#whether female or nonbinary or POC

[saucerfulofsins]

Hello, feel free to ignore this but after I've read the way you spoke out in that pidt I'm sure you know the one I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart thank you. And I hope you have a wonderful day thank you

🥰🥰🥰🥰

First off, thank you for your lovely message! I absolutely know what post you're talking about. Above all though, I'm glad it helped you a little. I'm under no illusions that it'll reach the people I wish it would, but that's not its only point. This is. Making the people I care about feel less alone.

I hope you'll have a wonderful day as well. Please take a moment to do something nice for yourself! 🥰🥰

[balloon-garden]

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We don't mind neopronoun stuff too 👍

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Can be fun, but we might not have any ideas or may feel uncomfortable with some

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depends on if it might fit the character. incredibly unlikely to do the "kills your family" type tropes for Yandere's unless it's a character we could genuinely see doing such things

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✧NSFW✧

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[gendercensus]

I saw that you removed third gender because of the anthropological definition- that's not the definition most people use for it. Third gender relates mainly to the western binary and means a gender that's neither a man nor a woman but something else. It's now known as maverique, which has a flag and is more popular, but people who had the gender identity before the word was established used third gender instead because it was the easiest to explain. I just wanted to clarify this because seeing someone call one of my genders a scientific term was super weird and kind of offensive. As much as I care about the safety and comfort of poc in the nb community, we already replaced the term while acknowledging that none of us meant the one that is incredibly transphobic and racist to begin with they just co-evolved separately and with nothing to do with one another. If possible, a note that the history of third gender as a nb identity and as a term within anthropology would be really appreciated. Our community is very small and I'd hate for young nbs to feel as though the term they relate to isn't a gender they can identify with without being bigoted, especially when we've done the work necessary to establish community elsewhere where there are less problems for everyone.

For context, this ask is a reference to this part of the 2020 worldwide report:

Last year I decided that I would remove terms from the checkbox list that were chosen by under 3% of participants in both the over-30s and under-30s group and that didn’t correspond with other more popular terms on the list. This year one term met the criteria: third gender. I looked into the phrase a little more last year, and found that it’s essentially a term used by white anthropologists to describe non-straight-non-cis people in non-Western societies. That could include LGB people and binary trans people, in addition to people whose genders are not described by the M/F binary. On the basis of racism alone I am very happy to finally remove this term from the checkbox list next year.

There is a lot going on in my head in response to your ask, so I’m putting it into bullet points to tidy it up!

I would really love to see some sources to back up the claim that maverique has the exact same meaning as third gender and that one has replaced the other. Something about this claim feels very off to me and I can’t quite articulate why.

I can definitely see how third gender as an identity term could have evolved separately alongside the use of third gender in an anthropological context. “So if you’re not a man or a woman but you still have a gender, what are you?” “Oh you know, some third gender, I guess?” It’s very intuitive, and the definition is right there in the term itself.

I agree that the way I talked about the term third gender in the 2020 report doesn’t take into account the people who started claiming and using it independently of the anthropology context. My tone was pretty insensitive, so I’d like to go back and edit the report to correct that.

My understanding is there are several words that mean “a specific and whole gender identity entirely distinct from female/woman/feminine and male/man/masculine”. To claim that one particular word has entirely replaced another with the exact same meaning, with the implication that this was an intentional community decision by consensus, seems very bold to me - there is certainly no mention of it on the Nonbinary Wiki pages for third gender or maverique - so if that truly has happened I would like to read more about it.

~

Edit: Also, just spotted this:

I saw that you removed third gender because of the anthropological definition

That isn’t true. I removed it because it was chosen as a checkbox option by under 3% of respondents in both the over-30 and under-30 age groups. With some exceptions, anything that is chosen or typed in often enough will be on the checkbox list, regardless of whether or not I personally like it.

[rainystudios]

Here’s a list of resources you can use to learn more about Japanese Queer history, literature, BL, Gei Komi, Fujoshi, Fudanshi etc.

fujoshi.info

----

Edit: It’s honestly depressing that anyone I’ve seen so far who disliked this post and commented on it either went off on completely unrelated tangents, or assumed that I'm either white (I’m not) and/or not gay/queer as an excuse to talk over me. It’s extremely ironic claiming to be open-minded/progressive while removing any association of queerness from people who discuss BL/Fujoshi history as an excuse to talk over them. “You’re gonna say your as oppressed as gay people???” hello, I am a gay POC.

People who perpetuated the Anti Fujoshi narrative were terfs and you’re actually being transphobic by spreading their narratives. They call trans MLM fujoshi because they hate trans men and see them as “fetishistic” women. They don’t see trans men as men, they see them as women.

Just like how people who hate trans women call them “fetishizers” since the 1970s in western anti-trans circles. That’s it. That’s where it comes from.

These same people even censor Queer which was also perpetuated by TERFs as a means of excluding trans/nonbinary/intersex identities.

Either read the masterposts in the links or leave, but stop getting into fights with your own strawmen on my posts.

//

Sidenote, I find it interesting (and by interesting I mean disgusting & disappointing) how the term ‘Fujoshi’ has come full circle in western culture to mean: ‘rotten women, degenerates, women who ruin everything, women who are ruined/deviant/corrupted, Abusers etc. etc.’ When it originated as an overall general term for women who didn’t conform to conventional gender & heterosexual roles & standards in Japan. That was it. That’s all it meant.

They were literally considered “ruined women” not fit for marriage or regular society. It was deeply misogynistic & homophobic in root. Female fans were referred to as Fujoshi whether they were “exploitative” of M/M relationships or not. Simply appreciating or engaging in queer relationships to any degree was seen as “rotten” and deemed someone a Fujoshi. The term is NOT exclusive to people who are seen as fetishizing said content/relationships. It’s a reclaimed term still actively used to this day in Japan.

Western fandom has taken this reclaimed word that comes from Japanese context & culture, and weaponized it all over again. To the point where people don’t even remotely know what it means in historical terms and throw it around with smug abandon. To the point where if they saw a Japanese person use it, would likely unleash a full-scale hate campaign against them. I don’t know if some newer western self identified Fujoshi are somehow using the term wrong as well but I’m talking about the actual REAL original meaning & context that has only become present day warped in western fandom, and is used to attack women & lgbt+ ppl who dare mention the term. (Or label them as such to deem certain ppl as fandom undesirables.) It’s embarrassing.

I’ve literally seen people say ‘time to reclaim X series from the Fujoshis! :^)’ When the original author of said work they’re celebrating... Would be considered a Fujoshi...

Fujoshi isn’t synonymous with ‘exploitative nasty straight women’. 

Many of these women were & are queer themselves and “BL”, Yaoi & Yuri works are all a means to explore gender identity, sexuality, empowerment, etc.  Lots of iconic shojo series overlap with themes present in a lot of these works too. It’s not a coincidence (Utena, Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, etc.) 

Many people I know personally who also grew up with BL works, including myself later discovered “Oh I’m bi, I’m genderfluid, I’m nonbinary, I’m trans, etc.” The past few decades BL has still been ‘taboo’ for having queer relationships, but at least in western culture it was a “safe” way to engage in these stories when LGBTQ+ media was actively shut out from main stream media. People didn’t pay attention to manga or comics, so buying them, borrowing them, reading them could be done almost in plain sight. While most of us didn’t identify/call ourselves Fujoshi we’d still be considered Fujoshi, make sense?

I implore you all to at least do some research and read academic articles BY Japanese women & other older fans about these topics before subscribing to the misinformed hate-wagon and bastardizing a non-western term beyond recognition.

I also find it worth mentioning that Fujoshi & Fudanshi both refer to women & men respectively who are “corrupt/rotten/disposable” for enjoying M/M relationships in any fashion. Sexualizing men is seen as inherently negative. 

(This is a side topic but there is even a whole paper (I dont think it’s been published yet? I know this because I attended a conference where she presented last month) done by Kazumi Nagaike who found that there are self identified Fudanshi men who identify as straight & read BL manga because its the only media in which they can experience a male character receiving romantic affection, attention and being comforted and cared for lovingly) They actively hide it though because it would be seen as shameful. Fujoshi & Fudanshi culture isn’t as shallow & degenerate as these westerners make them seem.)

But, there is no mainstream term (if any) for individuals who write about/enjoy or sexualize F/F relationships, and if there IS a term I’ve never seen anyone use it or make a big fuss over it to remotely the same degree. No “lets reclaim these yuri/lesbian characters from those nasty men >:)” large scale campaigns. It’s always women & queer fans that get thrown under the bus.

Here’s a great master post with numerous sources and further in depth explanations I would just end up copypasting so here’s the link instead

[acioo]

the thing that is so ridiculous about rps who have a lot of white or cis characters is that everyone else ( the normal people ) who have made and participated in rps that have a lot of poc and trans chars KNOWS that you can quite literally manifest that kind of energy. if you’re the admin and your first character is a person of color and/or trans, you will get more characters of color and trans charcters. it’s a fact of life. people have plenty of character of color and trans characters, and they’re looking for places with the right energy to put them. if you have no trans characters, or have two poc fcs ( that are, like, camila mendes and gavin leatherwood ), or if your character list is divided by ( EW ) male, female, and nonbinary, people are not going to be like “ oh, yes, my favorite diverse group ! “ you have an rp full of all white and cis characters because of some reason, a reason that’s diagnosable and treatable. i’m SERIOUS. and a lot of the time, it’s a very fixable situation. if you are running a fandom rp, i implore you to go out of your way and make a canons list and explicitly mark characters poc ( whether they be poc in the actual canon, or maybe just incredibly headcanoned ) and just keep doing it until you have a balanced rp. it’s that easy. if you run a multifandom rp, don’t be afraid to suggest fcoc and absolutely go out of your way to prevent any whitewashing or racebending of characters. like there’s literally no excuse. you look like an absolute clown.

[nandalorian]

Since I posted my thoughts about how Roswell has adequately represented queer men on the show and completely shit the bed on their representation of most everything else, I need to address the epically fucked-up treatment of female queerness and the queer female gaze in the context of Isobel and Rosa. This has been bugging me for a few weeks, and the reveal of Noah as the fourth alien pretty much cemented my feelings on the matter. I know there are people who feel the way I do about it, but if there’s another post on the subject I just haven’t seen, please link me. And if you disagree completely about this too, that’s cool. Let’s discuss.

While in my last post I applauded the show on its treatment of Michael’s bisexuality, I still don’t feel great about the introduction of a Michael/Alex/Maria love triangle. It’s one thing for Carina to double down on her defense of love triangles and insist they are not an overused and biphobic trope in popular media--news flash, it is, and in this case it’s also potentially damaging to the one black woman on the show, who will almost certainly bear the brunt of fans’ ire for “stealing Michael away” if they go through with a Maria/Michael relationship. I’m sorry if I don’t take a random straight white woman’s insistence to the contrary as gospel. Saying your formative years were shaped by straight love triangles doesn’t change the fact that it’s an insulting trope to women and an outright damaging one to queers, not even taking into consideration how the two intersect, or further when you consider POC characters, etc. You can’t compare straight relationships with queer ones, in the same way you can’t compare white experiences with nonwhite ones. To insist otherwise denies a whole system of privilege that drastically shapes and influences people’s lived experiences. 

But that isn’t what I want to address, because it’s another thing altogether to come for female sexuality and queerness. If I was willing to maybe give Malex a pass on the good-intentions-written-badly front, this is a hill I’m ready to die on. Isobel’s arc in season 1 of RNM demonstrates a lack of understanding that these are identities equally vulnerable to attack, exploitation, and misrepresentation--maybe even more so--as male queerness. That the outrage about Malex drowns out this other but no less important conversation kind of reaffirms the point I’m trying to make.

More under the cut.

Female sexuality has always struggled to find positive representation in popular media, no matter the time period or culture. Compared to male sexuality, it is not taken seriously, always played against the male gaze, or disregarded altogether because it excludes men. Queer female desire challenges societal structures around male desire and sexuality because it just… doesn’t require men to function and in fact actively rejects them. This is obviously a problem because the patriarchy loves it when men are shown to be extraneous and irrelevant. 

A lot of us know what it is to be invalidated as queer women, socially and sexually. Put your hand up if you’re a woman (in which I include cis and trans women, of course) or nonbinary individual who desires women and has been told, oh, you just haven’t met the right man yet, or oh, you’re just putting on a show for male attention. We have all been there and experienced this kind of erasure to various degrees of aggressiveness. This refrain is especially loud for bisexual women, who suffer erasure and ridicule from queer and straight communities alike, but the fact is, women’s sexuality has always been portrayed as less than or dependent upon that of a man’s. That isn’t to say bisexual men don’t also experience bi erasure. They do, and this is as much a product of homophobia as it is the primacy of the queer male gaze even within queer spaces and contexts. But in this case I’m addressing that of female and nonbinary bi-erasure and biphobia.

Furthermore, the role of queer women in society and popular media has always been underrepresented compared to that of gay men, or seen as more harmless or less significant, groundbreaking, or offensive for a couple of reasons: namely that a lot of people have played down or played off the existence of female sexuality and desire because they doubt its validity to begin with, or it’s “allowed” because it’s desirable to the male gaze. In some ways this has worked in our favour because subversive or queer female behaviour and desire in media have been able to fly beneath the radar, but it’s still a symptom of a greater problem.

I include this preamble because the writers of Roswell New Mexico have stunningly managed to ignore or remain ignorant to this context. The straight women on the show are shown to express their sexuality in upfront or positive ways, even opening up conversations about kink and reversing gender roles, but often in problematic ways too. The show sometimes fails the Bechdel Test or reduces characters, especially WOC like Maria, to having no purpose but to desire male characters and be desired by them, or portrays them as unable to want sex without quickly falling in love the way Maria seemingly has done with Michael. They’ve known each other for over a decade, and yet Maria only catches feelings after they’ve had sex, a night that, supposedly, meant nothing to her but quickly is revealed not to be the case. Interesting.

But beyond even that, my beef is with the whole Isobel-might-be-bisexual-and-in-love-with-Rosa-Ortecho storyline. I was excited about it at first; I couldn’t believe our luck that we had not one, but two bisexual characters on the show, and one of them was a bisexual woman married to a really awesome and seemingly caring South Asian man. But it was not to be, and this to me is ridiculously tone deaf and offensive in light of the fact that she was possessed by a male alien the whole goddamn time.

This tells us two equally disturbing things about the writers’ take on the queer female gaze and queer female sexuality: a) according to them, in this context, it literally doesn’t exist, and b) it is wholly a product of and subject to the male gaze.

From the promo for 1x12 it looks like they are going to delve a little bit into the mindfuck around consent due to Noah effectively brainwashing/tricking Isobel into marrying him, but one aspect of this I’d be surprised if they acknowledge is how he has also robbed Isobel of agency over her own sexuality. Not only has she been in a nonconsensual relationship with Noah this whole time, but he’s stripped her of the ability to discern whether her desires are her own, including the possibility that she is bisexual. As a woman, how can Isobel take her own sexuality seriously/see it as valid when she’s been forced to reconcile with the fact that, until now, it hasn’t been?

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the fact that a man used a woman, against her will and without her knowledge, to kill another woman. All over the simple fact that Rosa didn’t desire him/Isobel by extension. This stupid-as-fuck storyline is literally about weaponizing queer female sexuality in order to do violence against women. 

Just think about that for a second.

To make matters worse, Noah is a South Asian man and represents a community that is already marginalized in white media and society. Brown men have, in white culture, been relegated to two-dimensional stereotypes, rejected as love interests, and often portrayed as villains, and instead of positively developing an Indian character in a multiracial relationship and using that representation for good, he’s been made to violate his wife and use her to kill another woman. My girl @insidious-intent has written a really fantastic post to that end and I’d encourage you to read it. According to Carina, hiring Karan Oberoi to play Noah was colourblind casting. But viewers aren’t naive enough to buy that it’s ever that simple, or it shouldn’t be. I don’t see how you can write a nonwhite character the same as you would a white one and not expect it to have deeper or more damaging implications.

So my point, or at least one of them, is this: the failure of Roswell New Mexico to its queer viewers isn’t just that they’ve desecrated a ship as sacred as Malex or, at best, totally failed to do it justice. Roswell has failed us by invalidating and retconning female sexuality, and if this isn’t something we should all be angry about, straight and queer viewers alike, I don’t know what to tell you. While people are justified in expressing their anger to Carina about Malex, I think it’s also important to acknowledge and protest JUST AS LOUDLY the queer female angle. When you are thinking about how to represent, express, and phrase your disappointment to the production team, remember this goes far deeper than Malex. She has let us all down in ways that have nothing to do with our ship potentially not becoming a reality by the end of this season. She’s let POC viewers down just as resoundingly hard, both distinctly and factoring in the intersectionality of their writing choices.

All writers make mistakes. I want to put that out there. And I also want to put it out there that the issues around queer and POC representation are serious and disappointing, but not insurmountable if the writing team shows a willingness to learn, improve, and listen if the show is greenlit for season 2. But that isn’t what they’re doing. Carina has taken a stand, via Twitter, that they’ve done nothing wrong, and that is a big red flag that the writing team isn’t as woke as it likes to pretend and definitely not interested in listening to criticisms about their politics or how they try to convey them. So are her efforts of trying to silence bisexual viewers with legitimate criticism, or POC viewers doing the same thing. She and the writers would rather praise themselves for their token representation than acknowledge, listen to, and learn from real people expressing real concerns and sharing lived experiences.

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

@the-crows-have-teeth replied to your post: Ok well I’m having a bad time at 3 AM because I...

Wait what’s wrong with that game? I love it �� please inform me

I’ll just tell you the stuff I personally find questionable because I don’t want to spread more of the just super unconstructive “callout” crap at this point. You can make up your own mind about it or continue to live in blissful ignorance if the game brings you joy. (Especially since it’s free. I’d be more wary of supporting things that were sold. But I suppose some might make the argument that publicly supporting the game is already bad enough. Be your own judge.) I think it’s vital to be critical of the things you enjoy but it shouldn’t veer into shaming people or hating yourself for enjoying it. No creation or creator is flawless. If we were to wait for a perfect piece of media to fall into our laps none of us would be making or experiencing or enjoying literally anything ever. That being said: 

1) The romance options feel very fetishy to me at times? It’s very clear the devs were interested in writing male romance options and male romances primarily and tacked on a token female option plus a suspiciously-man-looking NB option (HEADS UP: I WILL GO INTO THIS IN A LATER POINT AND I’M ALSO NON-BINARY MYSELF SO FEEL FREE TO DISAGREE WITH ME BECAUSE I MYSELF DON’T QUITE KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT THIS.) 

2) The writing is quite bad in many places, but this is a question of taste, I think, and isn’t really “problematic” per se. 

3) The designs of the Characters of Color are ... well they’re ... this is also gonna be controversial I think but they’re basically white folx with a different skintone slapped on. Their features remain strictly white European. There are IRL PoC who look like this but the majority don’t, in fact the opposite (non-white features on pale/white skin) is more common. The tendency to design all your PoC like this is ... bad. It goes beyond but ties into sameface syndrome IMO. Some artists are genuinely not super skilled at drawing varied faces, but at some point you need to stop using white people as your references lmao.

4) Apparently one of the (adult) devs writes questionable fanfic porn? Which is like ... lmao what else is new. However, she seems to have a preoccupation with “teen sex” (legal but like barely legal, aging characters down for the explicit purpose of teen sex) and has defended some of it according to the “callout source”. There’s also apparently the fact that they had a minor working on a NSFW game, but I’m personally more interested in knowing whether they paid that minor or not, because I’ve played the game and it’s not explicit (there’s descriptions of gore and swearing but there’s nothing explicitly sexual or pornographic), so if this dev was an older teen I’d worry more if they got paid or not cuz child labor laws. 

5) The “nb rep” is debatable and I’m torn on it personally. Nonbinary people do not owe binary folks androgyny and saying “I’m NB” should be enough to make someone NB, regardless of how “masculine” or “feminine” they look. However,  knowing the dev’s preoccupation with hot dudes and focus on male/male romances, I’m less generous with my interpretation, because this enby is literally enby in pronouns only. It feels token, like Asra in The Arcana, who is NB out-of-universe only (another can of worms I don’t wanna touch tbh). Basically it’s the problem of straight women including “nb” options that are conveniently hot-dude-shaped and are dudes in all but pronouns. 

5.5) Building on the questionable NB rep and also the “bad writing” thing, the fact that every character, including the player character, instantly know each other’s pronouns despite only having met and exchanged names? It’s fucking weird and utopian at best (are people mind-readers? can they smell preferred pronouns?), absolutely unrealistic and token at worst. I get the desire to include diversity without making it a Thing but you can avoid making it a thing while still acknowledging it? Idk, it’s another one of those debatable things I suppose. 

6) There are some unfortunate stereotypes with some of the romance options, with the sexy suave vampire being a white dude while the angry and aggressive werewolf is a MoC. I picked up on this but I guess some of it was dulled because I genuinely liked the werewolf dude and felt like he was more than just an angry dog man, but I can see why people would disagree and I wish the devs had just not gone there instead of “making it work”, which is, again debatable if they did. 

In conclusion: I’m tired. 

[cezulian]

Aight but like its ineffable for really real yo. I feel so weird about it because I am cis and I don’t want to talk all over people who are starving to be represented in media, like I’m explaining why the Crowley canonically presenting female thing is exciting because of course yall all KNOW, but man. It aint even like that, its complicated. Like when there’s LGBT or specifically pansexual or poc wlw represented in something I of course feel pride and happiness and that I been seen. And of course when any of my other members of the LGBT community get representation, whether they’re close to me or just the community itself, I too feel pride and happiness for them because that’s a great thing and we in this thing together.

But yo....Its like beyond that with this, man. There’s probably a lot of different factors contributing to it, but I almost don’t want to get into what they may be because the feeling itself is so pure and so present I don’t even wanna think about it. I’ve watched “Good Omens” a few times now, and I’m watching it with a few friends who are at different points with it but whenever I watch Episode 3 on my own or with someone else and the Golgotha sequence, which is a beautiful sequence on its own anyway, comes up I’m just filled with this immense joy that I double down on in my head over and over. Here she is yo!!! She’s here and she’s her!!! The actor is cis and playing her like he has been the whole show!!! Its the more “masculine” role of the two leads also!!! Uh oh the least femme one by traditional standards of personality and behavior we’ve come to associate with a very particular stereotype for a long time is playing against our programed understanding of how certain groups of people can sometimes think and behave!!! Uh oh look out its not gonna be mentioned once because why would it be!! Females can just be females and be out here and sound and speak and behave like they do when they in, out or in between because they a whole character!!! It don’t have to be jokes!!! It don’t have to be camp!!! And she can be her whenever she feels without it being like ok lets address the nonbinary bitch in the room this scene is about that now!!!

There’s just so many aspects of just her being there that audiences aren’t used to having presented to them, ESPECIALLY not all at once, without the work being like “alright folks now we know that was a lot of things going on that require acknowledgement, mulling over, and becoming content with, so we’re just gonna let you know that no, you’re not crazy by addressing it to some degree but in a way that is meant to Reassure The Mind. Because just like its impossible to see a non-straight couple and not think about the way that they have sex and how its different from you, this too requires the padding of comfortable familiarity, so lets all laugh at this line because this character can say it, re-regulate our heart rates, and pat ourselves on the back for how good it is of us to not respond to something like this with yelling or murder”Its like the closest thing I can think to equate it to is when I see celebrity women be so effortless and easy in doing something or acting a certain way that doesn’t comply with the list of things we’re supposed to be able to do without cracking even a little self-depricating joke or giving any indication of irony, or even giving off the vibe that we know we pissin people off just by being here and how cool are we for not caring what anybody thinks or whatever. Its just what it is, yall know? Its cool. It be like that no issue, next scene please.

Maybe I’m making sense, maybe not but I just felt I needed to get out this like. Vivid euphoria that totally fills me up like nothin else that I’m feelin about this very simple and easy thing. Its totally possible that its just “a lot of happiness” and this whole thing about me trying to describe it is gonna come off as, yknow, “local woman discovers basic state of emotion for the first time”, but I would also totally believe it if I really did just feel a new kind of happiness for the first time ever in 20+ years, I dunno yall, its rockin my world right now in the best way though.

[thisideofnowhere]

HEY so my friend has recently gotten REALLY into the penumbra podcast and she wants me to start listening to it too!!!! Any recommendations on where to start/reviews/pro cons/literally anything else relating?? Thank you!!!

oh absolutely!

INTRO/REVIEW: is it’s a bi-weekly audio drama with two ongoing storylines, referred to as juno steel and the second citadel. juno steel is an old-timey noir detective kinda thing, only it’s on mars and everybody’s queer. second citadel is high fantasy, so like knights and monsters and stuff, only it explores what it’s like fitting into the role of a knight when you don’t fit the archetype of how a knight should be, whether it’s because you’re disabled, or a woman, or have anxiety, or maybe you don’t actually want to be a knight at all. both of the stories are A m a z i n g and so compelling and my god.

okay so pro/cons! it’s almost all pros cause i Adore this podcast (as you could probably tell)

PROS: the writing is absolutely gorgeous and the worldbuilding is so complex and deep and its incredible, the characters are beautifully developed and you’ll get invested in them So Quickly, the plot is amazing and plays off of classic tropes while subverting them so it feels new but familiar, and it has Hella representation. literally. so much representation. it has gay characters, bi characters, aroace characters, nonbinary and trans characters, disabled characters, characters with canon mental illnesses which don’t romanticize it (!!) like depression and ocd, and like 95% of them are POC. the one thing its kinda lacking is an abundance of women (more on that later). but seriously it is amazing and you’ll get invested so quick.

CONS: okay so there are really only two i could think of. one is that there are no official transcripts of any of the eps so if you’re hearing impaired it might not be the best choice (although there are fan-made transcripts for some of the eps). second is, as i mentioned earlier, there are notttttt a whole lot of women. well under 50% of their eps even pass the bechdel test, and the bechdel test should be the bare minimum honestly. their ensemble show has two (2) female mains out of seven, and naturally the two women resent each other for the way they live their womanhood. not the best. also one of them fits the stereotype of “women in power are cold and heartless” basically to a T. hm. there was one more woman recently introduced but a) i dont think she’s becoming a permanent main character and b) shes a literal witch. so yeah they’re not the best on good female representation but they’re still absolutely fucking amazing.

STARTING EP: hm. okay so i adore the entire podcast but both of the stories take a bit of getting-into, and the first few eps of them both won’t give you the best sense of what they’re actually like because the writers were still finding their footing in terms of characterization and stuff. that said, i would still probably recommend starting with the updated version of murderous mask, which is the first of the juno stories, or if you want a one-shot to get a better sense of the podcast then i would go for the coyote of the painted plains, which is essentially wild west but with lesbians. its great.

sorry this was so long and probably completely incoherent i just really like this podcast. hoo boy.

[acreativename42]

i might take the white out of my introduction post. long story short, i'm mixed (technically) and don't like claiming to be white because i feel it disrespects my nonwhite dad, and i don't like claiming to be a person of color bc you would never know i'm not 100% white if i didn't tell you, so i never experience racism and i have white privilege. but i'm going to keep talking about it below:

so, for context, i'm half bulgarian, a quarter german, and a quarter indian. i look white. my dad and my sister (both genetically related to me) are not white passing. i also have a brother, who also looks white. both my parents are immigrants, my mom from bulgaria, my dad from india/germany (he lived in india until his undergrad in germany). i'm also trans, which i say now because i often use that "definitive" minority identity to help me navigate my thoughts about race.

i don't claim to be a poc because of what i said earlier. i look white. i have white privilege. i do not experience racism. i feel a moral obligation to identify as white because of this. not doing so feels disrespectful to those who do experience racism.

i don't like claiming to be white because of my dad and my sister. you would know they are not white by looking at them. so when i say i'm white, is that not erasing my dad's experience being brown? when i say i'm white, does that not imply that neither of my parents are poc, and therefore neither of my parents experience racism? i would say it doesn't necessarily, but i would say that's the assumption. i wouldn't imply or give off the impression that some poc not related to me doesn't experience racism. why would i do that to my own dad? and same with my sister. if i say i'm white, the assumption is that any and all siblings are also white. i would never say she's white. she's too young right now to fully grasp what that means, i think. but she will. and for future her, i wouldn't say that.

when i think about my experience identifying as trans, i do so in such a visible and loud way because being trans defines my relationship with gender-based oppression. i'm afab and a trans man. i experience misogyny as someone who is read as a woman sometimes (oftentimes) and as someone who grew up thinking it's a woman. i experience transphobia as someone who doesn't look like what a woman should look like (according to gender roles). as someone who will tell you that i'm not a woman and that i don't use she/her pronouns, despite what my female body might "give away." that's why identifying as trans is so important to me. it's so based on everyone else and their perception of me.

in fact, that's why i don't use the nonbinary label as much anymore. whether i'm a binary trans guy or nonbinary, it doesn't matter. they don't care. they care that i'm not a woman even though i'm afab. i wouldn't really experience anything different if i was adamant that i'm not a binary trans man. i would still be scared to use the bathroom, i would still be forever conscious of how the people in the room are reading me, i would still forever be considering the safest option for me while walking home alone after dark or around older people or around religious people or in certain american states or in certain settings given how i believe people perceive me. that doesn't change based on the specifics of my gender. all that matters is that i'm not a girl.

if my gender didn't matter, i wouldn't care so much about the transgender label. so shouldn't i apply that same logic to my race? it doesn't matter what i am. it doesn't matter what my dad or sister look like, it doesn't matter what percent nonwhite i am, it doesn't matter how much or little i practice indian culture and tradition in my house with the people who know exactly my ethnic makeup because they have the same or because they contributed to half of it. i look white. i am treated like i am white. so aren't i white?

but the cultural practices are something else as well. i've never really practiced indian culture. my dad did not bring those traditions and practices with him when moving to america. but my bulgarian grandparents on my mom's side did. it's because of them and my mom that i celebrate denyat na baba marta, that we've spilled water with zdravets in it on the first day of school, that we do the egg fight on orthodox easter, that i wear whatever this bracelet is on my left wrist and never take it off... today, i feel such a close tie with being bulgarian because of these traditions i've been practicing my whole life. i never had that with being indian. the extent of that was mentioning diwali and going to diwali parties of whatever other indian friends my dad has. and, i guess, my dad being obsessed with spicy food.

but when i was younger, i felt a lot more connected to being indian. my hometown is incredibly white, that having that connection at all made me other. i met my best friend because apparently my dad shouted "hey indian guy come over here" at a party at the only other indian guy there. we were family friends through that connection from our dads before we were friends. being indian was a defining characteristic because me and my friend were kind of the only ones. through contrast, i was closer to being a person of color.

i switched schools starting high school, and that school is a lot more ethnically diverse. in my friend group of 8 others from that school, there are 2 black people, 2 asian people, 2 indian people (one of which being my best friend), 1 pacific islander, and 1 white person. all of a sudden, my dad being indian didn't matter as much. because they're mostly nonwhite too.

and around high school is when the reality of racism kinda kicked in for me. since im white passing, i never had to think about it. so i became more aware of racism when i became more aware about social issues in general. i also came out and transitioned late 9th grade/summer between 9th and 10th, and i became aware (this time from first-hand experience) of transphobia. so that's when i distanced myself from that ethnic background. being indian didn't matter in a discriminatory way anymore. also, i was experiencing personally how hard it is being trans, while i wasn't experiencing how hard it is being nonwhite. so how could i claim to be nonwhite?

race is a social construct. ethnicity, culture, and race have a weird intersection that i can't seem to place myself in. i feel like i'm being offensive no matter what i do or say. to what extent is my race defined by me vs the people who perceive me? to what extent am i defined by the people who perceive me?

also, what the fuck is up with forms having the race demographic question be choose one only?

[vagueisvogue-blog1]

 Something that I find really annoying as a nonbinary/trans person (ftm), who passes until you hear my over-compensatingly high-pitched voice, is the extent of male privilege. I’ll be walking down a street, and some guy will yell “Hey, bro!” and hi-five me, or this one time, someone stopped me to tell me that it was their best friend’s birthday. In every instance, I had never met those people prior. Before, random men would stare at my ass or catcall me. Adult men, elderly men, teenagers. Sometimes they would even follow me home. (One of the guys I knew broke my locks.) I would be shaky, paranoid, and no one would do anything. I was expected to take it.

 My youth normalized the idea that I might be kidnapped, raped, killed.

When I told my friends I had a stalker and I was scared, they responded with “wow, you must feel so great”. (In what world is it cute to threaten anyone’s safety?) Like it’s supposed to be a good thing that people care more about my body than my brain. When one of my friends opened up about how guys kept harassing her after she turned them down, everyone but me responded in a way that paralleled rolling their eyes.

When I didn’t pass, people would always tell me to “close my legs” when I sat with them spread. Teachers, coaches, pastors, peers. Now that they know that I’m male, it doesn’t matter.

  As a woman, you feel pressure not to talk about sex, or note that you enjoy it. As a man, that “not” is scratched out.

As a woman, everyone told me that I would “grow out of my feelings of not wanting to give birth/have kids/get married”. That was when I was in second grade, and a decade later, my feelings haven’t changed. My knowledge of myself was disregarded because I was a “kid”, but also because I was a girl. I was expected to raise children, pressured to by anyone with a voice. And now that I’m out, my mom has accepted that her grandkids will be dogs. Not because she doesn’t think I can have kids (I always knew that if I had any, I would adopt anyway), but because I know have a different societal role.

You’re not supposed to say “I know” when someone tells you that you are beautiful, educated, comedic. You’re supposed to take it with a “thanks” not because it’s polite, but because you’re not supposed to love yourself. I’ve always experienced that, more so with long hair than without.

 In eighth grade, a female friend asked me if I had a thigh-gap. She asked me in a way where there was very clearly a right and wrong answer. I replied “yes”, and a moment later she giggled “my cousin’s so fat that she doesn’t have one”. The joke was lost on me.

You’re not expected to love yourself or your body. I thought my thighs were too fat, my butt was too big, my stomach too portruding. News flash, there was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with anyone’s physicality. Nevertheless, I stopped eating lunch in kindergarten (I WAS FUCKING FIVE) because I was done with people. Ashamed of my babyface and my slight belly. I cannot express to you how healthy I was and yet how much I “was a problem”. And then I would go to my second house and only home, that of my Latinx friend, whose mom would tell her to be “skinny”. Be more like the gringa. That didn’t sit well with me.

 Skinny doesn’t fucking exist. Anorexia shouldn’t be trendy.

 And then there’s unwanted groping. And when I say from everyone, I mean from a heck ton of diverse people. Over the span of most of my life. I’m not going to bother to list them out, I don’t have that energy.

Your mom is probably worried that she makes less money than a male coworker. Constantly. Whether it’s true or it isn’t is irrelevant. Anxiety can’t be the standard.

When I say I’m a feminist, moderation isn’t expected. If I am not a man-hating catlady then I should call myself an “equalist” instead. I have had guys tell me that “everyone is a feminist” so the movement is irrelevant. I have had other guys tell me that “all feminists should die” or that “third wave and second wave feminists are insane”. Stop. Just no. It is not insane to want more than voting rights. It is not insane to include poc and queer women.

 In general, women are often told they are crazy. That is incredibly derogatory, incredibly ignorant. They are not crazy for expressing their emotions or themselves. And “crazy” is a word that comes from abelism.

So stop treating people like this. Especially women. Don’t tell them to sit pretty. Don’t tell them to shut up. Don’t tell them that Eve is to blame for the sin of man.  Don’t harass them. Don’t assault them. Don’t drive people to suicide. Don’t murder them. Don’t deny them the little pieces of freedom that you take for granted.

 Value them. Vote for them. Respect them. Let them know that you appreciate them. Female, male, nonbinary. Human.

[miss-sad-marshmallow]

Ok but honestly it doesnt matter to me whether youre lgbt+ or cishet, poc or white, male or female or nonbinary, or whatever; everyone is equally exhausting

[nemesisadrastia]

INTRODUCING: THE #INCRPG TAG

What is it? #incrpg is meant for all RPGs that boast inclusivity of varying kinds, but strive for all forms of inclusivity. It’s a tag that excludes discriminatory activities in the form of whitewashing, racism, inaccessibility, homo- and transphobia, misogyny, and other things. The rules for posting in this tag are very simple, and if your RPG doesn’t follow these rules (see: standards), then don’t bother posting in it, because you’ll only be doing two things: exposing your RPG as subpar according to these standards, and this will not go well for you, as well as putting garbage in this tag.

THE RULES

POC INCLUSIVE – this means no whitewashing (white characters with a POC face isn’t POC representation), the ratio of POC to white is equal (or even 2:1, it would be very nice), COC that actually interact with their culture in one way or another (even if the character is disconnected from their culture, the fact that there is a disconnect means they’re interacting with their culture).

ACCESSIBILITY – your RPG main isn’t a container theme, everything is legible (this means decent contrast between backgrounds and body fonts, as well as body fonts of 11px or higher), and you actively provide information subverting walls of text by promoting the use of images and bulletin points to convey information; as a rule, your members also don’t use container themes or tiny ass ant fonts. For RPing itself, this also means plain text, no small/fancy text make up, no excessive and pointless use of the bold, underline, and italic functions. You’re trying to convey information, in or out of RPG, not win typographic design awards.

NO HUMANISING OF GARBAGE – none of your characters, whether bio characters or accepted original characters, are active bigots, nor do they humanise these characters; we don’t care to see people RPing nazis, white supremacists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, ableists, etc (this doesn’t mean that the characters can’t experience these things, but that’s what NPCs, self-paras/one-shots, and backstories are for).

OOC SAFE SPACE – your members are respectful, and don’t subscribe to any of the above topics. Naturally we understand that as a mod, you can’t smell whether a member is racist or homophobic from the get-go, but if these things come up, if you want to post your RPG in this tag, you’re expected to deal with this one way or another; this also means that you as a mod don’t subscribe to these things, and if you or a member is called out, you’re expected to listen and consider this call out like an adult, and deal with it.

NO FEMALE BANS – if you want to post in this tag, you don’t ever go on female bans. As it is, female bans are misogynistic, lesbo- and biphobic, as well as transphobic; it just is what it is, don’t question me on it.

TRANS INCLUSIVE – on that note, have trans characters in your RPGs. Have nonbinary characters in your RPG. The more the merrier. If you’re an OC RPG, promote the apping of these characters some way. Let prospects know that they’re accepted, and for the love of stars, don’t subscribe to stereotypes either (do your research, and expect your members or prospects to do or have done research as well, if they’re cis).

FAT INCLUSIVE – are you a bio RPG? Great. Use fat FCs. Promote the use of fat FCs and the creation of fat characters. Just do it.

DISABILITY INCLUSIVE – make and promote the creation of characters with disabilities; characters in wheelchairs, characters with prosthetics, amputees without prosthetics, blind characters, deaf/HoH characters. Invisible disabilities are also a thing; have characters with chronic pain, have autistic characters, characters with ADHD, characters with learning disabilities, mentally ill characters. Avoid/don’t subscribe to stereotypes and do your research, and set the standard that your members do the research.

RELIGIOUS INCLUSIVITY – have characters whose religion is important to them, and don’t make all of them Christians; there’s plenty of religious diversity in the world, so show this in your RPGs. Have Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhi, etc. Have varying intensities of holding to their religion (one character might be more intense in the following of their religion than another character). Do your research and expect your members to, as well.

DO YOUR RESEARCH! – we don’t expect you to know everything. If for some reason, you’re unsure about the inclusion of a character whose culture, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, or general quality of life you’re not sure about, or scared of portraying/writing about, do you research. Ask people about it, read posts about personal experiences, just do your research, and expect your members to, as well.

Do you find these rules absurd or stifling? Then #incrpg is probably not a place you want to post in. Do you think some of these rules are good, and others are “kinda pushing it”? Then again, this tag just isn’t for you. There’s loads of tags for you to promote your RPG in, I’m sure you’ll have success in those. However, if you feel you can keep to these standards and find the rules attached to this tag reasonable, and you’re able to translate these things into your RPG and the characters you make, then we encourage you to post your RPG in this tag.

CONTENT TYPE

PROMOS – this is for promotions only. That means, a picture and a prompt, and links to important information you want people to see immediately.

NO UPDATES AND APP COUNTS AND SUCH – very simple; this tag is not for your updates or little notes to prospects, because it doesn’t tell anyone about what your RPG’s about, and it’s just garbage people have to wade through.

CHARACTER BIOS – are you a bio or skeleton RPG? Then you can post bios in this tag, as long as you don’t spam or flood the tags.

PROMOTION SPEED – be aware of how active the tag is; if there’s several posts a day, then you could, in theory, show your promotion once a day to make sure people know the RPG is still active. Promote according to what the tag is offering in terms of speed; it’d be disappointing if the tag were to show your promotion several times in a row, and it’d be annoying to prospects too, undoubtedly.

LOOKING FOR RPGs

Obviously this tag won’t work with some community effort. If you, as a prospect, find these rules absurd, then just don’t go into the tag, because it’s not for you. If you stand by these rules, then try to promote it through word of mouth; let others who stand by these standards know that there’s a tag dedicated to them, their needs, and all-round inclusivity. The only way this tag (and, eventually, the RPGs that post in it) will succeed is by promoting it and being active in it.

Aside from that, this should serve as a community tag, and it shouldn’t just be one person making sure the RPGs that post in this tag uphold the standards provided in the rules. This should be a community effort, and if an RPG posts that breaks these rules, don’t hesitate to contact them to make them aware of this post and the rules provided.

Have anything to add to this post? Reblog it with your comment. Do you feel the rules need to be revised in some way, or an important inclusion point was missed? Shoot me an ask! Want to complain to me about how this is reverse racism or cissexism or whatever else? Contact me and allow me to block you!

[schrodingerswordsmith]

Problems Are Numerous With How LGBTQ+ Characters Are Treated in Media

A character appears on Brooke’s television screen, not a revelation, as it is nearing the end of the movie and the character has already appeared several times. The character is bisexual, and Brooke is a lesbian, so she finds herself identifying with this strong female character. The character utters some tense, last-minute apologies, kisses her stunned girlfriend, and leaps into battle. There is a barrage of gunfire, and the character falls backward in a dramatic display of cinematic slow motion. Yet again, Brooke watches herself die on-screen. 

There seems to be a phenomenon in the media, tracing back to the first appearance of a gay character on television in 1971 when Philip Carey played a character named Steve on a TV show by the name of ‘All in the Family’. He appeared, unsurprisingly, for exactly one episode. This particular phenomenon has to do with the way that LGBTQ+ characters are treated in the media. 

“There’s just not enough [LGBTQ+ characters] and there could be more,” Brooke said, “It’s nice to see representation.” 

Brooke isn’t the only one that has noticed this problem. Many people have noticed and are speaking out. Jade, 16 and bisexual, said, “I think there isn't enough representation overall but that diversity within LGBT+ media could also greatly improve. Trans characters, pan, bi, and other gender variant characters are very rare. Gay and lesbian representation could definitely be better, but more diverse representation is extremely important as well.” 

As with any controversial topic, not everyone agrees. 

“I have literally never have seen [the concept of “bury your gays”] except from media in Islamic-majority and to say it happens in the western world to a large degree with renowned acceptance is stupid and not factually founded,” Ashley, 18 and bisexual, said. 

“I believe LGBTQ+ characters in the media are nowadays treated with higher favor than those who are not LGBTQ+, solely because they were oppressed in the world for so long that now, in most western countries, LGBTQ+ people have similar if not the same rights as non-LGBTQ+ people, they should be "coddled" to prevent a resurgence of unequal rights. I feel a better way to represent the LGBTQ+ community in the media is to level the playing field, and make it so that a plot revolving around an LGBTQ+ character isn't solely about their LGBTQ+ status and is more about the actual person themself. Focusing solely on gender or sexual identity and basing an entire person's life on that is boring and not representative of real LGBTQ persons.”

The concept of “bury your gays”, which Ashley referred to, originally was known as “dead lesbian syndrome” and referred to characters such as Tara McClay from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Around 2007, it morphed into the term “bury your gays” and represents the trope that occurs when LGBTQ+ characters die in popular media or meet some other drastic and unhappy end. In a survey that I conducted among both individuals in the LGBTQ+ community and those who are not part of it, 31.3% of respondents said that the trope is important, but overdone, 50% felt that it is harmful for young members of the LGBTQ+ community to have to watch themselves die on screen over and over again, and 12.5% felt that it is important so that people can see the repercussions of homophobia, bullying, and hate crimes directed at the LGBTQ+ community. 10%, like Ashley, held divergent opinions. 

Ashley isn’t the only one to disagree with the concept. Ryan, 14, spoke about how he perceives that LGBTQ+ characters are treated in the media. 

“[They are] white, well off, and haven’t experienced a day of real homophobia in their lives, or if they did, can cry in their silk sheets. The LGBTQA movement started with homeless POC kids and I’m more interested in seeing Martha’s story on YouTube and, lately, on Netflix. Our life isn’t lavish and the comfort we receive is generally with a community and not a single protagonist.”

He went on to elaborate, “The only queer characters I’ve seen have been in documentaries, and I aspire to be like Martha P Johnson and the members of the pink panther patrol. Also, Doughnut from Red Versus Blue when he was going through his toxic masculinity phase resonated with me.”

However, the validity of the mistreatment of LGBTQ+ characters in the media does seem to be maintained by many who consume media. 

“The LGBTQ+ community is usually used in media to make jokes. I've watched many movies where men are put in dresses just to make it a joke, which is detrimental to society's acceptance of trans people and cross dressers being who they are in public. We need more media produced where the community is treated as a common occurrence, and show that there aren't just two sides of everything, male and female, for example, but a spectrum that varies widely,” Alex, 16 and transgender, said. 

“Much of the time the character's character is focused mainly on being a part of the community. Media almost makes it seem like being part of the community is all that we are. On the other end of the spectrum, with other characters I've seen, the producers say "oh yeah, this character is bisexual" but that part of the character is not even hinted at in the media. Portraying LGBTQ+ characters in either of these ways just makes it seem like the producers are forcing it into the media, and gives the community an almost fake, over-focused or super-hidden reputation.”

In the same survey mentioned earlier, 81.3% of participants expressed that they believed that when compared to heterosexual, cisgender characters, LGBTQ+ characters consistently get worse endings in media. 10% were undecided, and the remaining 10% expressed detailed opinions.

“The only reason they might get that ending is because it is a very common ending in real life and people who make media like that are trying to represent the real gay experience to the rest of the world,” Ashley said, “But overall, they are only at a slightly worse "lack of happy endings" situation than straight and cis people.”

As with all media, LGBTQ+ representation in media effects many young people in the community. Young people tend to look for people who represent them to look up to in media, and Jade is no exception. 

“Being part of the LGBTQ+ community and seeing LGBTQ+ characters in the media is interesting. My younger sister watches a cartoon and there’s gay dads and a bi sister, and they are shown like normal people, which I think is great since the LGBTQ+ community should be treated equally. However, I dislike how some LGBTQ+ characters are added into shows or movies only to get killed off later or just disappear, and then the straight people are still there. I hope representation of the LGBTQ+ community in the media gets better in the future.”

Alex agrees. 

“When I see people in media who I can relate to, whether it's sexuality or gender identity, I feel really warm and light inside, like my heart lights up with hope. It makes me extremely happy to see LGBT+ representation in media because it makes me feel like I'm not the only one, and reminds me that there are lots of people who are LGBT, and that it's possible to succeed in life regardless of not being the 'norm'. It shows that there are enough LGBT people that it influences the media. It gives me a feeling of hope and connectivity.”

Barbara, 65, has witnessed many of the changes in media over the years, including the inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters into popular media. 

“In much of the mainstream media I believe LGBTQ characters are stereotyped. I think this will get better as more people outside the LGBTQ community become more tolerant and less judgmental of human diversity,” she said, remaining hopefully optimistic. 

Another issue that runs rampant in the media world is generalizing LGBTQ+ characters until they only exist to be solely LGBTQ+.

“Much of the time the character's character is focused mainly on being a part of the community. Media almost makes it seem like being part of the community is all that we are.” Ryan, 21 and gay, said. 

“On the other end of the spectrum, with other characters I've seen, the producers say "Oh yeah, this character is bisexual", but that part of the character is not even hinted at in the media. Portraying LGBTQ+ characters in either of these ways just makes it seem like the producers are forcing it into the media, and gives the community an almost fake, over-focused or super-hidden reputation.”

“It’s encouraging to see characters treated as any other character; valued by their personal attributes and characteristics and not by their gender or sexual orientation,” Jill, 19 and nonbinary, said. 

“As a minority, they are the “other”. They should be treated as any other gender and binary conforming character. Their sexuality or gender should not be an overarching characteristic.”

Of course, even within the community people have drastically different views on the issues that it has. 

“[Seeing LGBTQ+ characters in media] makes me ashamed to be lumped into a community as shallow and pedantic as the LGBTQ+ community,” Ashley said, “I find most people in the community have to fit into a certain stereotype, such as being liberal, anti-gun, feminist, etc., and claiming that you differ from these ideals makes you a "traitor" of sorts. Being a conservative bisexual, I get lots of backlash from the community and have been told I don't belong to it because I don't hold the same political and personal views as many of the other members of the community. The media makes it seem that the LGBTQ+ community is about acceptance, but they only accept you if you hold the same moral virtues as they do. It's wrong and puts the LGBTQ+ community in an overly positive light that they don't deserve due to the rampant toxicity that the community has.”

It’s evident that how LGBTQ+ characters are represented in media affects people in the community, in both positive and negative ways. 

“I try to stick to media that portrays LGBT characters in a positive light, but every once in a while I'll see something homophobic or transphobic and it's like I just stop functioning for a moment. It really hurts when that happens. Seeing LGBT characters just casually living their lives in the media brings me so much joy. I spent much of my life thinking that about marrying a man as my only option, so just seeing these LGBT characters living their lives gives me hope that someday I might have a happy future too,” Emily, 19 and a lesbian, contributed. 

Stereotyping is another issue that has been briefly touched upon, but is a larger issue than sometimes thought. 

“LGBTQ+ characters are often presented as either a background character or an accessory to the main heterosexual, cisgender cast. They get stereotyped, for example, flamboyant gay friend, and aren’t expanded, other types that merely exist in order to build up jokes or show how much they deviate from the norm. Cisgender, heterosexual screen-writers should get secure information on what’s it like to be LGBTQ+ and to not treat our sexuality or gender-identity as something not understandable and disgusting,” contributed Brooke. 

“When I was younger, LGBTQ+ characters in the media helped me understand what I felt was felt by other people. I would watch a show, and when there was a gay character I was excited to see myself represented. Often though, that character would have a bad ending and I would feel sad seeing an image of myself dead or washed up or heartbroken. I want to find and create better representation for my community so other LGBTQ youths don’t have to feel the same way I did when I sought out characters like me in media.”

In the after-mentioned survey, 68.8% of participants stated that it is “fairly difficult” or “extremely difficult” to find movies or other media where LGBTQ+ main characters don’t end up dead or otherwise incapacitated. Only 6.3% of participates stated that that type of media is easy to find. 

In contrast, 75% of participates think that it is “extremely difficult” or “fairly difficult” to find media where LGBTQ+ main characters end up with their love interest in a happy relationship.   

Out of all of the main types of media, digital art seems to treat LGBTQ+ characters the most similarly to heterosexual, cisgender characters. In fact, 62.5% of survey respondents agreed with that statement. 

As evidenced by the statements made by mainly LGBTQ+ youth in this article, LGBTQ+ characters in media often meet drastic ends while heterosexual, cisgender characters get their happily ever after. It’s time for producers, screenwriters, authors, animators, and others in the media business to step up- for current LGBTQ+ community members and also future youth who will turn to the media in an attempt to see themselves in their favorite characters. There is certainly a time and place to alert the public to the repercussions of hate and homophobia, however, LGBTQ+ community members are already directly exposed to that hate on a daily basis. It’s extremely difficult for them to turn to media for comfort and see these horrible occurrences happening to not just them, but to the characters that they admire as well. 

As Emily puts it, “I want canon queer characters that don’t die and just generally are happy.”

*Please note that some names have been changed to protect privacy