I think people might find it useful to understand the different types of diversity in media to better understand the purpose of the piece.
Note: I use the phrases "not treated as different" and "treated equally" and when I say that, I don't mean "portrayed as not", I mean they aren't interacted with differently or hold to a different standard, nor seen as not normal, so for example when I say "not treated differently than an abled person" I mean it as "they are not treated to a higher or lower standard than an abled person nor as something that should be treated as something atypical and just be accepted how they are, nor have to be treated as a stereotype and exempted from certain character traits" and NOT "there disability doesn't disable them" in simple terms it is "Anyone can be an asshole, anyone can be a good person, your race, religion, weight, mental illness, disability, culture, political leaning, nationality, romantic orientation, sexuality, gender identity, sex, and intelligence, doesn't exempt you from altruism nor malice, nor does it inherently mean you have altruism or malice, these do not inherently define your character nor your morality."
Representational Diversity:
The purpose of this is to represent a group of people, give insight and help you understand a certain group of people, this is relatively educational and a major focus. Often by an author who falls into this category of people but not always.
Examples: a story about the Trans experience, a story about someone's struggles as a disabled person, a character who gives insight to how Black people were treated in the 1920s, a love letter to a specific culture.
this is not supposed to represent a group of people, the person just so happens to be [insert thing here], they are treated as a normal real world person and nothing outwardly special or different, the purpose of their inclusion is because it A.) makes sense to have someone of this background present in that setting or B.) for character design. them being X doesn't really define them, it can influence them but it isn't their whole purpose, focus nor are they supposed to fit a traditional or general norm of someone of that background because the norm isn't a rule. this can't always apply to every minority however, as sometimes it is a rule, for example a mental ill character must show certain symptoms due to it being a diagnosis, while how they show it can be different than the norm or be an atypical case, they still need to follow the criteria to get that diagnosis.
Examples: characters of different races in a racially diverse country, an overweight character whose weight isn't brought up often, a Jewish character whose religious background isn't a major theme, a queer individual who isn't treated differently than a cishet person (ie: not treated stereotypically, made into their entire personality, nor treated as a novelty), an Asian character who is Asian because they like writing and drawing Asian characters, a wheelchair user whose disability isn't major focus and isn't exempt from certain portrayals due to being a minority, an outlier, a trait that is there for character rounding and depth but not their main character trait.
Corporate/superficial diversity
this type of diversity is just to look good for a brand's image, this is different than practical diversity which makes sense for the setting or blind casting. this type of diversity is shallow and doesn't have any real meaningful or practical reason for it, it often doesn't make sense for the setting and treats it more like a novelty, something weird, something to gloat about, stereotypically, or nonsensically.
Examples include: a gay character whose entire personality is being gay and holds no greater significance to the story than just being gay, a Black character in a Nordic country before the presence of things like vitamin supplements (people with darker skin tones have issues living in places with less sunlight due to the melanin not absorbing as much vitamin D as someone with fairer skin), a latine individual present in Europe before the discovery of the new world.
Blind, non-traditional, and integrated casting.
this diversity is from the practice of casting actors without considering their race or ethnicity, with the goal being to prioritize the actor's talent and suitability for the role, rather than their physical characteristics. This diversity is a side effect and (often) not a narrative goal, this is different from accidental diversity as the inclusion was intentional, but not the same as practical diversity as it doesn't necessarily take the setting into account, and it isn't cooperate diversity as it was based off the performer's merit and not what looks good for the studios public image.
this is when a character who isn't intended to be [insert thing here] canonically but ends up meeting the requirements to be [insert thing here], this is usually seen with physical disabilities or general mental health disorders. It was never the author's intent for the character be read as such, and it was done unknowingly as either the author was unaware that those traits are symptoms of a mental illness, that the character can be seen as disabled in that fictional setting or didn't consciously consider it an disability in the first place. This can also be seen in accidental transcoding, where the story can be read as an allegory for the trans experience but wasn't intended to be as such. This can also count for gender ambiguous characters who were made gender ambiguous to either make the player connect with them better or just weren't sure what gender they wanted the character to be. This can also apply to queer identities outside of allegories, most commonly characters who were intended to just be not a romantic sort nor interested in romantic and/or sexual intimacy falling into the categories of A-spec and/or Aro-spec without the author intending them to be coded this way.
Examples: Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang theory and Tina from Bob's Burgers being read as Autistic, Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog being read as ADHD or Aro-Ace, Elina from Barbie: Fairytopia qualifying disabled due to being a fairy without wings, Ariel from the Little Mermaid can be read as a trans allegory despite not being the intended purpose, a blank-slate main character who is referred to as they/them because the gender of the character isn't important to the story and not because identify as non-binary.
This is when a character who has no evidence of being something is said to be that, this can spill over to cooperate diversity. These are also seen sometimes in head-canons, while not always troublesome and can harmless, they can be when it is misrepresentation, like making an Asian character Black or an aro-ace individual gay. this is completely different from a character who happens to show traits of something and it not being the author's intent, for example, L. from Death Note is not intended to be on the Autism spectrum but does show symptoms of Autism spectrum disorder thus NOT making it forced diversity to think of him as Autistic as he does fit the criteria.
Examples include: A character who can talk being portrayed as mute, a character who is aro being portrayed as gay due to not being attracted to the opposite sex, blackwashing/whitewashing, a straight character being portrayed as gay.
This one can have overlap with corporate and practical diversity. This type of diversity isn't inherently because they are trying to make it diverse to look good nor because it makes sense for the setting, but more that it is required for the material not because they want to add it but because it won't be statistically possible. This is usually expressed with characters in minor roles or background characters, but it can be seen in a main cast. This often seen in settings where it won't make any logical sense to not see anyone of a certain category as there is either a massive repertoire of characters or a very large intricate world, meaning while in a small village it is statistically plausible to not have any disabled or queer people, it won't be statistically plausible to have a complete lack of disabled or queer people worldwide or in a high populace setting, while maybe certain fantasy settings can get away with it, it is still very unlikely to never have any outliers.
Examples: an open world game covering large land masses and different countries resulting in logically many characters with different backgrounds, personalities, and beliefs that will realistically contain characters of different political backgrounds, races, romantic orientations, sexualities, and gender identities, a very crowd of individuals with some being in same sex relationships, a character using ASL in the background of a scene, a person in a wheelchair in a grocery store, various races of background characters in racial diverse setting, the presence of various accents and various languages
These are all that I can think of off the top of my head but if anyone can think of more that I missed or something, feel free to add on to it.
