Today, I read a brief article about how (to put it simply) Lupin in the Harry Potter books used to be gay, but then fell in love with Tonks. The comments on the article exploded with anger over the article author’s use of the term ‘ex-gay’ (which I personally despise), but the comment that really made me stop and think was this:

“It was the same with the reveal that Dumbledore is gay: the fact is so obscure that there’s no point telling anyone about it. If she really wanted to do something for gay rights/acceptance she would have written the characters as obviously gay.”

This…disturbs me.

I’ve wrestled with something like this with my own characters as I’ve been writing. The main romantic pair in AtS is heterosexual, a ‘classic’ male/female pairing. As for the other characters, those whose affections and relationships aren’t as critical to the storyline, their preferences are more or less left a mystery. Not because their relationships would be unconventional or damaging, but because they’re simply not necessary for the story.

But the quoted comment bothers me even deeper than that. We all know somebody gay or lesbian or bisexual or genderqueer or anything that falls under that vast umbrella of ‘not strictly heterosexual’. Some of us – myself included – sit comfortably under that umbrella ourselves. I’m not a huge fan of social statistics, but even if that umbrella only holds 10% of the world’s population, every single one of those people there is still different. We are all unique. We are ourselves.

According to that one commenter, our stories don’t necessarily matter when it comes to our rights or our acceptance. They only matter if we’re obviously gay. What does that mean? Do I need to wear rainbows every day? Flirt with every girl in the office? Voice my protests to the point of annoying anyone around me? Or is it more base than that, requiring at least one same-sex scene within every fifty pages of my life?

How does reinforcing stereotypes help the equality movement in literature?

Should Diraryna start hitting on Charley and Tiremenya, just to show that she’s a strong female character who prefers the company of other women? Hell no! That would be out of character for her as a reserved, smart-assed foreigner with a grudge against people based on their race. Does it make AtS’s story any less gay-friendly? I don’t think so, but apparently there are those who would disagree.

Some of my characters are gay. Some are bi. Some are poly. Will you necessarily know which? Quite possibly not, because that part of them might not be as important to the story as other parts. Just as I am far more than my sexual orientation, so are my characters. I don’t need to write about my characters’ sex lives to show the reader who they are. I would rather like to hope we’re past the point of shoving unnecessary bits into our writing just to placate other parties, but perhaps we still have quite a ways to go.

Acceptance and equality hinges so heavily on actually treating everybody the same, no matter their gender, race, orientation or even hair color. Equality does not, however, mean giving preferential treatment to one person over another based on those same qualities. Writing ‘obviously gay’ characters will only reinforce a stereotype, not build acceptance based on equality.

Rawr.

/soapbox