Reminds me of a twitter thread I just read that confused me no end because the person seemed to be saying that if you're not [specific marginalised group X] yourself you have no business writing a protagonist who is, even with sensitivity readers, because you're "taking away space" from the people who *are* X. In followups they seem to be painting themself more and more into a corner, saying in effect that anyone is only ever entitled to write a [group they belong to] protagonist. It makes me despair because I don't *have* stories about a middle-aged white neurodivergent demisexual biromantic woman, or at least not more than one! Senthi comes close, but I think she's straight, and possibly neurotypical, and anyway she starts out 11 years old; two more of my protagonists are young men, one is a white neurotypical ace woman of indeterminate age (twentyish going on fifty), the one I'm dealing with now is a straight young mixed-race woman.
If I wasn't completely stuck already this would get me stuck, because, goodness, am I *allowed* to write anything *at all*?
Reminds me of a twitter
Reminds me of a twitter thread I just read that confused me no end because the person seemed to be saying that if you're not [specific marginalised group X] yourself you have no business writing a protagonist who is, even with sensitivity readers, because you're "taking away space" from the people who *are* X. In followups they seem to be painting themself more and more into a corner, saying in effect that anyone is only ever entitled to write a [group they belong to] protagonist. It makes me despair because I don't *have* stories about a middle-aged white neurodivergent demisexual biromantic woman, or at least not more than one! Senthi comes close, but I think she's straight, and possibly neurotypical, and anyway she starts out 11 years old; two more of my protagonists are young men, one is a white neurotypical ace woman of indeterminate age (twentyish going on fifty), the one I'm dealing with now is a straight young mixed-race woman.
If I wasn't completely stuck already this would get me stuck, because, goodness, am I *allowed* to write anything *at all*?