So, recently, I was told by Episode that my story, Killer Love, did not fit the LGBT Genre.
For those who never read my story,
Killer Love is a story that explore the complex relationship between two women. Jia, and assassin, and Allison, a CIA Agent and a serial killer, send love messages through their kills. Jia is canonically bisexual while Allison doesn’t have a label to her sexuality but is very clearly in love with Jia.
My story involves a relationship dynamic that’s strictly same-sex and could only be such because if one of the people in the relationship was a man there would be this concerning power imbalance in the relationship and ultimately wouldn’t work. I also wrote this story as primarily for the LGBT community who want to read and see complex relationships between two women that is strictly LGBT. Having this story on the LGBT shelf also meant reaching the audience the story was meant to reach.
There’s something really concerning about the Episode Team reaching out to LGBT content creators and telling them that their stories about LGBT people don’t fit the genre. See, I’m not the only person who had their story told that it doesn’t fit the genre. An LGBT author who wrote a story based around a biromantic demisexual character also recently got told by Episode that her story doesn’t match the genre. And the same with another LGBT author who wrote a story with a bisexual MC with a female LI branch. There may be even more stories that Episode told LGBT authors that their stories based around LGBT people in it didn’t fir the genre.
I tried to make my case by mentioning what I explained in the first paragraph about my story and I asked why my story didn’t match the genre. And they said,
“Please note that the LGBTQ+ genre is a genre meant for stories that focus on and feature characters who identify as one or more of these identities. The characters’ identities should be a significant part of their narratives, in addition to possible romantic option”
And there’s a problem with that. Is Episode saying they want stories that only address coming out and struggling with identity? The issue with this perspective is that coming out and coming to terms with our identities isn’t all us LGBT people are. Coming out is just an event that occurs in our lives, it isn’t all we are. LGBT people have lives after coming out and coming to terms with their sexuality or gender identity and I thinks there should be stories that show that. As someone who is a lesbian and came out years ago, I am honestly not always in the mood for a coming out story or want to read one because I’ve passed that phase in my life. We need to see stories by LGBT authors writing LGBT people just living their lives without coming out being the central focus of the story.
Following what Episode said about what stories that match the LGBT shelf should be, let’s look at the stories that are trending on the LGBT genre. Just go on the app and check the shelf. By Episode’s standards, most of these stories wouldn’t fit because most of these stories… They were originally stories written to be female LI versions of a separate heterosexual story that came first and these stories don’t address the LGBT identities of these characters. And a lot of these authors? For the most part, they’re straight authors. Doesn’t add up that stories written by LGBT people are being told that they don’t belong in the genre but other stories that don’t even follow the definition of what Episode said LGBT stories should be.
tldr; LGBT Authors write LGBT stories and are being told by Episode that their stories don’t fit the genre because the story doesn’t make their identity a significant part of the story. The issue in that is that is a very limited idea of what being LGBT because being LGBT is just a part of us and not all we are. Also, Episode continues to allow stories that don’t follow their guideline on what is acceptable in the LGBT genre continue to stay in the genre.
Anyways, feel free to share your thoughts on this.
I hope they can be convinced that if those other stories can be on the genre then so can yours. I mean episode can’t even change pronouns or dialogue, I don’t think they have a say in this.
It’s a shame that Episode is basically invalidating bi stories like this. Like, of course a bi MC would have LIs of both the same and opposite sex. Like I don’t know if they’re confused and can’t tell the difference between stories that are about bi MC with both male and female LIs versus the gender choice/swap type of stories that let you choose the male or female LI. Because there’s a clear difference.