Your mystery question is here :)
🏳️🌈LGBT Pride: Are any of your characters LGBTQ+? What are their identities? How did they realize they were queer?
🏳️⚧️Trans Pride: How is the idea of gender/queer identities treated in your world? What was your character's experience like?
🌈Rainbow: Has your character ever been to a Pride event? What was it like for them? If they’ve never been, what would it be like?
🏳️🌈 I'll stick with the protagonists of my two biggest WIPs or else this will become unreasonably lengthy XD I have a lot of queer ocs!
Evarin: bisexual trans woman. Began her transition as a teenager, got breast implants at 30, and she keeps her facial hair trimmed to just have sideburns (eventually adds a goatee) kind of a gender nonconforming transition. This is somewhat due to her being part orc (mostly gnome, with an orc grandma) as some of her orcish traits like tusks and thicker facial hair are viewed as masculine traits among gnomes.
Mori: hard to label, but definitely genderqueer and not straight. He didn't really have a moment of clarity about his sexuality, he just likes who he likes (and mostly that's just his wife Evarin) half the year he's functionally asexual because it's not his courting season. But romance is always available. His gender was "default male" until his 30s when he finally embraced the other side of his heritage (he is half elf and half bird person) and adopted the quetzalin genderless pronouns xe/xir with the courting season dancer prefix la-. So I guess his gender is "dancer", but only during his sexy season.
K'arik: aroace. He figured this out while betrothed to a lesbian. K'arik is an orc prince, and his betrothed was a dwarven woman. Neither of them is the main heir of their families, so the inability to bear children was an acceptable part of the betrothal for the sake of their interspecies alliance. However, when they both began to approach adulthood, they each realized they were experiencing very very different things wirh attraction and they didn't want to marry each other even as platonic companions for the sake of politics. It took until their mid 20s to get things sorted out, so now K'arik has taken to celibacy to make his permanent single status more official and his ex-fiancee is betrothed to his female cousin instead. K'arik is platonically bonded to Mori, and wears his feathers as a sign of their bond. In their world, the closest term they have for this queerplatonic relationship is a "hunter's bond", which originates with the stroi (a cousin of the elves).
Kouto: elf, nonbinary and bisexual. He figured out his sexuality pretty early, probably in his tween years. His gender remained "default male" until his early 20s, when he kinda entered this setting's equivalent to the bdsm community. Some time after that he became a sex worker at a varlet lounge. These are basically brothels, run and primarily staffed by varlet drow, the males who wander instead of settling in with a matriarch like the chamberlain males do. Varlet drow are the fathers of the queer community amongst elves, drow, and stroi. They're also the founders of many workers guilds. Varlet lounge employees pick stage names and use the varlet drow pronouns regardless of their actual species or public identity, for worker safety and anonymity. The pronouns are ji/jir. Kouto's varlet name is Doodle.
Talib: elf, asexual demiromantic. He figured out his asexuality in his mid teens but he was under the impression that he was also aromantic until his 30s. He just falls in love so slowly he doesn't really notice it until the person he's in love with is suddenly unavailable and he feels heartbroken over it. So it took a long time for him to recognize that feeling as romantic and not just platonic grief. He didn't find a romantic partner he could actually be with until he was nearly 50, when he befriended Kouto, felt that romantic grief when Kouto left for a time under concerning circumstances, and then Kouto came back safe and sound. So they got together after that. It's a little scandalous, because Talib was like almost twice Kouto's age and very very close to turning 50, which is the age elves are expected to settle into adulthood proper and leave their frivolous youth behind. Kouto was still in the midst of that youthful period. Human equivalent would be like. Someone in their late 30s with a partner in their mid 20s. Not illegal, not inherently creepy, but it does make people squint. Kinda hilarious though, because Kouto absolutely has more sexual experience than Talib and that does balance things out a bit.
Melachi: dwarf, bisexual. Melachi has known she was bi since she was 15 and had a massive crush on two people at the same time. She's also explored her gender quite a bit and had some phases trying out pronouns and different presentations until landing on cis woman with a butch flair. And she still finds herself having more than one crush at a time. Lucky her, it all worked out her way in the end. After Talib and Kouto got over their honeymoon phase and settled their relationship dynamic and sexual boundaries, Melachi became their mutual friend with benefits, and eventually she married them both too. Maybe took longer than she wanted, but life was a bit hectic and they all had stuff going on, so it is what it is. Since Talib is asexual, Melachi and Kouto usually do the more physical sexal interaction while Talib sits back and tosses out witty banter or heckles them. But sometimes Talib and Melachi want to make out while Kouto is tied up. They switch it around a lot. Melachi is like right between her husbands in terms of age.
🏳️⚧️ gender differs by species. Some don't have gender in their cultures at all even if their biology has clear sexes. Some have biology that simply doesn't have such clear sexes, like the goblins. Drow and quetzalin both prioritize social roles over more standard genders. Elves consider gender exploration to be a normal part of their young adult years. Gnomes are more strict about the gender binary, but there is a whole subculture of genderqueer and intersex gnomes who practice religion differently to celebrate their genders. While they still follow the more binary Sun and Mountain deities, they also venerate the genderless water spirits and describe their gender experiences in connection with water, like with metaphors about rocks being polished in the river's current.
🌈 they don't have pride events the way we might recognize them. But varlet drow have their own cultural holidays, open to anyone that's part of their community regardless of species. Kouto attends every celebration. The genderqueer gnomes host regular religious services that Evarin sometimes attends, though she often prefers the privacy of her home altar. The quetzalin have a massive celebration for the entire courting season: big aerial arenas for dancing, preening parties, swinger's clubs, etc. It's not exactly queer pride, but it is a time when everyone is out and proud about who they are and who they love. So it counts.
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