If "being gay" is a character's main trait and personality, then there's no reason to have such a character in the first place, because that's lazy writing. If it's also just a "look! Look! We r brave and put gay person into movie!!!1 pls watch" then there's no reason to have such a character in the first place, as you're just being a tool and using it for a PR marketing scheme.
No regular person with half a brain is bothered by well written LGBT characters.
So I haven't read past this post but this one really stuck out to me because of an experance I had on a writing forum once. I like to think that I can create pretty in depth character's with realistic personalities. That being said I often don't feel the need to broadcast all their personality traits until or unless it serves a purpose to the overall plot or the characters story line. Sometimes however I may find my characters in situations where such information might naturally come to light. This just so happened in one story that I was posting.
Basically around the 1/3 mark, through casual dialogue with a miner character I "revealed" that the main character is gay. I say "revealed" because it was meant more as a hint then as acual conformation.
After that I got two or three commenters complaining every few chapters that basically amounted to "OMG, Damico's not flanting his gayness enough!" Basically I could only figure they must be unhappy that my character didn't conform to gay stereotypes and didn't interject his sexual orientation in every paragraph.
Eventually in frustration I remember writing one response that went like this,
"I have spent nearly four years creating this character.
Four years I have spent plotting out his childhood, teens years and early experiences,
Four years I have spent figuring out how those events could have shaped his personality,
Four years I have spent deciding how the traits he gained from these experiences would best shape his life and adventures moving forward,
I have spent so much time trying to build a likable and believable character. Yet Damico stopped being a mere character ages ago. He became something dear and cherished to me, a sort of intellectual child. I have a list of nearly 100 character trait and quarks, many of which can't even be boiled down to a single word yet I know them by heart. If someone asked my for the top twenty Damico being homosexual would not even be something I would consider to mention. Frankly a consider it less the 1 percent of who he is.
The fact that some can't seem to look past or see him as any thing but his preferences in sex partners is extremely insulting to me."
That pretty much sums up how I feel about having gay or transgender characters in movies and shows. Add them in that's great but don't make a dig duel of it unless it contributes to plot or character development.
