How do you seem LGBT friendly without playing those characters yourself?

[Anonymous 234]

So I'm a person that tends to not play many LGBT characters. It's not that I'm not tolerant but I don't personally find joy in playing those characters.

 

I have a few Lesbians, I have a few Bi but I don't play Gay (or MXM) characters. But as an administrator of a community, with so many people that put pressure onto the subject, I feel like I'm being forced to not only play my bi characters more heavily into the lesbian persuasion but that if I don't play a MXM character that I'm somehow bias.

 

Now this is just from reading wanted ads and advertising and whatnot but I've been feeling this way:

• If I play male characters that are straight then there is a problem with me.
• If I don't play gay male characters then there is something wrong with me.
• If I play Lesbians.... there is something wrong with me?

 

I don't ever, as an administrator, feel like the world at large lets me play the characters that I'm comfortable in playing. It makes me feel like I must play the characters that everyone else wants me to play in order for me to be "inclusive" which feels the opposite of what being inclusive means.

 

Thoughts? Help!? Etc?

Anonymous poster hash: c5a92...b98

[Kit the Human 759]

You let other people play LGBT characters without being weird about it? It's kind of an odd question to me because apparently, you do play same sex attracted characters. Has someone said something to you, or about you publicly? Or are you forcing yourself to play these characters because of your concerns about perception?

[Kazetatsu 263]

Don’t let a site dictate what you play just because you’re an admin. if you’re uncomfortable or uninterested in rping it, be honest with yourself and don’t do it. You’re not biased as a person just because you don’t play something others prefer. 

 

Next, I’ve seen gay or other forms of lgbt+ couples appear often on rps, and it helps to be positive about the ones that you see existing or forming on your site. I play mostly straight and ace ocs on my own rp, but I can still say the m x m pairings are cute and chat about where they seem to be going and make up ship names or ooc encouragement for pairs between other players. As an admin I also sometimes think about what characters might fit well together for a plot or for players want-requests. Wanted ads are often more specific than just hoping for a gay character, but if I see a character who already exists who might work, I may highlight that player as a potential rp partner. It’s not the same as saying character x character should be a couple, they might never pair up in that way, but they might not, or they might find another cool plot to do. 

[sohvi 22]

I don't think you have to play LGBT+ characters to be LGBT+ friendly. I don't play male characters, and I am not hostile to male characters. The only thing I look for when determining whether the site accepts people like me is just a line in rules that explains how the staff will handle bigotry.  Canons without predetermined sexualities or genders (and ethnicities!) helps as well.

Edited October 5, 2019 by sohvi

[Somniac 207]

If you find something about them interesting: plot with them. There are plenty of plots to do without romance. Ideally, sexuality plays no bigger part than gender: it influences everything, but it shouldn’t be the be-all end-all of characterization.

[Sophie Hatter 38]

17 hours ago, Anonymous said:

So I'm a person that tends to not play many LGBT characters. It's not that I'm not tolerant but I don't personally find joy in playing those characters.

 

i'm kind of wondering if the comments or vibes you've been getting are because members pick up on the fact that you don't enjoy playing lgbt  characters and so the ones you do play feel off to them? or am i reading it wrong that you enjoy the lgbt characters you play?

 

either way, i think it'd be a good idea to interrogate why you don't find joy in playing lgbt characters. as a member, i'd be wary of an admin that seems not to enjoy writing lgbt characters. usually there's some kind of bias there, intentional or not. but you seem to be making an effort, and that's honestly great. i hope you can work this out.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Sophie Hatter

[CK23 2]

Don't treat them any different? Just role with it.

[Anonymous 234]

2 hours ago, Sophie Hatter said:

i'm kind of wondering if the comments or vibes you've been getting are because members pick up on the fact that you don't enjoy playing lgbt  characters and so the ones you do play feel off to them? or am i reading it wrong that you enjoy the lgbt characters you play?

 

No, I enjoy the characters I play. In fact one of my favorite characters is a Lesbian.

 

This issue/question stems from wanted searches that make having existing LGBT characters (specifically male gay characters) on the site already. While I do have my lesbians and bi women I can't specifically accommodate gay males and this becomes the catch 22 and why I'm asking here.

 

As far as the rest of the advice, thanks, that's what I would do if they joined.

Anonymous poster hash: c5a92...b98

[Ozfiz 7]

So there's lots of advice here that is, don't worry, not playing LGBT characters doesn't make you a bad person. This is true, but another important part of this is, playing LGBT characters you really don't want to play really isn't doing any favours for the people you're trying to make feel welcome.

 

As a queer person, I am way more likely to join a site that has no LGBT characters played by staff than I am to join a site where LGBT characters exist but are obviously second fiddle. And if I joined a site and found out later a bunch of people were playing characters they just didn't want to because "ugh, we've got to be /inclusive/" Nah man, I'm out. I don't care how much fun that site was, I'm gone.

 

I will take a site that is honest over a site that is signalling inclusivity just to bulk numbers any day. Because, and this goes for anything on a site, be honest about what kind of things people like to write on your site. It's super awesome to write on a site with lots of other LGBT characters, but if a site's interesting enough that's not going to be the make or break issue for everyone.

 

So LGBT friendly basically means, at least for me, in order of importance:

+ No harassment will be allowed

+ Really g'awful insulting conversations will get shut down. No "but why do gay people have to shove it in our faces" or "trans isn't a real thing, nonbinary is super fake" 

+ If someone trips into insulting territory, and needs to be corrected, the person who was being insulted doesn't wind up with the short end of the stick. IE. Having a policy for those situations that means that Person A isn't (usually accidentally) getting punished for speaking up for themselves. It's not uncommon to see complaints about Party A asking politely for Party B to stop an insulting line of conversation, and then have the Party B be insulted by the insinuation of homophobia on their part. And that's just not an easy situation to manage, especially if Party A decided to be not polite in dealing with it.

+ Is enough knowledgable about what can be squicky / uncomfortable for LGBT people they stay away from those subjects or use some kind of content warning.

 

Honestly the most inclusive thing a site can do, imo, is be good at deescalating situations in a way that doesn't create bad blood between members.

 

I am perfectly capable of gaying up the joint all on my own if I have to. I just need to know that if communication goes sideways, or we run into a situation where someone is straight up being homophobic, I'm not the one ending up in the wickerman. 

 

Secondary note, just because something is a red-flag for one person, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Straight men playing lesbians tends to be a red-flag for a lot of lesbians because it trends towards hypersexuality. Hell, there are lesbians who don't refer to themselves as "lesbian" in casual conversation because the damn word has strong ties to hypersexuality and porn. So it can be kinda a sore spot. The fact it's a red-flag shouldn't mean you don't play lesbians. It should mean you take the time to understand why it's a red-flag. Again, I'd much rather

write with someone who didn't know they were playing a character that made me uncertain and uncomfortable and talked to me like a human being about it when I brought it up to them, than play with someone who was now hyper aware of me being queer and super uncomfortable because of it. I guess feeling safe to express concerns is the underlying theme here.

 

Ya posted before I could so in response:

5 minutes ago, Anonymous said:

[... snip ...]

This issue/question stems from wanted searches that make having existing LGBT characters (specifically male gay characters) on the site already. While I do have my lesbians and bi women I can't specifically accommodate gay males and this becomes the catch 22 and why I'm asking here.

[... snip ...]

 

Just don't reply to those wanted ads. It's cool, your site's not less LGBT friendly for that, it's just not the site those people are looking for. Adding more gay men to your site for a couple of ads is like adding a bunch of werewolf characters in. If people are going to enjoy that awesome, if not then you've just wasted the ad writer's time because they were trying to find something specific and you were only pretending to be that, and no one really had fun playing those werewolves. If you're really worried that the lack of gay men characters on your site is a problem you want to fix, then hone in on Sophie Hatter's advice.

3 hours ago, Sophie Hatter said:

[...snip...]

either way, i think it'd be a good idea to interrogate why you don't find joy in playing lgbt characters. 

[...snip...]

 

[Jaxx 317]

People look for specific things when they go to join a site. And it's okay if your site doesn't have them! You're not a bad person because, to use one of your examples, you play a straight man. As long as you have rules against homophobia/discrimination and you don't freeze out gay characters when they show up, I think you're probably doing fine. Just because someone else finds something to be a red flag doesn't mean that you can never have it on your site. I mean, you can try to run things like that, but you're going to drive yourself insane tbh. And you're going to enjoy your site and roleplaying in general a lot more if you play the characters you want to play without making ones you don't enjoy to keep up appearances for other people.

 

If someone is genuinely going to get offended that you don't play any gay guys then that is their problem. And you can't fix that problem for them. You don't have to have a character of every sexuality or gender or whatever to be 'inclusive'. The best thing to do is to make characters that you enjoy, and accept characters that come your way regardless of their sexuality. If you do that, I think you'll end up doing pretty well.

 

From what you've said in this thread, it sounds like you do play queer characters, and you're fine with all sorts of characters being on your site. So I don't think you actually have anything to worry about. But it's easy to get worn down and anxious when you see someone talking about how anyone that does x or doesn't do y is evil. If there was a genuine problem with things, someone probably would have brought it up. Don't worry about everything that people bitch about on directories. Most of the time imo it's not something that is actually a problem. 

[Anonymous 234]

Quote

either way, i think it'd be a good idea to interrogate why you don't find joy in playing lgbt characters. 

 

I want to say for the third time now that I don't have a problem playing some LGBT characters. I have stated a few times that I have and play lesbian and bi characters and they are characters that I enjoy. Please don't misconstrue that I don't enjoy gay males as me not enjoying LGBT characters as a whole.

 

I feel its fair that I can be uncomfortable or not like to write a gay male characters as much as someone else is uncomfortable writing a straight male character. There is no extra meaning here, its not something that I find fun, attractive or interesting to write.

Anonymous poster hash: c5a92...b98

[Kit the Human 759]

So again, has someone said anything to you? Because the phrase borrowing trouble comes to mind.

 

The question you're asking is pointless. Because apparently, you do play same sex attracted characters and apparently, you do enjoy them. So what's prompted you to make a song and a dance about not wanting to play male same sex attracted characters?

 

Edit: And also sorry for the palpable frustration here. But either something has prompted your question which you're not being clear about, or you're not coming from a genuine space, or you're trying to get a particular answer from the community.

 

And it's a song and a dance because I'd be downright excited to find a community with someone who plays more female same sex attracted characters....assuming you're not being weird and sexual about it.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Kit the Human

[Anonymous 234]

1 hour ago, Kit the Human said:

The question you're asking is pointless. Because apparently, you do play same sex attracted characters and apparently, you do enjoy them. So what's prompted you to make a song and a dance about not wanting to play male same sex attracted characters?

 

I certainly agree with your frustration and thus why I even made the thread in the first place but it's a frustration stemming from how LGBT seems to be presented in wanted ads as I stated here:

 

On 10/5/2019 at 9:52 PM, Anonymous said:

This issue/question stems from wanted searches that make having existing LGBT characters (specifically male gay characters) on the site already. While I do have my lesbians and bi women I can't specifically accommodate gay males and this becomes the catch 22 and why I'm asking here.

 

Any time I have found these wanted ads they claim they want "existing LGBT" characters, which I have, but immediately connect that to playing specifically and ONLY MXM pairings or similar sorts of LGBT pairings that I don't personally accommodate, which leads me to understand that if I personally don't play their type of LGBT then the site as a whole is not LGBT friendly.

 

I'm asking how do you overcome such a hurdle because its extremely frustrating.

 

My inadequacies about playing gay men aside it's a catch 22 that I'm struggling getting over. People want a LGBT friendly place but if it's not specific to the TYPE of LGBT that they like then it's not friendly enough but as others have stated, if I'm not willing to play these versions of characters even if I create them, is equally as deterring.

 

Someone said to skip the ads, I think Ozfiz, which I don't feel is the best option here because I AM LGBT friendly I just don't have a plethora of all types of LGBT characters which accommodates everyone. The only way I know of to get those is to get the people that DO enjoy to play those characters. Which leads me back to my catch 22.

Anonymous poster hash: c5a92...b98

[Bro 89]

6 hours ago, Anonymous said:

People want a LGBT friendly place but if it's not specific to the TYPE of LGBT that they like then it's not friendly enough

Are you saying that your SITE doesn't allow MxM pairings because it isn't something you're comfortable playing, or that you personally don't play MxM pairings because it isn't something you're comfortable playing? Because that's a different kettle of fish. I assume you mean the latter since that's what you've said before, and will respond that way in the rest of my post. I just wanted to point out that your language here is a bit ambiguous. 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Anonymous said:

Any time I have found these wanted ads they claim they want "existing LGBT" characters, which I have, but immediately connect that to playing specifically and ONLY MXM pairings

 

If you're seeing a lot of wanted ads for MxM pairings, but you don't play MxM pairings yourself, then don't respond to them? I don't think that makes you sound like you aren't LGBT friendly any more than if there were a lot of wanted ads for Vampires and you only play Werewolves. If there are Vampires allowed on your site, just none made yet, then there's not really a problem here. You aren't discriminating against their wanted ads and saying they aren't welcome on the site. If the wanted ad desperately needs pre-existing vampires in order to feel like a good fit, then just... wait until your members make some vampires. You don't need to go out of your way to play vampires yourself just to seem vampire friendly. 

 

Silly example aside, no one would (should) accuse you of being not LGBT-friendly if you have LGBT characters. Not having one specific letter in 'LGBT' in your personal character roster doesn't mean anything. I personally only have one female character, and she is cis-het. I also don't have any trans characters.  That doesn't make me not LGBT friendly, it just means I don't currently play a lesbian or trans person. If I came across a wanted ad for a lesbian or trans person, I wouldn't respond to it, or I'd say the site allows it and mention that they can post a wanted on my site directly if they join.  You don't need to respond to a wanted ad if it isn't a thing YOU want to play. 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Bro

[Arceus 1,082]

You don't wanna play xyz. You know what that means? It means you don't wanna play xyz. That's it. There's no reason to over-complicate it, or get super sensitive to the fact that people want things you don't play. That's fine. Plots and relationships aren't one-size-fits-all. It doesn't mean you're somehow LGBT-unfriendly, it just means you don't play that.

 

Tbh with you, the people that scream and dance around waving LGBT-Friendly flags tend to be try hards that are accidentally offensive and foster communities I don't want to be in, so whatever. Have the thing or don't. I'll make it. If you give me problems after I do, then I guess there's my answer. It doesn't matter to me what you play. It matters what you let me play. If I have a want ad you can't fill, then... well that sucks but there are other fish in the sea. And... like I have a girlfriend I can rope into it if absolutely all else fails. xD