A whole lot of isms, but mostly heterosexism.

[strange_tomato]

Given that this Sunday, May 17, is the International Day Against Homophobia, it's interesting that I was recently called out for being heterosexist. To my face, by a lesbian. I was pretty embarrassed. (Not that it would be any better to have this pointed out in another way, but I felt pretty careless.)

Comments

[showercapfrog]

Ack. It's difficult to counter several stereotypes at once (Old people are happy? And do things other than sit on the couch and yell at kids on their lawns?), but I do think that this isn't your fault.
It is difficult to get it right all the time, and I try to remind people too (if I think that they won't kill me for doing it).

Generally, I don't really like the way that a lot of sim stories treat homosexuals, or queer issues in general. However, I don't think this is restricted to just Sims - this is a problem in a lot of fanfiction. It can be well addressed at times, but the majority of stories either a) do not address the issue at all (not necessarily bad) or b) are all "LOL BUTTSECKS".

I think that the way you've portrayed the homophobia is fairly realistic, even though Tank is not particularly bad, as far as some homophobia goes. I also like that you've kind of addressed some other queer/intersex style issues with Stella as well.
I think it's difficult for a story to address gay issues without being like "LOOK A GAY I AM TOTALLY GROUNDBREAKING" or having other similar issues that I talked about above, and I think that you addressing queer issues with secondary characters has been quite effective.

We always called it 'heteronormativity' but heterosexist works well too.

I don't know how well I expressed myself here, but I hope you get my drift :D.