However, not all books need to be that way. It just doesn't need to define them.

I don't find the christian thing to be a trope. Happened to me, and to most gays that struggled. Hell, I felt Prayers for Bobby really hit home what it can feel like for both the child and parents of a homosexual.

I also don't mind the falling for gay best friend thing. That's super common haha.

Above all--while I didn't do this in my book, because of its nature--I wish humor and gay were intertwined:

Humor normalizes concepts. When I came out gay to my christian parents, it went as one can imagine. However, I inserted humor throughout that summer. I was clever in doing it. When something gay happened on tv, I'd make a joke. When someone said something, I'd sometimes make a gay joke out of it. At first they were confused--I made a joke about myself being gay? Then they'd start to chuckle. Then laugh. Then they'd start to feel comfortable making jokes themselves. Then me became so normalized for them, that my mother started telling me to date certain boys she found sweet haha! My point is that humor is a normal human trait, and being gay shouldn't be this constant serious thing. If it is, it continues to separate the concepts, allowing people to stay at arms length.

A good example of this is Easy A. While it's a comedy and had many times to make jokes with with gay character (he was always involved, and not the brunt of the joke; that's important), it still serves as a good example. The interaction between Olive and Brandon is a true representation of my interactions with real people. Just how we have serious conversations about me being gay, we also have a lot of humor around it.

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Thus, to summarize: make your gay character real. Don't make them immortal to making bad choices. Don't make them immune to criticism and jokes. Making them real, makes them relatable. Making them relatable makes people who normally never be around someone gay, begin to see how human we actually are.
 
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Antipode91

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I would also love to see more fantasy stories where it's normalized--where LGBTQ+ characters exists in fore and background, living their lives like regular people, and no one points out how special they are. (On that note, I'd caution against hiding it behind in-world fantasy words.

I forget what movie it was. It was some horror movie. The pact. Idk. Basically a simple horror movie where this couple hosts a party where they kill all their guests, and you learn at the end that it's happening everywhere.

Regardless, one thing I really loved. There's these two male characters, who sit next to each other on the couch, holding the other's leg. I think they kiss, too. No one talks about them being gay, or notices them in that way. They are just there. And, they're also killed, just like other characters. They're just two, gay characters.

I loved that and respected it so much.
 

neurotype

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This is a random one, but in a lot of books featuring lesbians they always seem to call each other "babe" all the time, like this is the only term of endearment lesbians have for one another. Just something I've noticed a lot! Also definitely stand by the happy ending thing, very, very common for couples to be torn apart by circumstances and it would be nice to see relationships sticking together.

A book I read recently that I didn't like was YA fantasy 27 Hours. It was sold as being a fantastic array of LGBTQIA, and it was, but literally every time a character was introduced it was "Hi, I'm [name], and I'm bisexual", etc. etc. and it just seemed way too forced. Every time it was done a voice in my head thought, "And?" Sexuality informs our lives, of course, but it's not the sole basis for who we are. It was almost like the author wanted the sexuality to do the work of telling us about the character rather than allowing the identity to show in other ways. However, it was the first time I've read a book where the gender-neutral pronoun "they" was used for one of the characters, so it was unique for that! [Will add here that the book had a slew of other issues beyond LBTQIA, so I wouldn't recommend it overall.]

Other than that, also make sure that any bisexual characters prioritize their partners equally. I've seen a couple times where a female bisexual character will feel more toward a male love interest, as if the female love interest is less important. Just something to be aware of. Give each equal screen time!
 

danatcsimpson

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A book I read recently that I didn't like was YA fantasy 27 Hours. It was sold as being a fantastic array of LGBTQIA, and it was, but literally every time a character was introduced it was "Hi, I'm [name], and I'm bisexual", etc. etc. and it just seemed way too forced. Every time it was done a voice in my head thought, "And?" Sexuality informs our lives, of course, but it's not the sole basis for who we are. It was almost like the author wanted the sexuality to do the work of telling us about the character rather than allowing the identity to show in other ways. However, it was the first time I've read a book where the gender-neutral pronoun "they" was used for one of the characters, so it was unique for that! [Will add here that the book had a slew of other issues beyond LBTQIA, so I wouldn't recommend it overall.]

This tactic for inclusion annoys me too, because it's so awkward as well as being kinda lazy. Pulls me right out of the story. The only time I'd ever let it slide is a scene set in queer youth support group or something. Ugh. Work your character's sexuality into the book in a way that doesn't make them sound like the star of a 30 second diversity PSA.
 

Lady Ice

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I don’t like it when the gay characters are there either just for the sake of it or as the fantasy best friend for the straight female lead. I don’t mind if LGBT characters are confused but if they are literally just there so tragic things can happen to them and we feel sorry for them, that bugs me.