A Few Thoughts on LGBTQ+ and Furry Writing (Patreon)

Furry fandom has had a long history of supporting LGBTQ+ people and content. Many of the fandom’s early writers and artists were part of the rainbow, and many have continued to have long, successful careers creating writing, art, and comics about LGBTQ+ furries. I’ve never felt in furry that my sexuality was an issue. I can be gay, I can write about gays, and it’s all rosy and fabulous. So, for pride month, I wanted to talk a bit about my journey as a gay writer. 

When I was first coming to terms with my sexuality, I read quite a bit of early furry fandom writing, and I dreamed about being in the worlds some of those stories came from. There was a lot of acceptance of LGBTQ+ characters in that writing, and that spoke to me because, growing up, being gay wasn’t something to be accepted. I knew I was that thing people made slurs about, and people mocked because it was different. I am gay, and back when I was in my early twenties, I had to struggle to come to terms with that. My personal journey with my homosexuality was, in hindsight, not intensely difficult, but it took time, it took effort, and it was not the easy reveal we dream about. I had to figure out how to come to understand it, and how I was going to deal with being gay in this world.

A lot has changed in the last fifteen years since I first became involved in the fandom. Being gay is easier now, and we’re not just dreaming about legally getting married as same sex couples, we are getting married! That doesn’t mean though when I step out into the world, the world is like the ones envisioned in those old stories I read. Some of those was quite fantastical in their depictions of queer life. The acceptance I dreamed about, the ability to be me and not have people judge me for it, it’s still beyond our grasp.

Now this is not to make light of people in general. People are still arguing about race and ethnicity in the wider world, so it’s not shocking that men who love other men is still anathema for some people. The world doesn’t change overnight, and it’s always a back and forth struggle for rights and equality. And even if it’s easy for me, we’ve still got a long way to go with respect to trans rights. It’s foolish to think the fantastical dreams of a tolerant world could ever happen easily. Social struggles take time, and if today’s political climate is a guide, someone out there will sadly be trying to tell someone else how evil those homosexuals are long after I’m dead.

As a writer, I work with a mix of realism and fantasy to create the stories I’ve wanted to tell. I’ve written stories about the struggle of being gay, and I’ve written stories where it’s perfectly fine for two guys to kiss in public and not a single character in the setting cares. The real-life struggle goes on, and representation of queer people is still an ongoing issue. We’re facing an active backlash right now about pride because some people can’t accept that the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queers, and more deserve the right to exist and be who they want to be. To say I’m hot about the idea of straight pride would be an understatement, so this months Patreon story will explore that and what it means to be yourself. For a while I was wondering if I should stop mixing LGBTQ+ identity issues into my writing because things were looking so up, but I realize that topic will continue to come up in the political consciousness and I should not be afraid to address it constructively when I can find a way to.

Why? Well I’m not going to let anyone put me back in the closet, so why should my characters be forced to go back into the closet? Fiction can be a lens to see the world differently than how it is, to let us look at big picture issues without all of the pressures of the real world, and I’ve tried to use that concept positively when it’s appropriate for the story I’m writing. Not all of my writing tackles big picture issues, but it’s nice when I can find a good way to do that. I hope you’ll be happy to join me on this journey.