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

[Kit the Human 759]

13 hours ago, Anonymous said:

it's a frustration stemming from how LGBT seems to be presented in wanted ads

 

 

I am a "LGBT", some of the people responding here are too. Some of those want ads you feel are representative of our community are made by straight and cisgender people.

 

I feel that the proliferation of people wanting only same sex attracted men is a symptom of some less than lovely cultural attributes. Patriarchal imbued attitudes (I don't believe that it's conscious, there's just a reason why gay male characters have been embraced for the most part, but not gay women. Oh and I identified this in myself and have been consciously challenging myself on it) and straight women with a 'yaoi' fetish (clearly I'm not talking about actual gay men wanting to write about characters like themselves). If it was really about being welcoming to people of diverse sexualities and genders, then the wanted ads would reflect that diversity. You'd have lots ads for trans characters, for lesbians, for bi women, for people who are aegender, asexual, genderfluid, etc. But there aren't, so that should tell you about who is making the majority of wanted ads and whose wants they reflect.

 

Wanted ads are not a reflection of what we want. They're a reflection of what the RP Community wants.
 

Now trundling on, I personally don't have a checklist I go through player's characters and tick off each letter, then judge them for not having X, Y and Z. I do raise an eyebrow if they start to make a whole thing about who they won't write about.

 

So the question remains, did someone tell you that you're being unwelcoming? Or are you making an assumption that that's what people think? Because we can say that it doesn't matter as much as we want, but I suspect that it doesn't really help you if you've been told that it does. It'd probably down right frustrating! I'm gonna waffle on about the link between being welcoming and characters played, you can skip to the last paragraph for something that might be more relevant to OP.

 

Warning: naval gazing ahead:

I don't believe in pressuring everyone to play a diverse range of characters. But I agree with Sophie that the self reflection is important, buuuut that's true of self reflection in general and not specific to RP. I don't believe in pressuring because what we call diverse in RP is rather.... Not diverse. Rather it's reflective of a few dominant personalities and as Arc said, those people tend to foster some pretty unappealing communities. Complete with a cast of characters that do not reflect that they're preaching.

 

So, the idea behind the pressure has been about normalisation. The community that has been the focus of normalisation is a very specific set within the LGBT (less the trans bit though) community. There hasn't for example, been much call for normalising refugees, migrants, non-Christians and non-atheists, people with disabilities or with different needs, or people living in poverty. All of these communities are marginalised in different ways and have violence visited upon their bodies. Don't they too deserve the same kind of championing that the same sex attracted community enjoys? But of course, it's impossible for one person to write about all of these people in any meaningful way. And hey, this is a hobby.

 

But my argument against pressuring people to write a very narrow definition of "diverse" doesn't also mean that I believe it doesn't matter. It matters.

 

If you're a member of a marginalised community, especially if you have experienced trauma due to that, then you're just gonna look for signs of being welcomed. One of those signs are: that people are writing about characters like you, and that those characters have a diverse range of threads. ie. That they're not being ignored. So if your site is devoid of trans characters, you may not be as welcoming to actual trans people as you feel you are. No one can read your mind, they can only judge what they see. So if you really want to be welcoming to particular aspects of the human community, it's important to actually put in visible signs that <insert person> is welcome. That is I think, part of what thinking about who your target audience is. Who am I welcoming? Who am I excluding? (Even if I'm not actively excluding). I can't be welcoming towards everyone. How am I going to signal who is welcome and unwelcome?

 

I have seen some people state that just having explicit rules is enough for them - so that's something to keep in mind too.

 

If there are no signs that <insert person> is welcome, then that person may well err on the side of caution. That is their right and their prerogative.

 

Now to be abundantly clear. This does not mean that I believe every single person should play as many different kinds of characters that they possibly can. Or even that an admin needs to especially do this. It just means that who is not present on your site does mean something to someone and if you're really so upset by that, then the onus is on you to address your own unwillingness to play a person of <insert community>. To be abundantly clear again, I know that I am just as much in possession of prejudices as anyone else and that these prejudices are reflected in my characters. So I'm addressing that because it's important to me. 

 

So to come around to a full circle. If you don't want to write about same sex attracted men for whatever reason, that's your prerogative. If some people do count willingness to write same sex attracted men as being welcoming (or are taking note of how you're communicating that preference), but writing same sex attracted women as not, then it's their prerogative to pass you over. I assume that they have their reasons. I bet that they're grounded in bad experiences too. But rather than focus on what you won't write, why not focus on what you do write? As I said, it's not like the RP community is overrun with same sex attracted women so again, assuming that you're not being weird about those characters by being salacious, then what you're doing isn't' a bad thing...Assuming that you're not being creepy about it.

[Dragon 673]

1 hour ago, Kit the Human said:

Wanted ads are not a reflection of what we want. They're a reflection of what the RP Community wants.

 

I do believe, if people would actually read, that this is specifically what Anon is asking about. 

 

What the RP community wants. 

 

Anon seems to have run into a problem with potential members complaining that there are either not enough, or no gay male characters existing on their site. Because of these complaints, they have noticed a greater demand for MxM potentials to already exist on the site before people are willing to join. Anon seems to feel that since there are not many pre-extant gay male characters on their site, and since Anon themself does not play any gay male characters, that they are losing out on members who would otherwise call the place great. 

 

1 hour ago, Kit the Human said:

So if your site is devoid of trans characters, you may not be as welcoming to actual trans people as you feel you are.

 

I do question, why not just answer Anon with that to begin with? 

 

'so if your site is devoid of MxM characters, you may not be as welcoming to actual gay people as you feel you are'.

 

That was, after all, the initial question. Anon was expressing concern, because they don't personally play MxM characters - and not many on their site do - that the site didn't come off as welcoming to those sorts of characters. (At least, that's my take away from this thread) 

 

So, what could they do to aid in mending that perceived problem? If anything at all. 

 

[Kit the Human 759]

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

why not just answer Anon with that to begin with? 

 

Because I'm trying to tease out whether or not something has actually been said. Or if OP is drawing assumptions based on wanted ads only. Because if it's an assumption, no one's doing nothing wrong. There's no issue. Nothing to address. Just accept that the community has this thing for gay men.

 

So to your other question:

 

2 hours ago, Kit the Human said:

I have seen some people state that just having explicit rules is enough for them - so that's something to keep in mind too.

 

2 hours ago, Kit the Human said:

It just means that who is not present on your site does mean something to someone and if you're really so upset by that, then the onus is on you to address your own unwillingness to play a person of <insert community>

 

2 hours ago, Kit the Human said:

But rather than focus on what you won't write, why not focus on what you do write? As I said, it's not like the RP community is overrun with same sex attracted women so again, assuming that you're not being weird about those characters by being salacious, then what you're doing isn't' a bad thing...Assuming that you're not being creepy about it.

 

I also mentioned writing with characters of <insert community>.

 

Does that answer your question @Dragon? Be positive about what you do write, don't be creepy about it, write with all kinds of characters, and accept that no matter your intent, your actions might mirror someone who was in the end, discriminatory. If that bothers you, you address it. If you don't want to address it, fine, that's your prerogative. Move on. Pass over those wanted ads you clearly can't fill. It doesn't mean anything about who you are, but people lean on the information regardless.

 

And if my suspicions about who OP is is right ....then I know that they're not being creepy or weird and they're someone who's favourite characters are women anyway (I'm pretty sure!) and genuinely enjoy writing a variety of women in a variety of circumstances. In which case frame your preference to something like this:  "It's important to me to write about women's experiences because of who I am. I also think it's important to shift focus from just gay men to include and celebrate same sex attracted women. And that to me, also means writing bi women as actually being bi." I think focusing on what you want to do just changes the whole tone. Suddenly you're not excluding gay men, you're making a special effort to celebrate women - including the gay ones. And that's tremendously important and something the community does apparently want, because we're seeing more sites pop up that are female only.

[Morrigan 1,826]

The original poster requested this be closed as it appears that their point is being missed and that it's getting too heated to actually get the help they are looking for.