In entertainment and media, it's no secret that the number of heterosexual characters far outweighs characters that have been canonically written as queer. When a queer person sees a character they like in media, they will often "headcanon" that that character is queer. But what if you disagree? What if you, a heterosexual person, think the character is straight? Should you voice your disagreement?
In short, no.
Let's look at some statistics. According to a recent study, lesbian, gay and bisexual characters in prime time television ranked 4% of the total characters. The study reports, "There are no transgender characters counted on prime time broadcast programming, while only three recurring trans characters were counted on cable (2%). Streaming series boast the highest percentage of trans characters at 7% (4) with two notably being series leads."
But what does this mean?
It means options are limited; if a queer person likes a particular character in media, statistics overwhelmingly show that the character is, most likely, not queer.
The Critical Media Project is a group that examines the role that media plays in society, particularly in the lives of our youth. Their topic background discussion states, "The historical prevalence of homophobia and heterosexist norms has informed the way we see and understand LGBTQ individuals in a simplistic binary in relation to their straight counterparts. The binary positions 'straight' as normal and right, while relegating LGBTQ to abnormal and wrong."
But how does this affect you, right? What does this have to do with you saying, "No, I think that character is straight," to a queer person with queer headcanons?
When you tell someone that you don't think a character could be LGBT+, what you're basically saying is that it would be abnormal for that character to NOT be straight. While this might not seem terribly harmful, it lets the person you're talking with know that you have a problem with a character being queer, and that you, by extension, have a problem with queerness in general.
So the next time a friend says something like, "I think Dean from Supernatural is bisexual," don't respond with, "Nah, I doubt it."
If you have doubts, that's fine!
But keep them to yourself because you could be hurting your friends.
