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:
Neoeryn i hope pinging is okay!
i agree with what galtenoble said, as a nb lesbian myself it feels like a majority of lesbian characters i see are primarily fem? i'm not a gay man so im not gonna speak where it isnt my place on that sjfhksdSKJDFhJS and this isnt meant to be an attack or anything i just thought it was interesting for u to point that out!!
HUGE agree on the bi characters with nb partners! one of my main ocs is strongly nonbinary and their partner is a bi trans person. its epic
JuniperW tbh I'm not sure how he could be interpreted as a stereotype. I have a few things that I feel starts to cross the border of a stereotype, and your character doesn't check anything off that list.
My response ended up being lengthy, so it can be for anyone else who wants my two cents on the topic. Hope it helps a little!
My warning signs of stereotypically bad characters are if it seems they just go down a list of bad stereotypes and tropes you see in... I'm not sure how to describe it other than "non PC" media, having their sexuality be their only facet of a personality, having them exist to only be a punching bag or punchline, or not treating them as human. The last part I feel is the most important. Treating them as their own being with respect, giving them more than just a role of "gay side character that only exists to be gay", those sorts of things. Everyone's a multi-faceted person with a lot more than just face value to their identities.
Then again, I'd also like to make a note about "sexuality be their only facet of a personality". When me and many others were in the "baby gay phase" and just started to accept it and coming out, pretty much none of us shut up about being gay and describing ourselves and others with it. I'd give leniency in that case if the person who made it was younger or freshly outta the closet.
I don't think making him or anyone androgynous is a bad thing, at all. Peoples' outward appearance and how they choose to present means a lot to them. If you stripped that away it means you strip away a little of who makes them unique and themselves, you know? Besides, men with long hair was popular back then and its becoming popular again now. If your character is based off of Van Halen even loosely (good taste) you can see all the members have long hair and it's not like... A weird thing. We all saw what the glam rock era looked like aesthetic wise and no one discounted their sexuality for wearing a billion crystals on their clothes.
Another thing to keep in mind, stereotypes aren't exactly the worst thing in the world unless they're made with the intent to harm others. I know a fuckton of the fruitiest, most stereotypical gay men and it's just how they are. Making a character like that is fine so long as they're not used as a punching bag or to symbolize anything bad. Again, treat them as humans, all that. People are cautious about depictions which is a good sign of a newer, better era in terms of representation, but also a ton of people like that exist, and one shouldn't discount their existence. They need to exist in one form or another, because an issue as of late is censoring real people who act too "out of line" in ways that people don't like in regards to their sexual orientation.
Your character is who he is, and that's not a bad thing. It's only bad when these things end up in the hands of a bigot or someone severely uninformed.
I'm not sure if it's needed but I'm just posting here to say that I can provide insight/education and answer any questions anyone might have about polyamory, its philosophies and how it works. I have both personal experience and formal education to share. :)
this isnt really about ocs necessarily but i guess it could be...
not sure how often this gets talked about but it irks me when ppl say or act like masculine/butch lesbians are just a stereotype or trope. like for example some advice on creating/writing lgbt characters implies this or outright says its a trope and you should try to avoid it.... masc/butch lesbians are so underrepresented and its honestly unfair that theyre considered just a stereotype or similar when theres a lot of history to gnc/masc lesbians and tons of masc/butch lesbians exist irl and barely see anyone like them. for a bit of context im masc and identified as a lesbian/butch until very recently so its still personal to me ^_^; i dont see masculine women/lesbian ocs too often (this might just be me though bc someone earlier mentioned they wanted to see more femme lesbians) but its always really nice to see them.
Sorry in advance if this comes across as rambling!! This is something I've experienced in real life and see all the time in character writing, and both are a little exhausting to see all the time fhwjxhs. I've been thinking about this for a hot minute and figured this would be the best place to post it.
Spoilered because it got lengthy, but the topic is asexuality stereotypes and sex.
The amount of infighting within the ace community itself is... a lot, and there are a lot of misconceptions about in general---even among other ace people.
Being ace does not equal hating sex or thinking it's gross, and it especially doesn't make one incapable of understanding it---and I wish I saw more ace characters that didn't seem to be the embodiment of the stereotype.
Asexuality doesn't mean you're not interested in sex/don't have a libido/don't experience sexual desire, it means you don't experience sexual attraction to others. That's it. You can absolutely have those experiences be a part of your asexuality, but they're not what defines it---and it's not true for everyone by any means. There are plenty of ace people that still have sex for any number of reasons.
I saw someone elsewhere make a great point the other day I wish I saw in media more often:
"Being bisexual doesn't make one double horny, and being ace doesnt make one zero horny."
It comes across as demeaning when people write grown adult characters that are presented as uwu baby purity pillars specifically because they're ace and therefore "can't/don't" understand sex. The same is true of it being used as an excuse to be invasive to others or act like a complete idiot... especially if the character feels the need to constantly point it out. Uuah, like the inhuman robot/alien stereotype where the character comes across as crass by being scientific and analytical about it---because there's no way they could possibly understand it any other way.
And...on another note... Not every ace person is aromantic, and not every aromantic person is ace. There seems to be a lot of conflating the two as being the same, and that's just flat out not the case. Someone can be both, of course, but they're not an exclusive set that always comes together. They each deserve their own care and respect, even when they do come together.
Like. If your ace character happens to fit some of these bills? That's cool. But making a character ace just because you're going for a soft purity thing, they're "above" having sex, or because they don't "get" it---as well as making their entire personality about how soft and baby or superior they are because of it is...not cool. Ace people are still human, and that alien/robot/non human stereotype rep exhausts a lot of people for a reason.
[Disclaimer that I do personally like robots/etc. rep and all that, and there's nothing wrong with these characters. It's just how they're written that's important because of the stereotype, and "I'm better than you because I don't have sex." and "Sex? Never heard of her." are both driven into the ground and painful at this point.]
TLDR;
I don't like citing carrds as an info source, but this one has some good resources and links on it JDHSJSJS.
I'm also happy to answer any questions anyone might have! ...And thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Popping in on the above, as someone with a weird relationship with my aroace-ness. Personally, I'm sex-repulsed but also sex-positive. As long as it doesn't involve me, we're good. Most of the time though, I'm just as raunchy as anyone else, until it involves me. I will shut down a conversation post-haste if it switches from being about other people to being about me. I will mention though, that due to a lack of libido and being ace, there are things that just do not occur to me that do occur to people who aren't ace. It comes up frequently when my qpp and I are talking about OCs. Things that would really do it for most other people just kinda go over my head and some people have called me naive for it.
Honestly, @Crossroads (the post above) describes me perfectly. I'm also aro-ace. I like joking a lot about OCs kissing/banging/being shipped, but when it comes to myself, I just don't... get the desire to do it myself. I don't get how it's enjoyable to be the people involved. I kinda just find it awkward no matter what angle I look at it, lol. But I do get really into pairs when they got great chemistry and character. I do enjoy seeing them poke fun at each other, being wholesome, or being very provocative if it fits them.
With that being said, I agree with everything that LemonyLulu mentioned! I actually didn't even know it was a big stereotype in the ace community (i ended up learning this was a myth rather early, so i guess that helps lol). Quick flex, I got quite a few ace characters that treat their sexualities differently-
uhhh and yeah that's kinda it lol. thank you for coming to my ted talk as well- i hope people will break that myth and create a bigger diverse cast of ace/aro characters, cuz it's fun honestly.
Edit: I didn't think this was worth making another post but I also don't experience the feeling of a character being "sexy" or "hot" exactly how Lemonylulu describes below. Like, I can have an infatuation with the character, they can appear very attractive to me, but "hot" isn't quite the right word??? They're just... attractive. and thats it. it's very hard to explain but i hope it makes sense-
^^To both posts above! I feel more or less the same! Love talking/writing about my OCs going at it, but then it comes to myself in real life and becomes a lot of ??? No, thank you. I'm sex-indifferent and a romantic ace, so I do like the idea of being in a romantic relationship. While the sexual attraction part of sex is just not there, I still think of parts of sex in itself as a romantic concept. Even the parts I've only experienced second-hand from reading or as described by others...if that makes sense, aha. I don't experience the... sexy part? But I can grasp the concept.
I've definitely also had stuff...just not occur to me before and gotten slapped with the good ol' naive card. Nothing wrong with that!! Part of life, aha. It's the... assumption that being ace automatically makes one incapable of knowing or understanding anything ever by default that drives me bonkers. The "Oh well this character is ace, so of course they don't know XYZ" kinda thing. It feels patronizing, or at least I feel that way.
There's so much diversity and potential! So it mostly just blows seeing so much of one thing portrayed a certain way because of stereotypes or misconceptions of "asexuality can only be this and that and nothing else." Mixing it up is spicy!!
Gingasnap It sounds like it falls into the trope of "nonbinary is the third gender" when in reality it is an umbrella term for many genders that do not fall into the binary. Not sure if that's how you view it, but that's what it sounds like so far.
I am nonbinary, yes, but the precise name I chose to give to my identity is bigender. Your jinn could be many things, like genderfluid, queergender, demiboy, demigirl, agender, polygender. It is a lot of identities to take in and I advice you have patience when doing research, you'll find a lot of statements and info and will probably still feel confused as to what is right or wrong, but hang in there. If you have good intentions I think people will notice that. :D
Here's the Wikipedia article on nonbinary identities, and here's the Lgbta wiki for an extensive list of genders.
EDIT: changed the second link to a better source.
ThePencilRiot 👏 yes 👏 I’m Genderfluid
Gingasnap it sounds your jinn could be Genderfluid as well. Genderfluid is when sometimes you feel more of one gender, then perhaps in an hour or day or week you feel another, or just dont feel gender at all. Gender bending >:]
Gingasnap I think the "nonhuman nonbinary character" thing is more about tokenism. like, when there's a bunch of male & female human characters and a single nonbinary robot in the cast. honestly I'm one of those nb people who really enjoys nonhuman struggles as a metaphor for gender when it's done well, but a lot of the time it's just a thoughtless throw-in because the writers couldn't imagine a human character being nb :\ if the focus of the work is on the jinn and their genders are treated with respect, I think it'd be alright.
also this might be too granular/worldbuildy for your purposes but... why do jinn have humanlike genders in the first place? like, human genders arose from stereotypes and social divides based on sexual characteristics, and I feel like a species without those sexual distinctions would have completely different genders based on different social divides, or no genders at all. you mentioned humans exist, so did they take the concept from humans? is there in-universe discourse about how jinn don't understand these concepts they're using / the historical struggles behind them? I love seeing these sorts of cross-species dialogues, esp. if the series has identity as a core theme, but I know it's a lot to get into haha