Can’t wait for all the stories with one underdeveloped female LI to be put in the LGBTQ+ genre 
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Yeah, I get that. It’s probably not as useful a genre on an app as it is in actual literature. I think it’s like how Love Simon was genre classified as an LGBT movie instead of a romance because the story focuses primarily on Simon’s identity and coming out with romance/comedy/drama being used to develop said point.
Get me out of here. 
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Amazing news, finally!
@Melani3 you mentioned that they will appear as subgenres by now, do you think it’s possible to think about other subgenres under romance genre in the future? Since the romance is the most broad category on the app, it would be so nice to see the subgenres one day!
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Female MC with 4 male LIs and 1 female LI who gets one scene every 9 chapters
“Guys, my story is soooooo gay, I can’t even.”
Yeah, this just looks like another way for infiltration of LGBT+ spaces with their lack of knowledge and care for actual LGBT+ rep.
Now to wait for everyone to force in an “LGBT+” route in an attempt to get more visibility.
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Now that I think about it… You’re right. Having LGBT+ as a genre is like… Uh… Crayons being the only source of art to color with (?) Uh, you get the simile. Anyway!
There were many other genres to make official in Episode! This is just as bad as the gay best friend in stories. But I’m glad that we have Sci-Fi now!
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"As a reminder, please do not move your story to a genre it does not fit into "
People will most definitely do this. The baiting was already bad as it was.
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Finally a sci-fi genre
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It appears as a subgenre of of Romance, even if it’s not a romance story, but it seems like an easy way to trend and switch between the core genre and subgenre? I don’t know. I don’t think this actually helps even out the playing field between LGBTQ character stories and non LGBTQ character stories because the expectation will be for all LGBTQ stories to go there, I think, and I’m not sure how they’re actually going to monitor if content in the subgenre is appropriately LGBTQ
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I like do like the idea of having an accessible way for readers to find LGBTQ+ stories on Episode. However…
@Melani3 What about aromantic characters/narratives? I don’t know if romance is the best place for this…
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Thisss!
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Why do you guys keep complaining, if you don’t think LGBT is a genre just don’t post your story there. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t understand how LGBT is a genre (it could be a tag or a shelf), but let’s not focus on the bad things and finally be happy they recognised the sci-fi community. Hopefully there will be more sci-fi assets released and more stories written.
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It’s a bit misleading to say it’s a subgenre of romance but putting it there doesn’t mean the stories “necessarily have to focus on romance.” Even aside from aromantic stories, there’s also the whole…a story can be about a trans character and not have much to do with romance either. Not surprising that Episode has forgotten trans people even exist though 
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I think the issue people are having is that Episode doesn’t listen to queer people and instead puts out performative features without consulting the community. Features that people obviously aren’t happy with lol.
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You’re right, I don’t have memory of people requesting specifically a genre for queer stories. But they for sure asked for more representation and they gave it to them.
I have SO many problems with the fact LGBTQ+ is a subgenre of romance and this is a clear indication that no one who green lit this even knows anything beyond the + part of the LGBTQ+.
Does anyone know what aromantic is? A person who experiences little to no romantic attraction. We are a part of the A in the acronym of LGBTQIA+. So it makes NO sense whatsoever that it would be a subgenre to the very thing we aromantics DO NOT experience.
I don’t even step foot in the romance genre as it is. Just imagine the hell it would be to any romance repulsed aromantics to have to scroll through a million stories depicting the very toxic amatonormativity that makes us feel like shit in the first place.
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Lol, episode is giving us everything except assets for Black authors, jajajaja. I personally think you should have just made LGBTQIA+ a separate genre as opposed to a sub genre. I can see it now- all of these authors who half-ass LGBTQ+ characters as it is will just use this genre as a way of being number one instead of accurately representing the community.
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Okay you all have a great point now that I’m thinking about it. It’s also hard to decide what fits in the LGBT genre? Like my story is a thriller a wlw romance between an assassin and a serial killer. I think that fits but I don’t know if stories with a cishet female MC and like gender choice options would fit, especially if it’s those type of stories where its literally copy and paste and ctrl-f replace pronouns.
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Just because it’s representation doesn’t mean it’s good. I’m not going to give Episode a pat on the back for the minimum like they continuously give themselves.
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Yes. As an SF author myself, I can see pairing SF with Fantasy, as SFF literature is often shelved together, even though they are marketed as separate genres. The same way I can understand why there are Thriller/Horror and Action/Adventure sections. But since LGBTQ+ is not a genre but a content-descriptor, it doesn’t fit as neatly paired with any other genre. I don’t know much about programming apps so I don’t have a neat solution for how to better help readers find LGBTQ+ stories on episode, however.
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