On Token Straight Characters
This is in response to a lot of things I’ve been seeing lately about writing/imagining Ron and/or Hermione as token straights. Most recently this was spurred by this ask, which I didn’t want to hijack, but it isn’t really directed at that post, more of a general thought.
I don’t mean at all to be criticizing people who see Ron and Hermione differently--I think I’m writing Ron as bi or ace in more than half of my current WIPs, because it works better for the particular story, and I’m working on the seeds of a nice long Hermione x Luna fic, too, because there just aren’t enough good Hermione ships. I just want to provide an alternative perspective on what the token straights can mean in a story.
In my main timeline (so, unless I have a particular objective in mind) I tend to write Ron and Hermione as my token straights... largely because I love the idea that a straight man can be like Ron, and that a straight woman can be like Hermione, without being punished by narrative or society for being their authentic selves.
I hate it when the token straights in a piece are homophobic, uncaring, and perform the very worst of normative heterosexuality.
I want to see couple like Ron and Hermione, with a warm, caring man and a driven, talented, career-oriented woman, as the token straight couple. I want to see that played straight (no pun intended), rather than making them a joke. I want to see someone unconcerned with performative femininity as my token straight woman, and see her allowed to be human and loving and loved rather than a shrew to be tamed. I want to see a gentle, supportive caregiver as my token straight man and see him neither absurdly valorized for his role in his family, nor ridiculed as weak and made to learn to “man up” in order to earn happiness.
I particularly like Ron as my token straight man because he defines the rigid gatekeeping on male heterosexuality, defies the idea that to be a “straight man” means to want to bone all women, all the time, and never ever want to touch another man except in violence. I like that Ron and Harry don’t have any no-homo moments, when they have to be five feet apart to prove that their love for each other doesn’t get them shut out of the straight-dudes club. I like a Ron whose heterosexuality isn’t threatened by friendly teasing about his possible crush on Krum, who doesn’t freak out in threatened masculinity when the tabloids decide to switch it up and say he’s the one having an affair with Harry, rather than Hermione. He can identify as straight because the set of people he’s experienced serious, long-term attraction to contains only women, and roll with that identity.
Similarly, I love Hermione as my token straight woman because almost nothing in her narrative (barring the temper tantrum in HBP) revolves around her need to “get a man.” It’s abundantly clear that what she wants most from both Ron and Harry is friendship, with the romantic entanglement with Ron being secondary. I love Hermione as my token straight woman because I feel very strongly that she got to “have it all.” She didn’t have to give up herself, her career, or her ambitions in order to marry and have children. And, because she found herself a husband who actually complements her, she also didn’t have to be the super-woman in order to do it, doing the job of a stay-at-home wife and also of a high-powered government official. Hermione (in my headcanon at least) lives the straight woman’s dream of a husband who does the bulk of the mental as well as physical labor of keeping the house and the children, leaving her free to actualize herself in a way that’s normally reserved for men and women not married to men.
I also want token straights in my story who love and support their LGBTQ+ friends, and leverage their privilege to back that support up. I want Hermione bringing her political clout to bear to advocate for Dean and Seamus to be able to marry, or for Lavender to be listed as the second parent on her and Parvati’s child’s birth certificate, even though Hermione’s own rights are never in question. I want Ron to offer to punch the next person who makes an offensive comment about Harry right in the face (because as much as Ron is sweet and gentle to his friends, that boy is always down to punch bigots). I want token straights who don’t play the role of the token homophobe, but instead, behave like strong and effective allies.
I write Ron and Hermione as my token straights because i want to see more straight couples that look like Ron and Hermione, and fewer straight couples that look like Vernon and Petunia, or even Arthur and Molly (who are a little too inclined to perform “hen-pecked husband and terrifying dragon-lady” for my taste). I write Ron and Hermione as my token straights because the straight people in a story don’t actually have to be the problem.
