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Change LGBTQ from being a genre to being a stat tracked about representation
C
charliebnlJul 31, 2023
I know that genres are controlled by publishers, but it feels discriminatory to me to have a genre as LGBTQ+. I know as a black woman, I'd had to have a book categorised as black or female or both.
Can we remove this genre from books and rather have a way of tracking diversity in authors and characters that looks at demographics such as:
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Country
- Disability representation
- LGBTQ+ representation
etc.
Comments
I feel like representation could be separate from genres, or as a part of tags in the reviews - like how there are trigger warnings. I think there should be an option for providing sources or quotes. I think it should be a way to filter when searching though.
It seems to me that this tag is doing double-duty as a genre and a representation tag, as the original comment suggests. Renaming the tag something like "gender and sexuality" might lead to it being used properly as a genre tag, as opposed to being applied to books belonging to other genres that have, for example, a same-sex couple or queer character in them. I don't think the LGBTQIA+ genre tag is appropriate for the latter situation.