<– Previous Comic Next Comic–>
<– Previous Comic Next Comic–>
As a queer person who lands on the rainbow spectrum in one of the non-gay stripes, I may have both an atypical number of queer people in my social circle and a less normative understanding of whose lifestyles are relatable. Gay people’s lives are more relevant to mine than straight people’s in many ways, and it seems pretty natural for me to just choose to make the story about a gay person if there’s no reason I have to make it about a straight person. My defaults aren’t what mainstream society expects them to be.
When people question “but why are they gay tho,” I have to ask “why do you need a reason for them to be gay?” and also “why do you think ‘gay’ is not a neutral choice but ‘straight’ is?” Frustrations over queer people’s inclusion “where it doesn’t need to be” translates easily in my head to “there are two sexual orientations: straight and ‘political.'”
Hey, people can be straight and ‘political’. Not that I would know. 18 1/4 years of negative one comic! I’m pretty sure that Weaver is ‘straight’, but I could be missing the obvious. Adele has a boyfriend, and has the ‘mom’ role, but I know a lot of lesbian and other bucket moms. It’s mostly not germane to the story. And, there’s Meri Lin and Fred. 21 May 2005? (date of first comic/comment).
You’re very much misunderstanding what I mean if you think I’m suggesting straight people don’t take political action, or that I need reminding of which of my characters are straight. I’m saying some people (who are wrong) think that having a queer character in a story automatically has a political purpose, and treat all stories with queer characters in them as if they have “an agenda.” Queer characters can’t just exist in stories to these kinds of people. I assure you that my making this point doesn’t demonstrate having overlooked or forgotten that some of my characters are straight.