Over the last few months, a couple overlapping scandals rocked the queer romance world. I’m not going to rehash those, except to say I am really sorry for everyone who got hurt, but am happy the truth ultimately came out.

One of the recurring themes in the scandals and in our community is the dominance of M/M romance, and the preponderance of cis gay white men in our stories.

I have written my share of those characters, and will continue to do so – I am one, after all. But I’ve have learned over my writing career, such as it is, that there are so many other colors in the queer rainbow that I can paint with as a writer.

In the last few years, I have written trans characters, bi characters, black characters, lesbian characters, a character with OCD, and in my latest work, a deaf character and an enby (non-binary) one.

And I am not alone. I have seen many other writers stand up and write their #ownvoices – my brave trans, gender fluid and enby friends among the forefront of them all – and many of my other writer friends stretch themselves to write other parts of the queer rainbow (and the human one) beyond their own.

It matters. As more voices are heard, the paradigm gradually shifts, and the world changes.

There will always be m/m stories, and beautiful cis white gay men in many of them. But there’s plenty of room in our books for lots of other characters too, as well as in my own writing and in our wonderfully diverse community.

Bring them on.

Scott was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.

He decided that if there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality.

Find his work at https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com