When I first got into Criminal Minds spaces like the one here on tumblr I kinda just ran with the whole “Emily is a Lesbian” cuz I was only on season 5 and HELL YEAH SHE IS
But the further I watched the more I could see how Emily being a lesbian worked way too well. Her whole shtick with romance and relationships sounds very much like the lesbian experience:
Feeling uncomfortable with men thinking it’s just insecurities or anxiety,
Finding comfort in having a partner but never committing by using work as an excuse,
When she is with men she doesn’t open up even when they are aware of the stress/dangers of her job (meaning she has nothing to hide yet chooses to anyway)
Feeling like she will never find the “right one” and questioning whether that’s what she wants anymore
Avoiding gender-specific pronouns for the most part when having conversations about dating/partners/romance
And using what they already gave to her character, they could have very easily pushed her into scenarios that would build her story in the lesbian direction:
An obvious one lmaooo but have her kinda check out another female character unknowingly, but then have her be caught and she scrambles to try frame it like she was “simply appreciating her beautiful aesthetics” which ultimately begins her path into questioning herself (doesn’t matter how the person who caught her reacts)
Have someone purposefully use gender-neutral language when asking her about her love life and it’s obvious enough that she continues to think about things and whether others are picking up a vibe from her, or are somehow assuming something XD
SEND HER TO (queer-friendly) THERAPY PLEASE THAT WOMAN HAS BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH
Have one of the cases involve a lesbian or sapphic couple (and I DO NOT mean kill them) so she gets to see a happy(ish), healthy and committed relationship between women (this can be one of the turning points in her thinking when she realises that looks like exactly what she wants)
Her and JJ actually talk a lot about private stuff, JJ could be one of the first to outwardly suggest she’s not straight
Have her story take it’s time. Let her anxiety over it come and go, maybe for an episode or two it takes centre spotlight (in a healthy well-informed light), but ultimately it’s a slow burn (but not queer bait)
Anyway this is all for naught lmao nothing can change but it’s an interesting idea for anyone writing canon-divergent fics!!! I will say one of the biggest problems is when this show was written. A lot of people were still very ignorant of LGBTQIA+ stuff (just look at how bisexuality and transgender people were treated and talked about in plenty of episodes) and even if they did magically decide they would make her a lesbian, I can’t see it having been done very well at all (she would probably be written as the mean lesbian stereotype which is only hot when not written by men but by sapphic women instead).