🌈 LGBT+ OCs discussion thread

Waltz

(Thanks! Glad you enjoy the thread! c:) 

To answer your question, being a trans guy myself, I personally always use masculine vocabulary when talking about me in the past tense, including the parts of my life when I didn't know I was trans. All the other trans people I know work that way too, even if I'm sure there are exceptions. But yeah... personally I would say it would make me uncomfortable to read a story worded this way, because it would insinuate that your character "used to be a girl", if that make sense? Some trans peeps may accept this definition but it's safer to avoid this kind of language unless you know the person's personal preferences. 

As an alternative I would suggest to respect your character's gender in your narration, but keep the obvious misgendering in dialogue. Revealing a character's deadname is... a touchy subject, and I personally don't recommend it unless it's crucial to the story. Maybe you can try to censor it in dialogue? (ie. J***e instead of Julie) So your readers will understand you're referring to his deadname without actually revealing it. 

That's just my opinion tho! Ultimately you're free to do whatever 

Edit: Oh yup Milkweed's questions are interesting too, and something I forgot lmao 

((Sorry if there's any grammar mistakes I'm tired lel)) 

Milkweed

It's somewhere between a close and omniscient 3rd, though it leans more toward the perspective of his father and older sister. It's set directly in the past, also!

Judas-la-Carotte

Yeah, that's a very good point! I definitely didn't want to insinuate anything along those lines which is why I waffled a lot on it.

Considering it now, I think part of the reason I sort of leaned into using the former pronouns is that the excerpt alludes to a couple points of 'in retrospect I should have known' early hints for the character, that I think most queer folks have at some point in their lives, so subconsciously (while I was writing anyway) I wanted to highlight a bit of that contrast.

That said the excerpt isn't really so much about him as it is about his older sister and her weird fascination with zombies, so it's not something I wanted to fixate too much on, either. It's not something I plan on publishing or anything though, so I guess I'll just keep playing around with it o/

aquaticlava "The prefix 'pan' means 'all', as in 'pansexuals are attracted to all genders'. Pretty simple. The prefix 'poly' means 'multiple' or 'many', as in 'polysexuals are attracted to multiple genders'"

So yes, they can we attracted to any gender.

Waltz I agree with Judas-la-Carotte for the most part on pronouns. As for deadnaming, its really up for how you want to convey the story and its characters. If a character is bluntly transphobic or just really bad at switching names, then deadnaming is realistic. And will help convey characters and read more fluid. And personally, I feel censoring a deadname underminds the one of the struggles trans people go through. Because you could use it as a conversation point with your characters on why they need to stop deadnaming them. But again, what you censor will affect the overall tone that your going for in your writing and that is fine too. And if there is no need for the deadname to be brought up then I would just not use it.

Angry-Moth-Noises

Yeah I definitely agree. Actually the only one to use the character's full deadname in dialogue is the character's father, who at the time didn't realize his son was trans. The character in question shows some discomfort at it because he had previously asked to be referred to by a more neutral nickname, which none of the characters actually know the real reason for, but when his father sees the discomfort he backs off on it. (The narration uses his then-preferred nickname also.) So, it does serve a bit of narrative utility on that front.

(Thank you everyone on the good input on this! I know a lot of people who have lived through varying states of dysphoria, so I never run into this issue irl, but apparently it's trickier to deal with in fiction than I assumed.)

Waltz You are more then welcome! And yes, dysphoria is..... Weird, even trying to describe it is weird. And people feel it at varying lengths, and one thing that might make someone dysphoric, another might not be affected. But affected by something else.

If your character is medically gonna transition thats another all together. Some people can transition because of allergies to the medication, its a super layered topic.

Waltz
Okay sweet! IMO this is largely a technical issue, and it depends on the degree of omniscience you want to include and the tone you want to convey. It's hard to say without actually seeing the story, but given that it's set in the past and leans towards the father and sister's perspective, I think using his deadname and former pronouns makes sense.

I guess a more neutral barometer you could use is: if they had a pet dog that was alive in the past but is dead in the present, would you mention the fact that it's died since this excerpt took place? And what would that imply? Also, since this is an excerpt, it'll work in concert with the larger context of the story, so you can set this up for yourself before or after. Like if you have the character mention elsewhere how much he used to hate being called she/her, that'll provide some grounding for this portion of the story and it won't feel like it's coming out of nowhere or happening for no reason.

TBH as a trans person I really like playing around with stuff like this -- it's a challenge, and you can do a lot of complicated character building with very few words.

Personally, I'm mostly bothered by stories deadnaming characters in the past if they're either entirely omniscient, or if they're first person/close third looking back. You seem like you've thought about it carefully and you're aware of the implications of deadnaming a character so I'm guessing it's probably fine.  

(EDIT: ++ plus everything Judas-La-Carotte and Angry-Moth-Noises has said! i write very slow haha.) 

Thanks for having that cleared for me! - for the longest time I thought polysexual was somewhat like being pan but a relationship out of three people. 

aquaticlava I think what you're referring to ("relationship out of three (or more) people") is polyamory! Which can work with people of any orientation. I can get why it can be confusing tho, since both polysexual and polyamorous can be shortened to "poly" haha

Ah, understandable. Thanks for the heads up! 

aquaticlava

Just poking in to mention that lately a lot of polyamorous people refer to ourselves as “polya” or “polyam” to avoid that confusion!! C:

(And while I’m not polysexual, I know from interacting with those who are that they use the term “ply” more often these days!)

((I’ll probably make another post in here at some point that’s more general stuff about lgbt+ ocs BC I’m queer as hell and so are my ocs but I just woke up and saw a conversation that I could contribute to—))

I know I posted on the front page and I'm not comfortable sharing personal details about myself past I'm a male in a gay relationship and my mom is a lesbian lmao So I've always been knee deep in these kinds of conversations

Just a few quick notes, my characters I try to keep varied and different as possible, lots of bi/straight/ace/gay ones, but I also sometimes just put "not interested" for sexual orientation just because I know the character is not going to be in a relationship nor are they looking at any gender for that purpose. If you want to leave it vauge or just not decided but not open either, I see no problem with it!

As for fetishising trans people, I have a number of trans characters that did not get bottom surgery, just because it didn't fit their character, wether it's personal preference or lack of money or something. I just simply don't state it in the profile. It's just like real life, who is going to know what's in your pants but a sexual or romantic partner? It's no one's business!! One of my dear characters is a male with female parts and I don't state it anywhere for them as they are also timid,short, and more of a cute boy so I will not chance him being made a fetish of someone. I've only disclosed the secret to one of my trusted friends, in the middle of a discussion, because it's not relevant outside of that. I'm ranting now, but I don't see why every personal detail needs to be known and viewable by strangers, unless you're getting NSFW art or if it's relevant to their story/role play/what have you. 

Anyway, hope y'all have a good day. I've had a rough morning so far so sorry if I sound rude. 

I realized I didn't make a proper post here yet but instead just replied to other people, so here we go I guess.

Most of my characters are something else but straight, most likely bi/pan but I do have gay and lesbian characters, same for ace/aro (sometimes combined with some other orientation, sometimes together) and honestly it has everything to do with the fact I'm not straight either (I consider myself bi/pan but with a very heavy preference towards men). I grew up in a very homophobic household and absorbed those ideas for a long time, and as such all my characters were strictly straight until about the time I was starting to understand I'm not straight either. And honestly, if all these straight people are allowed to make all their characters straight then I sure as heck am allowed to make all my characters LGBT+ too. There is never such a thing as too many LGBT+ characters in a story no matter what people might say. 

I have a handful of trans characters too, mostly nonbinary, but I do have some binary characters too, although especially all my trans gals are waiting for me to draw them new refs because they're characters from 2013-2014. I also have some intersex characters, but to my understanding they don't want to be tied to the LGBT+ community by default, or so I have understood from reading intersex subreddits and their own feelings and experiences regarding the matter, as many consider themselves cis. I do like to explore gender a lot, but I usually do it more heavily through cis characters, because I feel like it's unfair to always only use trans people for this stuff, when there is so much about gender that isn't even tied to whether you're cis or trans, like gender non-conformity or gender roles or atypical physical characteristics that aren't a result of an intersex condition (which is a topic personally super close to me, as someone whose puberty was Really Not Like I Thought It Would Be in terms of physical development). 

Anyway even though I consider myself somewhat well-versed thanks to studying + being mlm myself + having a lot of friends who are LGBT+, I know there is still plenty for me to learn & at the end of the day everyone is an individual! And also the culture is a big thing because I know in Finland our definitions of who "belongs to the community" and "who doesn't" are vastly different from the stuff I often see online in English speaking communities, and our language doesn't have gendered pronouns so that's a big factor in our LGBT+ culture too. 

subbed to the thread! I come to this as a person who...is LGBT+ but still has a lot of qualms and concerns about the ways I portray it. I wasn't always this well-read about LGBT+ issues so I totally empathise with those fears about getting it wrong.

it's very easy to second-guess whether you're falling into the pitfalls of stereotypes (I do this a lot), but I've figured out that, as a general rule of thumb, the best and most sincere way to avoid that is 1) to have more than one character of that specified gender/orientation in the story, and 2) more importantly, to have their portrayals contrast each other's and actually be nuanced in themselves. Afraid of falling into the flamboyant gay villain stereotype? Have a gay hero who's stoic and lawful and sticks to their morals.

I think the issue of stereotypes really arises from the fact that most stories don't feature more than one person of a given identity in its cast, so that sole character inadvertently becomes representative of that group in that work, which puts a lot more pressure on how they're portrayed. Having more than one, say, gay/lesbian character already helps!

Ok so I have a trans character here and I’m not sure if I accidentally wrote something out of place; his bio doesn’t really deal with trans issues but I’m not sure if it’d be considered ok to have a trans character’s bio not really deal with trans issues??

Edit; also please let me know if I wrote some stereotypes by accident asdfghjkl