User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-44988386-20200416234118/@comment-45692830-20200510040807

I'm against subcategories. For two main reasons. One is that it's difficult to pin down people within a subcategory using only valid sources. If we see that Bill Potts is into women on screen, this could classify her as either bisexual or a lesbian. We really need out of universe information to decide. (Even the in universe comment she made isn't definitive, as I know of one prominent League of Legends personality who identifies as bi but would often say he's gay just to save time because he's into men 90% of the time. Sexuality is complicated, so to attempt to force things into stricter categories outside of "non-heterosexual" and "non-cisgender" I think is misguided.)

The second is that it leads to "category bloat" and other issues with categorization. Consider Captain Jack. He's "omnisexual", yes? By definition that would make him pansexual and bisexual as well. And I agree that Ianto as "non-heterosexual" works fine. But Ianto as a more specific categorization? Far less clear. If we add in more specific categories, it will encourage people who don't understand this nuance to go in and add Ianto to a more specific categorization anyhow. Or make other changes where the lines are blurry, erasing that complexity that exists. "Heterosexual" vs "non-heterosexual" is probably workable. In fact, I think it's important as far as representation goes (though I long for the day when it's not). Anything more than that is forcing black and white out of grey.