🌈 LGBT+ OCs discussion thread

Posted 5 years, 5 months ago (Edited 4 years, 21 days ago) by fuelli

Hi! Following some discussion in the "TH pet peeves" thread, I've decided to create a discussion thread specifically dedicated to discussion around LGBT+ OCs. This is not a "show me..." thread (I'm sure there's plenty of these in Character Discussion already), it's a thread where you can share your thoughts or ask for advice!

Share your thoughts: Ramble about your experience with LGBT+ OCs and give ideas and tips to other OCs creators! Venting about negative experiences or tropes is allowed, but try to be constructive! Talk about things you want someone with an LGBT+ character to explore, how this character could be more relatable or realistic, or how a character that fits a caricature or stereotype could be given more depth.

Ask for advice: Share your character ideas or profiles and ask for feedback, or ask a more specific question about something you're unsure about! However, please try to make research before posting, as there are lots of resources and tips available already. LeoLeonis has created a Google Doc masterlist listing all topics that have already been mentioned and info that has been given on here; give it a look if you have doubts! I'll try to keep it as up-to-date as possible.

Feel free to ping me if things heat up or if anything needs to be added in the OP. Have fun, and please keep things civil ♥


Similar threads on different themes:

circlejourney

Oh and not to talk over you, NihilisticTiger, I think the reason people (in progressive spaces) don't like "yaoi femboys" is because of the fetishistic elements (it is a porn term after all). But as some people do, they took it out of context and started to refer to all feminine men pejoratively.

I don't think most reasonable people believe depicting a gay man as feminine is bad by definition. The real, unambiguous no-no is is reducing them to a fetish trope. From what I can see from the way you've depicted him, both in writing and art, this isn't the case with Emerald. I think there comes a point where one has to be vigilant that fear of pushback against gender-nonconforming depictions is convincing you to stay within the lines of traditional gender depictions. I never was fond of people's tendency to take fetishism that happens at the fringes and use that as ammunition against any and all gender-diverse and gender-nonconforming characters, and if I may, I'd urge you to not let that stop you.

I think you will know yourself if you're depicting the character's effeminacy in a sexualising manner. As long as you're doing it in good faith, I think it will show. Personally, from what I can see, it's clearly not his whole personality or aesthetic and nothing about it says "this is meant to be hot", so I think you're good.

Caine

NihilisticTiger Circlejourney pretty much said what I was going to say, especially about how femboy's nature as a heavily (fetish) porn-associated term is what usually rubs people the wrong way. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being feminine whether it's by choice (using certain kind of feminine-coded clothing, for example) or if it's just something that happens to be a thing (some guys naturally look and/or act more feminine than others and there is nothing bad about that) and what it really comes down to is how you decide to portray it in your character. My guideline with these kind of topics has always been to treat my fictional characters like how I'd treat people like them irl, so I would never really call especially my adult guys "uwu soft boys" because I find it very infantilizing and absolutely not something I would ever use for someone or want myself being referred as. 

As for your character in particular, I don't really think there is anything wrong with him? Just like Circ said, you know yourself if you're depicting him in a sexualized manner or not, and to me he came across as a character with his own personality and life first and foremost. 

knightofpherae

i'm just gunna ask this bc it's been in the back of my mind a little bit:

if a character is biologically nonbinary ( what i mean by that is no genitalia for the most part ) at birth but identifies as a different gender / gets genitalia ( either via cool magic, a specific way the species they are or smth grows, or with surgery ) are they trans?? i know nonbinary people are considered trans ( please don't argue w/ me about this, white in the trans pride flag is for nb people they aren't cis etc i don't want to get into that pit of worms ) but if somebody were biologically nonbinary idk if that would cut it out or smth??

i mean if they don't have genitalia and the society is still cisnormative i guess it'd still be considered under the lgbtq+ umbrella but i want some opinions abt this!!

mainly because angels and demons and some other species in my overlapping oc canon have a decent possibility to be born w/o genitalia and never have them for the rest of their life or slowly ""get"" one based on certain aspects ( which means some of them who are biologically born nb turn into a different gender they don't like since they don't have huge control over that if they are the type who gets genitalia or gendered aspects later and then have to transition to another different gender )

shrugs?? cis to some people can either be described as Not Trans or identifying with your birth gender so in that case idk if a biologically nb character who still identifies as nb would count as cis or not is the main question i guess

oh also as an optional side question do y'all think it's okay to have most of your trans characters happy, already had surgery via normal methods / magic / etc, or non-dysphoric??? most of mine aren't that way and while it's implied some might've had gender dysphoria while some only have gender incongruence w/o dysphoria etc,,, idk if i'm wording that right but yeah. most of my trans characters ( which is a wide variety of my characters, if they arent trans, theyre not straight, if theyre straight and cis they at THE VERY LEAST tolerate lgbtq+ people or are likely a parent character to another since most of those tend to be more cis-straight leaning ) tend to be trans and i was also curious abt input about this???

TheStrayCat

A little suggestion I use-- I used to role play as a legendary Pokemon, and they are genderless in the games. So I made my Zapdos "genderless" but used "he/him" and was naturally more masculine. Hope that helps ! 

knightofpherae

^^^

Zeetheus thanks for the answer!!! i just wouldn't know wht to name it ig and i'm bad at labeling or specifying on things which is why i used terms i'm familiar with ig ( cis, nonbinary, trans, etc ) but since it is a species things and angels / demons aren't exactly human i'll probably come up with a term for it in the lore - i don't know much abt intersex people so i guess i never considered that as a possibility

and yeah i assumed it would just be "they decide what they want to go by" by the end

TheStrayCat ohhhh yeah! genderless prob. would work in these scenarios best, thanks for the tip!! i think i just tended to use nonbinary even if it talked about gender and not biological sex just bc i was confused and didn't know what a more proper term would be

fuelli

knightofpherae 

I'd personally use "sexless", as I would rather use "genderless" as a gender identity, not a term to describe a body. I'd also advise you to stay away from using "biologically [anything]", as it's often considered to be part of the "vocabulary to avoid" when referring to trans people, just my two cents!

TheStrayCat

knightofpherae happy to be of assistance! I can understand the confusion with the term, so I'm glad that can help ya ^^

TheStrayCat

Judas-la-Carotte I totally agree with you; the only reason the site I was on used genderless instead of sexless was because it was a PG Pokemon role play, and anything sexual was strictly prohibited, so calling the legendaries "sexless" would mean that normal Pokemon *had* a sex and that just wasn't what the admins we're after. As a clarification ! 

TheStrayCat

Judas-la-Carotte sorry, mispinged you 

circlejourney

knightofpherae and Zeetheus [EDIT: oh no, this got long]

I actually did some reading about this recently; my disclaimer is that I'm not intersex, but from what I understand, most intersex people are still assigned a gender at birth based on biological metrics/what they're "likely" to identify as out of bureaucratic necessity (which raises all sorts of problems, but that's for another discussion) and will consequently grow up experiencing the construct of gender from a system-assigned position within it. Like perisex individuals, intersex individuals (statistically-speaking) often grow up comfortable with their assigned gender, but also often (more than with perisex individuals) come to identify as a different gender from the one they were assigned, i.e. trans.

In zeetheus' character's situation, it sounds like he wasn't assigned a gender, and in that case I think what you said yourself about the terms "cis" and "trans" not being easily applicable might ring true. (I have many characters who are comfortably "what is a gender", as I am myself personally, and I think that's ok.) But to be fair, if he grew up in a cisnormative society--familial environment is far from the only social environment where a concept of gender is developed after all--then he will probably still have an understanding of how society conceives of gender, even if he doesn't apply it to himself, and cis/trans terminology will still be useful to him. The main situation where I can see him needing to "choose a label" is if he wanted to interact with other people in LGBTQ+ spaces, assuming he has reason to. If the gender concepts he is familiar with give meaning to the terms, then they are still terms he can use, even if it's just to explain himself to others.


As for knightofpherae's characters...I actually think it's different from the above, and it depends on angels'/demons' cultural concepts of gender, how they relate to their physical sexual characteristics, and how stable of a gender category "nonbinary" is in their society. We have a gender binary because our cultures and institutions tend to sort us into one of two gender categories based on physical sexual characteristics, and "nonbinary", for us, refers to anyone who falls outside said structurally-enforced binary. It isn't a stable category so much as a term that catches those who "fall outside the boxes".

With the angels and demons in your universe, it sounds to me like instead of a gender binary, they may have a gender...ternary, especially since being born without sexual characteristics sounds like it's as common as being born with them. And evidently, angels and demons do have preferences as to their physical sexual characteristics, which I take to mean they do have a concept of gender. If so, then does an individual who's born sexless get assigned nonbinary (or the equivalent), or are they shoved into either male or female? I think that's kind of the key question; if their society's institutions and cultures treat gender as three rigid boxes, and gender identities still exist on a spectrum in spite of this, then concept of being trans is probably still useful, but "nonbinary" may not be, at least not in the same way we use it. (EDIT: or at the very least, the terminology would have to be different to account for the difference in how they experience gender.)

In this case, I would definitely consider the possibility that the way angel/demon societies conceptualise gender is different enough from ours that terms like "trans" and "nonbinary" may not even be applicable to them, as zeetheus said. Even within humanity, there are numerous cultures in which individuals who defy their assigned genders don't refer to themselves as trans or nonbinary, let alone a society of beings are sometimes born without sexual characteristics. "Transgender" and "nonbinary" are not just catch-all terms for all individuals across time and space who don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth; it refers to a specific experience of gender in our societal context that falls outside biological essentialist systems of categorisation. Because even things like how gender is assigned, how it is performed, and how it is policed, change when we look beyond present-day Western society.

knightofpherae

Zeetheus circlejourney

thank u both for ur responses !! they're very helpful!!

but that is also a nice lore-building question, admittedly i don't have much for angels/demons detailed lore in my universe other than "hell isnt as bad as people think it is at least on the first few layers and hell can also be for people who just escape the high demands for heaven ( since you do have to be pretty all around good or pure to be there, or live a while / take a test in hell to ascend as an angel )"

but i like to think that, yes some people there don't like the fact that there isn't a strict "female / male" or "heterosexual" in hell or heaven ( because the main earth is probably still cisnormative if i'm using that word right and while some people can be born in hell / heaven which isn't cis/hetnormative, others are, as you'd expect, people in the afterlife ) but people can just be what they are without unfair laws in both hell / heaven and it's probably easier to get by compared to earth ( there might be still some people who are phobic to that stuff though but they can't do anything unfair to an individual and go scot free ), and the creators of hell / heaven both don't even have a sex and how they make children is different then. you know. the act. and the thing abt being born without a sex isn't neccessarily common but it isn't super rare so it is probably a gender ternary

also w/ the optional side question i guess i just don't really write or roleplay my characters as often so it doesnt come up v often? they do have methods and not all of them have surgery or shapeshifting powers to help their issues but i do know for a fact some of them are dysphoric or don't have surgery like toru and some others,,

i think im good w/ these answers for now!! thank u everyone for the responses ( also once again w/ the terms issue i just don't know a lot of the specific words for what i'm talking about because i don't see many of those terms often and i sometimes forget that gender means what you identify with and sex is what you were born with,, i think? correct me if im wrong,, i'll try to remember that though! )

knightofpherae

okay im back here with another question because i want to be as respectful as possible while drawing something for pride that shows what part of the lgbtqa+ charas are!!

so!! i have four slug characters. well. ones a snail but i think they have the same issue i'm talking abt. according to google ( not really nsfw just has a word that i've heard is considered offensive - which i censored a bit )

Slugs are h*rmaphr*dites ( censored in case ), having both female and male reproductive organs. "

"

so i've heard that word is offensive to intersex people? i don't want to label them as that due to that, so i've just put "intersex". is there a better term out there? should i just use that word ( which i don't want to due to the fact i might be yelled at for it ). i don't want to use it considering i've heard its offensive, but i don't know if intersex and that word can be interchangable - which i don't think they really are according to small tidbits i've heard. ( also for clarification, slugs / snails are cool so i make a lot of humanized versions of them ( technically i have 6 slug ocs if you count two of thems parents ). and all of them willingly participate in the lgbtqa+ community )

Ariento

knightofpherae Hermaphrodite is really only offensive if you're using it to refer to intersex people. It simply refers to an organism that can produce both types of gametes. There was some recent drama on the forums actually, with a user who was very upset about people using the term intersex for hermaphroditic characters.