Queer Love Interests of Color and the White Gaze
The recent trend of writing LGBTQ+ love interests of color might be more harmful than you’d think.
LGBTQ+ stories have historically been (primarily) white tales. While the presence of queer characters of color has increased from “next to none” to “well there’s definitely more than two” in recent years, LGBTQ+ characters of color still cannot hold a torch to the prevalence and reach of their white counterparts. Through the battles of positive representation, LGBTQ+ people of color are sidelined at best and entirely erased at worst.
But surely the recent trend of injecting queer love interests of color into otherwise entirely white casts and storylines fixes this? Instead of reading (or watching) two white people fall in love, the text — and therefore, the story itself — is made more inclusive by this flawless choice…right?
Well.
What seems to be an unquestionable — and, dare I say, “unproblematic” — solution to QPOC invisibility is actually far more complex than white creators seem to believe. Queer characters of color are not interchangeable with white queer characters, and the lack of nuance that accompanies their inclusion makes the haphazard attempt at “diversity” almost insulting.
