The thing about LGBTQ+ characters and their increased presence (and to an extent, this goes for other types of diversity), is that it’s a little bit like this:
Imagine that there was a repressive government that decided that the colour blue was Bad, and thus had it banished.
Governments further down the road continued this habit of banning blue. Nobody could wear it or make things of that colour. Blue things found in nature should preferably not be mentioned, and if mentioned, derided and condemned.
Eventually, the ban was lifted, but the prevalent attitude was still that blue was a degenerate and bad colour that should be avoided. Only with ardent pro-blue lobbying did this attitude start to shift.
Now, the art of this imagined country would reflect the ban. Blue would rarely if ever be found in clothes or other artificial items. Paintings would show overcast skies, or sunsets, but not blue skies - and in the rare case where a blue sky was shown, the rest of the painting would show crops withering away, people dying of thirst in the desert, or other examples of why blue skies are bad.
After the ban was lifted, some pro-blue people would start to put blue into art, often in the face of protests. Further along the road, you’d get more blue. People would claim that prejudice was over, that blue was fine now.
Except. You’d still get arguments like:
“Why does that dress have to be blue? I have nothing against blue, but why wear it where everyone can see?”
“There shouldn’t be blue in this painting, it’s for children!”
“You can’t have a blue sky in a story set in 1840, that’s not historically accurate!”
“This painting has a blue sky, and yet people look happy. That’s not realistic! Everyone knows that blue skies mean crop failure and dying of thirst!”
“I have nothing against blue when it serves a function, but why make a tea towel blue? That’s just forced diversity!”
Pro-blue activists would point out that hey, this painting has really short shadows that suggest middle of the day, yet the sky has a sunset. Why not just have a blue sky? The artist would get huffy and finally paint the tiniest of blue flowers in the corner. “FINE, there is BLUE now, are you HAPPY!?” And then there would be protests from anti-blue advocates that the painting was ruined.
Also an endless number of “This painting ends at the treetops, but above all that, there’s a blue sky, promise!”
All these people would claim to have nothing against blue. Yet their frame of reference for how much blue there should be in art, would be based on generations of censorship and criminalization. Any number of blue things above zero would seem like a lot of blue to them.
But outside, unpainted, the world would be full of blue.
