🌈 LGBT+ OCs discussion thread

Bronzewing

These are just my opinions but I'm personally not a fan of the antagonist becoming transgender "mostly just so they could become the leader of their society"... I'm sure there's more details to it all since we're only getting snippets but it doesn't feel like a good choice to have a character be "fake trans" to be evil, like a "gotcha" moment. Maybe consider other factors that could give them the same effect? Or they could just be trans because they're trans, not for gaining power in your verse. Even framing it a different way can help, like having the character transition when they're younger and realizing later on that they have more power as their true self. Just not being trans because of a power advantage in particular.

For Laurnyas, so long as it's not a sudden thing to slap on at the end, I think you're fine. Little things like seeming uninterested in women or an "I don't want to" moment go a long way. Doesn't need to be a big production.

And with mentioning things "just once", how come? I feel it wouldn't distract any from the story, being LGBT does affect people a lot. If anything seeing it mentioned more than once is validating! Otherwise it can be seen as tokenism.

You're free to ask more stuff! But having a little more in-depth info might help with specifics. I'd like to hear about your universe and its standards, like how it fares compared to ours. It can help a lot with how to handle different issues, characters, dynamics, stuff like that.

Oh the internal conflict between wanting more human nonbinary and asexual representation because you yourself are both nonbinary and asexual and are desperately wanting positive rep that doesn’t feel patronizing/dehumanizing, and making a shit ton of nonhuman nonbinary + ace ocs anyways because monsters and robots are cool as all hell.

WhitleyRose I think there are a few reasons you don't see a lot of characters "in the closet," one being that usually, even those who have to be in the closet to their parents don't choose to be friends with people that they can't be open with, and most fictional stories don't tend to revolve around an older characters relationship with their parents but rather with their peers. Another reason that could be is a lot of LGBT people don't usually want to experience homophobia or transphobia in their fantasy stories because dealing with it irl is enough of a nuisance. I usually create worlds where same sex relationships aren't treated much differently from opposite sex relationships because their (fictional) religions hold different values, and theres still plenty of strife and conflict to be found elsewhere. Just my thoughts, been openly lgbt since I was a young teen in the south, and I'm nearly 30 now.

I do agree with you though that 'questioning' characters are fun, one of my D&D characters started very straight, then became bi-curious, and finally settled on bisexual, and got married to another man. It was really fun to go through that journey with him IC :D I didn't think it was important enough to add to his profile, so maybe there are more 'questioning' characters out there than you'd think!

kinda on the reply train here, but i agree with Numbers and klovni about how Gen Z also struggles with coming out (as a Gen Z myself). LGBT+phobia is still very very very prevalent today, there are so many examples of it that it's just draining. i also have a close friend who wants their name to be changed to something they connect to them more and gender-ambiguous, but nobody takes them seriously about it, especially their peers.
although i absolutely agree that questioning OCs should be explored more often! i'm currently developing one actually, may or may not ask for feedback here later just to make sure it's accurate (im a minor and he's a young adult so i don't really have that experience at his age//).

edit: i understand that our experiences are not the same as yours and it’s extremely valid! however I think in general what people were saying was that you keep in mind that there are a lot of other experiences too? even though that, I agree, some of the replies were not as friendly, i dont think they meant it to hurt the way they did. I’m also not sure why you emphasized “draining” so much from my comment when it was from my own experience as well felt a bit..... ill-willed? i only meant it as a way to express that there were many instances where Gen Z has suffered many instances of LGBT+phobia, something that wasn’t the most clear in your original comment.
I read back and I didn’t add anything that would be judging of your character? So it kinda shocked me a bit that it seemed to feel very personal for you. But I totally understand if my reply seemed to be making assumptions about your knowledge and I’m very sorry if you felt devalued because of my comment. Enjoy whatever media you want!! And honestly, I completely agree that negative experiences should be just as explored as positive ones. Positive experiences aren’t “unrealistic” however, please keep that in mind! Though there’s a new topic about pre-trans rep that is a lot less heated now. Pay attention to that!! Heck yeah

An important thing to remember is that experiences aren't universal-- whether divided by gender, sex, orientation, age, religion, region of living... There's no "right" or "wrong" way to handle things because everyone has had different ones. There can't be a catch-all of what counts as "REAL lgbt" or "ACTUALLY oppressed" when no one has the exact same experience as another person.

Whether someone wants to portray the obstacles they face is up to them. Sometimes fiction can be a good place to escape the real life and the things you go through, where those things don't exist. And sometimes it's good for letting out frustrations of things that do happen IRL.

I feel like the last thing we need in stories made by lgbt people is more gatekeeping, for any reason. People will write what they wish based on their own experiences, and there'll be an audience for it, just like anything else. I wouldn't wish to take away that comfort because someone doesn't meet criteria.