How do I create a gay character without being disrespectful?

That comes under the disrespect bit - which is something I don't want to do.

As authors, I really think we find ourselves in catch 22 situations. As a white, British, Hetro, woman, I am writing books that have mainly hetro American or Italian characters but because I'm writing contemporary fiction, I want to include people that could well be part of my character's lives, which means including people from other nationalities, colours, and preffered sexual orientation. But I don't want them to be the "token" black person, or the "token" gay person because that's not who they are.

(Incidentally, my last book had an African-American Doctor in it)

 

Can I ask something in good faith? Lately I'm seeing a lot of threads hereabouts and elsewhere about "how to write Demographic X without being disrespectful" and I wonder what that question really means. It seems to come from a place where the asker knows that being -ist and -phobic and such is bad, but isn't entirely clear on why it's bad.

Again, I am asking this in good faith. I know it seems like an insulting and confrontational question, but I am being genuine: have you considered why you are asking this? Is being disrespectful bad because it would hurt your non-het readers? Is it bad because people might be angry at you? Is it bad because you are in a position to be perpetuating a harmful narrative?

Not to answer my own question, but in my experience it often has to do with the writer wanting to address a subject they know is important but doesn't actually know that much about. To which the only solution is research. The best way to be respectful of a certain demographic is to strive to truly understand the issues, and that takes time. Years, in the understanding that sympathy and empathy are different things. And there's no shortcut for it. You either do that work or you don't.

Honestly, my advice to anyone who is feeling a bit nervous about these things due to a lack of knowledge and experience should probably abstain from addressing it altogether, although I'm not saying anyone who feels different is wrong. It's a controversial issue and this is just where I have landed for now.

 

Yes. What did I just say? There are plenty of people I see on a daily weekly basis and I have no evidence whether they are straight or not.

 

Well, with your direct team, sure, but if you're working with, say, fifty or so people, I think it's hard to know about all of them.

 

For example, I had no idea @big soft moose was straight until any one of the thousand times he shared that he had slept with girls.

 

To be fair, this happens in real life far more often than it should, too.

 

We've had the "why do authors create gay characters" discussion many times. There's no need to have it again, because the OP hasn't asked whether she should create a gay character, she's asked for tips on how to do it well. Debating whether to include gay characters at this point is like going to a thread in which a person is asking about childcare options and suggesting abortion.

 

I completely agree that the only option is research. Empathy is a huge portion of it, but without research, people genuinely won't know when what they're saying/doing has shitty connotations. I mean, I am queer, and I still have to do research because I wasn't born with a Queer History 101 book already uploaded to my brain - not to mention the fact that there are a lot of people under the lgbt+ umbrella and knowing how to write a gay character without missteps doesn't mean you know how to write a trans one, or a bi one, or an ace one. Always research. Always. And honestly, a lot of the time when I see threads like this, I wish that instead of asking writers what to do, folks would ask actual queer people. I mean, when you research you go to the source, you don't take wikipedia at its word Luckily, there are a few of us around to field questions (as well as some lovely and helpful people like @Laurin Kelly and @BayView), but it's not ideal and we can tend to get lost/ignored amidst other commenters.

All that said, I absolutely don't think that "just don't do it" is the solution. I understand if that's how individuals would prefer to handle it for themselves; that's completely fair and I respect it. There are topics or themes that I'm not gonna touch until I have a much better understanding of them, too. But a great way to get through feeling nervous and being inexperienced is to dive in a give it your best shot. You might fuck it up. And that's okay! It's a learning experience! I only get frustrated and annoyed when people refuse to learn. @cutecat22 obviously is not refusing to learn, and I don't think she should be discouraged from trying this.

 

This worries me. Zero reason why being gay should affect the nature of a handshake.

 

I find myself wanting to take it half a step away. I'm not sure why--maybe because it feels less like going out of one's way to tell the reader?

"What do you mean? He's got a steady girlfriend? In my experience, that doesn't always make a difference."
"Boyfriend."
"Ah. That's likely to make the difference, yeah."

(Edited to add: Though of course treating that fact as definitive runs us right into the bisexual thread...)

 

I'm not writing a book that contains gay sex, or even a gay relationship (at the moment) because that's not my thing but we meet all different characters in our daily life so why not have all different characters in our books?

The disrespect bit comes from, well, look at it this way. I read a lot, but I've only read one book that had a gay character in it, and this gay guy was so over the top that the character didn't ring true to me, but as it was the only book I'd read containing a gay character, my brain thought that that was how gay people are. (I don't know anyone that I'm close to on a daily basis who is gay) Trust me when I say I've argued over and over with my brain about this.

So I don't want anyone reading my book to think that all gay people are the way I portray gay people. And if any gay people read my book, I'd rather they think "what a great story" than "that is so not what a gay person would do".

Being gay is not new, but people's acceptance of gay people in the wider community, is (in the grand scheme of things) and if it makes a difference, I would be asking the same thing if I have characters who were identical twins, because I have no personal experience of having a twin, identical or not. There are non in my family, and I don;t know any. (in fact, I'm an only child!)

 

Maybe we should start a new thread instead of continuing to hijack this one?

 

thanks, your second line is exactly what I want to avoid.

 

Thank you.

About half an hour ago, I realised that I do know a gay man, I met him at a recent author event and he is a very good friend of another author friend of mine, so I messaged him and asked him the question. his answer was much the same, write it as any other character and let the readers discover it for themselves through his job and his appearance. (I gave him a quick bio of the character and his job)

 

I have slightly changed that sentence, although at this stage, there's plenty of time for change in the future (I'm on the first draft)

 

And that's still in the 'suggestions' file. It may not even come up, but it's something to think about if it needs to.

 

Ok, but you see the issue? Why would the handshake be feminine? I can't see any reason at all.

 

because traditionally, a hetro man will shake hands with a grab like grip of the whole hand, palm to palm, whereas Chase (in the story) lightly takes hold of just the fingers of the hand he's shaking, as a female would do.

 

That definitely had the potential to be offensive. I'm not saying that there aren't stereotypically flamboyant gay men out there, but having one of the first interactions your character has basically lifted out of a 1950's mincing fruit styled hate jokes could definitely cause offense. I'm not saying you can't do this either, but if you're going to write a prancing stereotype, you're going to have to back that up with a very filled out character and some huge overall theme about equal rights and even then be prepared for a lot of hate from white, straight social justice warriors that can't look past the stereotype.

 

But how is this not a stereotype? Don't you mean "a man", not "a hetero man"?