Technically, the SFWA kerfuffle is over (seriously my writing this is not really related with the scandal portion), but me being gay has a lot to do with how personally I took the bursts of sexism exploding around the Internet. I am forever tied with the fighting for women and their right to be respected, because a lot of what they go through, LGBT people go through. It’s discrimination based on something ludicrous (as all discrimination is) and I’m going to speak about why the LGBT folks are going to have it tough in the community, if we’re still having to deal with finally giving women the equality they deserve.
Author and friend, Sean Munger, wanted me to get into it on his blog and that’s what I did. Mind you, this is mostly a personal journey. NO gross exaggerations about the genre, but I’m willing to best my own story is not all that unique.
If the situation for one of the two sexes (incidentally the one in charge of birth) is as fucked as the recent shit storms indicate, how bad do you think the situation is for any other community within the genre is? Us, LGBTQ writers, have it as bad, but our problem is we are invisible.
The very concept of us is to many uncomfortable. I encounter this in my day-to-day life. Even friends who I consider close and open prove time and time again that the idea of a man attracted to another man (sorry to any lesbians reading this, but heterosexuals love fetishizing you) is bizarre, weird and unwelcome. Imagining it is akin to witnessing body horror. And the worst part is that any attention I have given to any straight man has been either misinterpreted as flirting or exploited for incessant ego boosting.
The world told me being gay is a no-no, so when I got serious about writing every lead with a significant character arc was a woman, because women are allowed to have men as romantic interests.
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