Gender and Sexuality Representation in OOTS

[The Giant]

About the only thing I could say I'm suffering from at the moment is irritation from seeing someone talk about things they don't fully understand.

I've been thinking about this thread all day, and I think I've figured out part of the problem, at least for an author. The main problem with including more LGBT characters—from the point of view of a straight author—is that I run the very high risk of talking out my ass. I do not know the first thing about the LGBT experience; I have had many close friends who are gay, I'm very comfortable around gay people, but I would never claim to really understand their experience. And that leaves me with a catch-22. If I don't include LGBT characters, then I'm not being inclusive; if I do include them, then I'm presuming to speak for an often-oppressed minority to which I do not belong. How do I solve that?

If this was a corporate-controlled media, the answer would be easy: Hire more LGBT writers, and then let everyone write what they know. But I can't do that. I'm not going to fall on my sword and stop writing just because I'm straight and the world needs more non-straight material. I can put in minor characters here and there, though that also runs into the problem of how do I let the audience know they're gay if they aren't in any romantic situations. But the main characters are more problematic, because it's really important to get inside their heads, and I don't know if I'm a good enough writer to pull that off—especially if the character is likely to have a romantic plot.

And getting back to the "flying lizards are less realistic than gay people" bit: It occurs to me that dragons and magic may be more unrealistic, but they're also impossible to get wrong. No one can really be furious at me for portraying a dragon negatively, because dragons don't exist. But I can guarantee you that if I mangled the writing on a gay or lesbian character, I'd never hear the end of it (and rightly so). I would be offending the very audience I was attempting to appeal to by their inclusion in the first place. That's awfully risky for an author. I'm not saying choosing non-inclusion is the right choice, but it is the safer choice. And I think maybe it's the choice that gets made when you aren't really paying attention, like I wasn't when I started the strip.

I don't know. It's late and I don't know what I'm getting at, except to say that I think I may have accidentally shied away from LGBT inclusion precisely because I do respect their experience and wouldn't presume to do it justice. Which probably doesn't help anyone, but there it is.

EDIT: Also, this:

Now, a relevant topic, please? At least make an ATTEMPT to include media and take the bodybuilding discussion elsewhere.