Making up for lost LGBTQ+ tropes

Rife with what?

Suddenly Sexuality was primarily rife with complaining, albeit of a different kind, i.e. "why is this character gay they had NO REASON to be gay!!"

I think we can keep this objective by simply stating that the only open queer relationships (and probably trans characters too) appear in the final stretch of a work.

So the discussion for Adaptational Gender Identity popped up on my watch list... the user in question, Zhvair, makes a point that "characters with an Ambiguous Gender/Ambiguous Gender Identity being given an explicit gender in an adaptation" is distinct from the "an adaptation changes a character's gender alignment" definition, and that it should be made into a separate trope... and they actually make some good points. What do y'all think?

If I ahave understood yer post correctly, having a objective definition is not enough to ward off the complaining.

But it would be better grounds to remove said complaining.

I thought of one male example of Last-Episode Gay Romance from Gravity Falls, where the two cops say that they've gone "mad with power... and love" in the final episode.

I wrote up a description for the trope Last Season Gay Couple:

Does this look okay? I'm worried that I may have gotten some details wrong (mainly in the first paragraph) or that the third paragraph may come across as overly negative.

I think it looks fine.

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Sep 23rd 2021 at 11:21:08 AM

I'd say "ambiguous to explicit" counts as a downplayed example.

So, the last-season gay couple trope is probably too rare to deserve a page, and I've mostly given up on it.

There's another concept I think might be a trope, but could also be too rare. I've seen at least three examples of a fat Japanese transgender bartender woman, in Yakuza 2, Persona 5, and AI: The Somnium Files. The fact that this specific combination of traits shows up three times makes me think it's not a coincidence, and that there's probably some kind of tropeworthy stereotype if more examples of this can be found.

Well those are all Japanese works, and I think "fat woman" and "trans woman" are both played in media as comically "unattractive" traits, so it might just be a combination of those tropes.

If it was just "fat trans woman" I wouldn't think much of it, but having them all be bartenders too is what makes me suspect there might be some kind of meaning behind it.

Gay bars in Japan tend to be run by members of the local Japanese LGBTQ community, i.e. crossdressers or trans women. The distinction between the two can get blurry since a lot of the cultural markers of a cis Camp Gay man involve using things like "female" pronouns and other such lavender speech. One example is Matsuko Deluxe, a popular entertainer who uses female pronouns, crossdresses, and wears his hair in feminine styles, but identifies as a cis gay man.

Edited by AlleyOop on Nov 6th 2021 at 5:49:03 AM

I’m reminded of that attempt to make a “black female therapist” trope, tbh. It may not be a trope of its own, but a cultural variant or modern spin on an existing one.

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 6th 2021 at 4:39:54 AM

Sorta like Magical Negro?

Edited by Malady on Nov 6th 2021 at 4:09:57 AM

Maybe this is a bad idea but I have been wondering if a Lesbian-Bisexual Couple trope idea could work, I have seen this a few times and it is kind of like Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple.

Is there a specific dynamic at play with that kind of couple? Because even when I do see something like that, either it rarely matters that one is lesbian and the other is bi, or they're not even explicitly labeled as lesbian or bi.

Yeah, unless there's a specific dynamic in play that doesn't sound tropeworthy.

Yeah, that is a fair point I can think of a dynamic that comes out of this so never mind that idea.

Have we ever talked about an Ambiguously LGBT trope or the remaining split offs like Ambiguously Trans or Ambiguously Asexual, or is that too rare/already covered?

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Nov 7th 2021 at 8:22:08 AM

Ambiguously Trans is Ambiguous Gender Identity, and Ambiguously Asexual, as much as I hate to say it as an ace person...shouldn't be a trope.

How would one be Ambiguously Asexual anyway? Like, how would a work imply that? Asexual representation is good and all but coding it relies on the lack of something, making it harder to objectively claim someone is coded as asexual as opposed to gay, bi, or trans.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 7th 2021 at 8:37:08 AM

I can certainly think of ways to code a character as asexual, but it likely wouldn't be ambiguous at all. Anyway, a lot of it would just overlap with Confirmed Bachelor anyway.

Edited by Eiryu on Nov 7th 2021 at 7:45:27 AM

Huh, it actually turns out Ambiguously Asexual was a trope at some point, and apparently had problems from the get go, but instead of sending back to TLP it was just straight-up cut.

There are other tropes that can work instead of Ambiguously Asexual, such as Chaste Hero, Celibate Hero, or Oblivious to Love. While these things are not necessarily equivalent to asexuality, a lot of characters I see people describe as "ace-coded" fall under these tropes.