History FairForItsDay / Literature

* The 1994 Olivia Goldsmith novel ''Flavor of the Month'' has the big twist of the revelation one of the starlets of a hot female-led TV show was born a man (their mother having long hid it from the world). It's revealed when she's shot and when her fiancée (who, amazingly, has never discovered the truth himself) identifies himself, the doctor openly scoff "that patient cannot be your fiancée." It's treated as the biggest scandal in Hollywood history with [[spoiler: that character's funeral]] surrounded by drag queens. Today, a doctor (especially a Hollywood one) wouldn't blink twice at a man claiming a man is his fiancée and transgender actors more accepted than they were in the early '90s.

** The hero of ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' is revealed to be Filipino, and the heroine of ''Literature/PodkayneOfMars'' is part Maori.

** The stories of Conan the Barbarian were remarkably diverse in terms of race for the 1930s era (just look at this [[https://sites.google.com/site/hyboriantales/_/rsrc/1233763136342/map-of-the-hyborian-age/map-of-the-hyborian-age/hyboria.gif map from the Hyboria Age]]), with many non-white characters who were both Conan's allies and enemies.

* ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' centered on a CreepyCrossdresser serial killer who murders and skins women to make himself a woman suit. However, both the book and the film try to distinguish between real transgender people and the villain, who only ''thinks'' he's transgender due to his own self-hatred, and go out of their way to point out that most transgender people are normal, decent people who have no unusual inclination towards violence. The doctor Crawford goes to for help finding Buffalo Bill gives a passionate speech about how trans people are just people who deserve gender-affirming care (although that's not what he calls it), and associating the clinic with Buffalo Bill will set back their advocacy for trans acceptance by years. One of the ways Lecter suggests for finding a description or photograph of the killer is to look at people who both faked their identity, and were turned down for gender-affirming care for psychological reasons; the former because a criminal record for almost anything (besides, well, charges based upon them cross-dressing) disqualifies the applicant (and both Lecter and the FBI agree that Buffalo Bill almost certainly had one), and the latter because, well, there was no way that anyone as disturbed as Buffalo Bill was going to pass a psychological test of any kind (and even if he weren't disturbed, wouldn't register as actually trans per the test's terms). They all use outdated language and take a more medical view than people nowadays do, but they're sincere.

* ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' centered on a CreepyCrossdresser serial killer who murders and skins women to make himself a woman suit. However, both the book and the film try to distinguish between real transgender people and the villain, who only ''thinks'' he's transgender due to his own self-hatred, and go out of their way to point out that most transgender people are normal, decent people who have no unusual inclination towards violence. The doctor Crawford goes to for help finding Buffalo Bill gives a passionate speech about how trans people are just people who deserve gender-affirming care (although that's not what he calls it), and associating the clinic with with Buffalo Bill will set back their advocacy for trans acceptance by years. One of the ways Lecter suggests for finding a description or photograph of the killer is to look at people who both faked their identity, and were turned down for gender-affirming care for psychological reasons; the former because a criminal record for almost anything (besides, well, charges based upon them cross-dressing) disqualifies the applicant (and both Lecter and the FBI agree that Buffalo Bill almost certainly had one), and the latter because, well, there was no way that anyone as disturbed as Buffalo Bill was going to pass a psychological test of any kind (and even if he weren't disturbed, wouldn't register as actually trans per the test's terms). They all use outdated language and take a more medical view than people nowadays do, but they're sincere.

* R.A. Salvatore's ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' not only [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny set off loads of cliches]], but it portrayed a character who was a member of an "Evil" race (ordinarily just villainous mooks) as a person. However, these days others point out that in-universe, almost every other drow are AlwaysChaoticEvil xenophobes, and Drizzt simply not being that way makes him come off as either "One of the good ones", or implying that it's the Drow ''culture'' that's bad - both sentiments are considered ''quite'' racist during TheNewTwenties.

** Howard wrote many stereotypical DistressedDamsel characters ([[ExecutiveMeddling usually at the insistence of his publishers -- it let artist Margaret Brundage paint sexy girls for the covers]]), he also managed to create several strong female characters -- Belit, Velaria, and Red Sonya in particular. Not to mention Dark Agnes de Chastillion, who could easily be considered one of the first FeministFantasy-characters.

** In ''Literature/SpaceCadet'' one of the cadets accuses his classmates of being racist. They protest they don't have any negative feelings about one of their officers, who is black. "Don't be silly " is the reply; they don't have such feelings about their officer, who is, after all, human. He's talking about Venusians.

* Creator/JKRowling outing Dumbledore from ''Literature/HarryPotter'' as [[WordOfGay gay]] was this back in 2007, on a meta level. This was an era where homophobia was more present than today (same-sex marriage was still a rarity, for instance), and LGBT characters were still pretty rare in fiction aimed at children (and possibly illegal as well, under the infamous UK "clause 28", up until 2003). Nowadays, outing a character as gay with little to no indication of this in the text proper would feel like a cop-out. Not helped by the fact that later media depictions would mostly stick to the WordOfGay (or at best AmbiguouslyGay) approach, nor by J. K. Rowling's own transphobic comments in the 2020's.

** Some of her earlier stories in the same continuity, ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'', feature the asexual Tarma. Tarma is asexual because she gave up that part of herself in a ritual so that she could pursue [[RapeAndRevenge revenge on the bandits who raped her and killed her clan]], and becoming asexual gives her a sense of armor against the pain - it encourages the misconception that asexuality is the result of sexual trauma. However, the first story starring Tarma was published in 1987 and there are plenty of good aspects too. She never feels incomplete or like she should change herself back, and her [[HeterosexualLifePartners extremely]] [[PseudoRomanticFriendship close]] [[ChastityCouple relationship]] with Kethry is also a very nice queerplatonic partnership.

* ''Literature/AroundTheWorldIn80Days'': The book's protagonist, an Englishman, falls in love with and marries an Indian princess. Although Verne describes her as [[ButNotTooBlack fair skinned and notes that her English is perfect]], most likely as an excuse to make the pairing more acceptable to his 19th century audience, featuring an interracial marriage at all is still progressive for its time period.

* Creator/JKRowling outing [[Literature/HarryPotter Dumbledore]] as [[WordOfGay gay]] was this back in 2007, on a meta level. This was an era where homophobia was more present than today (same-sex marriage was still a rarity, for instance), and LGBT characters were still pretty rare in fiction aimed at children (and possibly illegal as well, under the infamous UK "clause 28", up until 2003). Nowadays, outing a character as gay with little to no indication of this in the text proper would feel like a cop-out. Not helped by the fact that later media depictions would mostly stick to the WordOfGay (or at best AmbiguouslyGay) approach, nor by J. K. Rowling's own transphobic comments in the 2020's.

* ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' centered on a CreepyCrossdresser serial killer who murders and skinswomen to make himself a woman suit. However, both the book and the film try to distinguish between real transgender people and the villain, who only ''thinks'' he's transgender due to his own self-hatred, and go out of their way to point out that most transgender people are normal, decent people who have no unusual inclination towards violence. The doctor Crawford goes to for help finding Buffalo Bill gives a passionate speech about how trans people are just people who deserve gender-affirming care (although that's not what he calls it), and associating the clinic with with Buffalo Bill will set back their advocacy for trans acceptance by years. One of the ways Lecter suggests for finding a description or photograph of the killer is to look at people who both faked their identity, and were turned down for gender-affirming care for psychological reasons; the former because a criminal record for almost anything (besides, well, charges based upon them cross-dressing) disqualifies the applicant (and both Lecter and the FBI agree that Buffalo Bill almost certainly had one), and the latter because, well, there was no way that anyone as disturbed as Buffalo Bill was going to pass a psychological test of any kind (and even if he weren't disturbed, wouldn't register as actually trans per the test's terms). They all use outdated language and take a more medical view than people nowadays do, but they're sincere.

* ''Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' centered on a CreepyCrossdresser serial killer who [[spoiler:murdered and skinned women to make himself a woman suit]]. However, both the book and the film try to distinguish between real transgender people and the villain, who only ''thinks'' he's transgender due to his own self-hatred, and go out of their way to point out that most transgender people are normal, decent people who have no unusual inclination towards violence -- in fact, in the book, one of the ways Lecter suggests for finding a description or photograph of the killer is to look at people who both faked their identity to the surgeon, and were turned down for the surgery for psychological reasons; the former because a criminal record for almost anything (besides, well, charges based upon them cross-dressing) disqualifies the applicant (and both Lecter and the FBI agree that Buffalo Bill almost certainly had one), and the latter because, well, there was no way that anyone as disturbed as Buffalo Bill was going to pass a psychological test of any kind.

* Creator/JKRowling outing [[Literature/HarryPotter Dumbledore]] as [[WordOfGay gay]] was this back in 2007, on a meta level. This was an era where homophobia was more present than today (same-sex marriage was still a rarity, for instance), and LGBT characters were still pretty rare in fiction aimed at children (and possibly illegal as well, under the infamous UK "clause 28", up until 2003). Nowadays, outing a character as gay with little to no indication of this in the text proper would feel like a cop-out. Not helped by the fact that later media appearances would mostly stick to the WordOfGay (or at best AmbiguouslyGay) approach, nor by J. K. Rowling's own transphobic comments in the 2020's.

* Creator/JKRowling outing [[Literature/HarryPotter Dumbledore]] as [[WordOfGay gay]] was this back in 2007, on a meta level. This was an era where homophobia was more present than today (same-sex marriage was still a rarity, for instance), and LGBT characters were still pretty rare in fiction aimed at children (and possibly illegal as well, under the infamous UK "clause 28", up until 2003). Nowadays, outing a character as gay with little to no indication of this in the text proper would feel like a cop-out. Not helped by the fact that later media appearances would stick to the WordOfGay (or at best AmbiguouslyGay) approach, nor by J. K. Rowling's own transphobic comments in the 2020's.

* Creator/JKRowling outing [[Literature/HarryPotter Dumbledore]] as [[WordOfGay gay]] was this back in 2007, on a meta level. This was an era where homophobia was more present than today (same-sex marriage was still a rarity, for instance), and LGBT characters were still pretty rare in fiction aimed at children (and possibly illegal, under the infamous UK "clause 28", up until 2003). Nowadays, outing a character as gay with little to no indication of this in the text proper would feel like a cop-out. Not helped by the fact that later media appearances would stick to the WordOfGay (or at best AmbiguouslyGay) approach, nor by J. K. Rowling's own transphobic comments in the 2020's.