Writing Queer Characters: the Research(er), the Writer, & the Reader

As we head into Pride Parade weekend in Vancouver, I thought it might be a good time to post a piece I have been working on for a while. There are all kinds of ‘How to…’ puff pieces online about writing queer characters, but I wanted to do a bit of a deeper dive into the subject.

The research(er): A quick overview of some pertinent elements of Queer Theory from a qualitative research POV.

To discuss queer characters, we must also explore some elements of queer literature. According to Prof. Gregory Woods,(a historian on gay literature) the 1980s and earlier in most developed countries, anything ‘queer’ was still criminal. So anybody writing queer stories or queer characters was also writing about criminal activities.

Furthermore, from the mid 80s and into the early 90s, anything queer — especially gay — was associated with AIDS. Not HIV, but AIDS. Into the 21st century, 2SLGBTQ+ is not only still criminal in the majority of countries around the globe, but is a death sentence in some. Not to mention it is also under attack in ‘so-called’ developed countries like Canada, the US, and the UK.