LGBTQ themes in speculative fiction
Before the 1960s, explicit sexuality of any kind was rare in speculative fiction, as the editors who controlled what was published attempted to protect their perceived key market of adolescent male readers.
New wave and feminist science fiction authors realised cultures in which homosexuality, bisexuality and a variety of gender models were the norm, and in which sympathetic depictions of alternative sexuality were commonplace.
Specialist gay publishing presses and a number of awards recognising LGBT achievements in the genre emerged, and by the twenty-first century, blatant homophobia was no longer considered acceptable by most readers of speculative fiction.
[4] On the other hand, science fiction and fantasy can also provide more freedom than realistic literature to imagine alternatives to the default assumptions of heterosexuality and masculinity that permeate many cultures.
[15] Nicola Griffith has written that LGBT readers tend to identify strongly with the outsider status of mutants, aliens, and characters who lead hidden or double lives in science fiction.
[23] In other fantastical works, sex itself, of any type, was equated with base desires or "beastliness", as in Gulliver's Travels, which contrasts the animalistic and overtly sexual Yahoos with the reserved and intelligent Houyhnhnms.
[3] As the demographics of the readership broadened, it became possible to include characters who were more or less undisguised homosexuals, but these, in accordance with the attitudes of the times, tended to be villains: evil, demented, or effeminate stereotypes.
[23] One of the earliest examples of genre science fiction that involves a challenging amount of unconventional sexual activity is the early novel Odd John (1935), by Olaf Stapledon.
[30] As the readership for science fiction and fantasy began to age in the 1950s, however, writers like Philip Jose Farmer and Theodore Sturgeon were able to introduce more explicit sexuality into their work.
[33][34] Sturgeon would later write Affair with a Green Monkey, which examined social stereotyping of homosexuals, and in 1960 published Venus Plus X, in which a single-gender society is depicted and the protagonist's homophobia portrayed unfavourably.
"[43] Le Guin often explores alternative sexuality in her works,[44] and has subsequently written many stories that examine the possibilities SF allows for non-traditional homosexuality,[45] such as the bisexual bonding between clones in "Nine Lives".
Homophobia is shown to initially inhibit uptake of this technology, as in his story "Options", as it engenders drastic changes in relationships, with bisexuality eventually becoming the norm for society.
[51] Once again, sexual activity is not the focus of the novel although there are some of the first explicitly described scenes of gay sex in SF and Delany depicts characters with a wide variety of motivations and behaviours.
[53] Delany's SF series Return to Neveryon was the first novel from a major US publisher to deal with the impact of AIDS,[54] and he later won the William Whitehead Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in gay and lesbian writing.
For example, in his 1965 novel, The Final Programme, most of the leading characters, including the central 'hero' Jerry Cornelius, engage in same sex relationships on multiple occasions and same sex relationships are depicted as entirely normal and without any moralising, negative consequences or gratuitous titillation, this is the case in the whole Jerry Cornelius series and in Moorcock's fiction generally (particularly in the Dancers at the End of Time series) sexuality is seen as polymorphic and fluid rather than based in fixed identities and gender roles.
[64] Uranian Worlds, by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, was compiled in 1983 and is an authoritative guide to science fiction literature featuring gay, lesbian, transgender, and related themes.
[74][75] Melissa Scott, a lesbian writer, has written several cyberpunk works that prominently feature LGBT characters, including Lambda-award-winning Trouble and Her Friends (1994) and Shadow Man (1995), the latter having also been inducted into the Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame.
[86] Elizabeth Bear's Carnival (2006) revisits the trope of the single-gender world, as a pair of gay male ambassador-spies attempt to infiltrate and subvert the predominately lesbian civilization of New Amazonia, whose matriarchal rulers have all but enslaved their men.
[100] More recently in Rick Riordan's 2013 teen fantasy novel The House of Hades, character Nico di Angelo professes romantic feelings for protagonist Percy Jackson.
The CCA came into being in response to Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, in which comic book creators were accused of attempting to negatively influence children with images of violence and sexuality, including subliminal homosexuality.
[121] Writer Roy Thomas penned thought balloons that suggested Firebrand had been involved in a gay relationship with his sidekick and bodyguard Slugger Dunn,[121] although these hints never moved beyond subtext.
[128] Psychologist Fredric Wertham, who in Seduction of the Innocent asserted that "Batman stories are psychologically homosexual", claimed to find a "subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventures of the mature 'Batman' and his young friend 'Robin'".
[134][135][136] As with much manga and anime, SF and fantasy tropes and environments are common: For example, Ai no Kusabi, a 1980s yaoi light novel series described as a "magnum opus" of the Boys Love genre,[137] involves a science fictional caste system.
"[168] Babylon 5 continued to explore the state of same-sex relationships in the future with the introduction of a male-male marriage and subsequent honeymoon as cover for two of the main characters who were on a covert mission to a Mars colony in season 4.
They also point out that Gene Roddenberry had made statements in later life favourable to acceptance of homosexuality and the portrayal of same-sex relationships in Star Trek, but that the franchise's coverage has remained meagre.
In a 2000 Fandom interview, Star Trek screenwriter Ronald D. Moore suggested that the reason why no gay characters existed in the television franchise was because someone wanted it that way, and no amount of support from fans, cast or crew was going to make any difference.
[187][188] Wray's storyline featured a committed long-term relationship with her Earth-bound partner Sharon (played by Reiko Aylesworth), the lifelike portrayal of which was very positively received by the lesbian community and press.
The series later introduced a character named Steve Jinks, played by actor Aaron Ashmore, a gay government agent assigned to assist in the containment of bizarre artifacts.
That same year the FX cable series American Horror Story highlighted gay ghost couple Chad Warwick and Patrick, played by Zachary Quinto and Teddy Sears.
At least as early as the 1980 Worldcon (Noreascon Two), there were gatherings of gay and gay-friendly members of the SF community, including Samuel R. Delany, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Melissa Scott.
