Top 5 mistakes writers make when writing lgbtq+ characters

In real life, queer people find each other. We flock together and find our friends and family that we can be our authentic selves with.

I often read stories/scripts with only one lgbtq+ character, which is fine if that's how you're telling the story, but these queer characters never seem to even talk about their queer friends or support network.

You can avoid this by allowing your lgbtq+ characters to talk about their queer friends, and the things they get up to. Let them mention their support network, partners, exes and family. Of course some lgbtq+ people sadly don't have access to other queer people, but most do. Don't let your queer characters exist in an unrealstic bubble, give them more nuance by, at the very least, talking about their queer friends (even better, add more queers to the story AND let them be friends).

LGBTQ+ people don't just come out, and then assimilate ourselves into a fully heterosexual world. We love to stay connected to the queer community.

Unless written by a queer writer, I hardly ever see lgbtq+ characters attending queer events or spaces, or celebrating the various lgbtq+ awareness days/weeks/months that happen throughout the year.

You can add so much texture by letting your queer characters go to, come back from, or at least talk about the queer events/spaces they've attended. Even in countries where being lgbtq+ is against the law, things like Pride, and other queer events still happen. So let you characters go to Pride, or a queer art event, or an lgbtq+ spoken word night, or a queer club, sport, bar, or other social event, so audiences can see how connected they are.

Also, allow them to celebrate things like Pride month, Transgender day of visibility, Bisexual awareness week, and the many other days/weeks/months that happen for every aspect of the lgbtq+ acronym.

As an added bonus, your cishet characters can also be proven to be allies by attending/celebrating with the queer characters too.

No queer jokes

When you have your lgbtq+ family/friendship circle, queer people are much more open to make fun of themselves and each other.

We love to rib each other, and point out moments we do something "stereotypical" of our particular sexuality/gender identity. We often make fun of ourselves too, because we like to own it, and obviously it's ok if we are saying it about ourselves.

Now I know there is a fine line between comedy and insults sometimes, so the best way to think about this is to consider having your characters punching sideways (as opposed to punching down or even up).

Let them make fun of themselves or each other amongst friends, because being lgbtq+ is often quite ridiculous, and little things like this will make your queer characters seem much more human (but bear in mind if you're having a cishet character make the jokes, that may or may not go down well with the queer characters).

No queer labels

Look, I get it. In real life some people do not want to label themselves, and nor should they have to. Queer people don't owe anybody their identity.

But we are talking about characters. Characters are not real, despite how often they talk to us in our heads.

I often surprise writers with my feedback when I tell them they are not actually representing the lgbtq+ community fully with their characters by not letting the character label themselves.

Look at it this way, if a character could be read as gay OR straight OR bi, then how does that work? There is a huge difference in lived experience between gay, straight and bi people, so how could a character be all three?

Also, if your character is a bisexual woman, married to a man, if they never say they're bi, or flirt with multiple genders, or talk about exes, how could anyone possibly know?

To me, it makes me think the writer doesn't want to do the hard work, the full research, and really get under the character's skin.

If a character does not say or do anything queer, then are they even truly queer? Also, this lack of labelling plays into much more negative aspects such as Bisexual Erasure. The amount of times I've read/watched a straight character have a same sex experience, and it be hinted that the character has fully come out as gay/lesbian, is a lot. Why is the character hardly ever bisexual?

By all means let characters explore their sexuality/gender identity, and experiment too, but if you know your character is gay/lesbian/bi/pan/trans/ace/aro/2spirit and beyond, you will actually do FAR more for representation if you let the character explicitly say their label, even if it's only to themselves.

As humans we are all much more than one thing. No matter our race, ethnicity, gender, ability, shape or size, we are always multiple things.

When it comes to writing cishet characters, writers let them be multiple things, but when it comes to queer characters, it's like being queer is enough. This makes me wonder if cishet people see queerness, not as a thing similar to being cishet, just with different preferences, but as something so alien to them, that it consumes everything.

I love reading/watching queer characters, but more often than not they are white, cis, able-bodied and neurotypical. It's almost like the writer thinks queerness is enough "diversity".

But queer people come in all shapes, sizes, abilities, races and ethnicities. So make your queer characters seem much, much more real, by letting them not just be queer, but also black/brown/asian/indiginous too. And don't stop there, they can ALSO be disabled, D/deaf, blind, neurodiverse, fat or over 50 too. They're your characters, they can be as specific as you want them to be.

Oh, and don't just think they have to be cis too, they can be all the above AND trans/non-binary.