Judgemental views against people who create LGBT BJD characters, does it exist?

Unfortunately people will be judgmental of anything, my mother personally doesn't like any of my dolls that aren't heterosexual stereo-typed gender roles, but I find that most people in the BJD hobby are pretty accepting (or at the very least, tolerating) of LGBT dolls.

All of my dolls have different sexualities, out of the 14 I own only 2 of them are heterosexuals, and I've never had anyone give me grief about it. I think what most people in the hobby are concerned about is stereotyping and fetishizing of LGBT dolls, if someone has a doll that happens to be gay and posts pictures of them with their significant other, most people wouldn't be bothered by that. But if another person bought a doll specifically to be gay and posted pictures of them together saying, "Look at the cute yaoi boys! ", then yeah, people would be bothered by it.

As others have already said, it's best to do your research before deciding to have a doll of a different sexuality than yours just so you don't end-up stereotyping it or something, other than that I don't see a problem with owning LGBT dolls, the more the merrier

 

@ghostly0rigins she's not here yet but I'm working on an Artemis inspired doll who is definitely a wlw! And my Usagi is poly/pan so maybe I'll have to pair them up for some f/f loveliness

 

To be quite frank with you... I don't really care if people judge? I don't openly discuss my sexuality (I can be considered pretty darn queer myself, but I don't think this is such a crucial aspect that makes me "me" that I should really be bringing it up first thing, even more so if I'm going to use it as an "excuse" to portray queer characters).

I have characters that are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, the whole deal. Do I care what people think of their sexuality? No. Do I need to justify representation of queer individuals in my works? No. Do I need to call them queer or special because they're not hetero? Absolutely not.

I believe that the mere fact of "Having to point out x or y's sexuality" or otherwise circumstances is... a little cringey and falls under the unfortunate umbrella of stereotyping. Just let people be people. I think we need to finally begin stepping up and treating everyone the same. We need more unapologetic "real queer characters" and less "haha omfg he's gay so cute this is his soft boyfriend aw ". That's all we need.

If a character is trans... why does anyone need to know? They are trans, presenting as their gender of choice, shouldn't one refer to them and treat them as their gender of choice? Unless it's something that needs to be stated for a specific story specific or character arc specific reason, of course. But it is too often that we see character arcs based solely on "this character is trans/gay/prejudiced against/etcetera ad infinitum" to be to my taste. Why can't a trans (or pick label of choice) character be anything else?

To give you an opposite example; my character, Ray, is a man, who presents as a woman (wears his hair in a "typical" feminine fashion, dresses in very elegant feminine clothes, is generally very soft spoken and "not masculine" in his mannerisms.). He is a proper "lady" in everything except the way he identifies and the partners he chooses, and is still very much a cis gendered heterosexual man. So when I show him off I say "he is Ray". I don't go out of my way to point out he is not trans in any way. If someone is interested in why he looks the way he looks I'll explain. But only if they're genuinely interested to know about the character. I don't owe an explanation about why Ray is an individual otherwise.

Then I also have Rutile, who prefers neutral pronouns and as such, I'm not going to really discuss their actual sex, ever. I "know" what their sex is because of story reasons, but why make a point of it. It won't help anyone to know. They are "them" because they are.

I think we should really think about mindful representation rather than just representation at this point in time. Sorry if this is a little ranty, I just have been dealing with and thinking about this a lot due to my personal projects lately.

 

Hooo boy, a loaded and interesting topic indeed!

So like many of the others who've commented here, I definitely agree that there are a lot of LGBTQ+ dolls in this community (not just DoA, but across multiple platforms.) However, there's quite a large few of them who are fetishized, stereotyped and in some cases absolutely offensive to those who are actually in the LGBTQ+ community.

I try to get around it by following like-minded people; I research a person a little bit if I see a post of theirs I like before I decide to follow them on social media, for example. I try to get a feel for their types of characters and, if they have LGBTQ+ characters, why they have them. This has saved me a lot of grief in the long run by not accidentally following somebody who has morals or ideas that bother me. It's not my place to change their opinion if they aren't asking for it, and it's also not worth my time/mental state to stress myself out over people who are uninterested in education. I'll gladly talk with someone about LGBTQ+ issues if they ask and are genuinely open to it, but otherwise I try to just do my own thing with the hopes that perhaps I can educate unintentionally with examples?

Most of my dolls are queer of a sort. I am NOT one of those persons who likes to think of my dolls doing anything sexual--their characters yes, but I am so uncomfortable with any kind of "super sexy" photoshoots of the dolls together so whether they're asexual, or if I'm just not comfortable with portraying their sexuality is debatable--however they are queer romantic, and it was only just recently that I finally made my first gay cis male couple. A lot of my characters are female and varying forms of homo- or panromantic, and I have one (with intentions of getting more) who is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns and dresses in styles that vary all over the spectrum.

I've seen a lot of very questionable things though, like some of what has been mentioned above with "t*ap" characters, "sh*males", and perhaps most offensively of all, "futa" type characters or "d*ckgirls". Lesbian representation? Nearly non-existent. I can only think of a small handful of folks other than myself who have lesbian doll characters and/or couples. Accurate/non-stereotyped trans representation? Also nearly non-existent, again I can only think of a handful of folks I know of off the top of my head who own legit trans characters where their gender identity is not the sole focus/purpose of their character. Not dissing anybody here who has them that I am unaware of, again I'm just going off of the doll people I follow on like. Tumblr, Flickr, and Instagram.

I've read stories of LGBTQ+ folks being bullied or harassed at meetups with their dolls being purposefully misgendered even after the offensive party was politely corrected. I've received anger from well known collectors simply for commenting once that it's nice to see those who have varied crews of multiple genders rather than just all gay boys, which is fairly common. Or that one story I read on Tumblr once on someone who came to a doll meet, and when a non-offending stranger referred to a male doll dressed in an extremely femme outfit as female, the person proceeded to yank the doll's clothes off to show this horrified stranger their doll's p*nis with as they exclaimed that he was in fact a boy.

I find that LGBTQ+-phobic people tend to have quite a presence in this hobby, however their phobia is often internalized and mixed with fetishism, so most of the time they don't even realize they're sometimes being insensitive. So while it is rare that you'll get someone outright condemning you for being LGBTQ+ or having a character on the spectrum, it is entirely possible you'll eventually run into somebody who will look at your doll and instantly fetishize them for BEING somewhere on the spectrum.

Overall, people are allowed to like what they like and make whatever kinds of characters they want, and if you happen to have gay cis male couples there's nothing wrong with that. But like others, I just ask that you do your research and hopefully have them in public spaces (forums, social media, etc) for more reasons than just using them as cute gay boys.



I'd also like to take a moment to remind folks that if you're LGBTQ+ and you meet someone who makes you uncomfortable, remember you have the right to remove yourself from the situation. It isn't your responsibility to 'teach' every single person who comes your way. Your own comfort and mental/emotional health take priority, so don't feel bad if you ever experience some kind of LGBTQ+-phobia and didn't actively confront a person about it. That's not your job and you don't ever have to if you're not comfortable doing so.

 

For what it's worth, while lesbian character couples really are less common than their gay male counterparts in the hobby, they do exist. They're not quite in Mythical Unicorn territory...

Just from watching the evolution of the hobby over the years, it seems like the people who own those dolls simply don't tend to be quite as vocal or apt to draw attention to that particular aspect of the characters' lives as some of the guys' owners are. 'Not sure *why* that is exactly, but it's definitely a thing.

It's also a truth that some of us just don't make a huge production over ANY of our characters' details, including their sexuality, no matter which direction it happens to go. Unless you've seen one of my rare mentions of them (Like this one-), you'd probably never notice either the gay or lesbian couples in my own crew, much less the gender-fluid werewolf or the asexual Elemental life-partners. It's just not something that tends to come up on a regular or universal basis with everyone when we're talking about our dolls. That can definitely skew perceptions about what people are doing, how realistic their representations may be, or in what proportion.

 

I am not a member of LGBT. I am a straight cis girl, but there was a time, particularly when I hit puberty, when I started seriously questioning my sexual orientation and my gender identity. Particularly because of my fantasies which were very different from those my friends shared with me and it made me insecure.

My fantasies and stories rarely involved female characters and never myself. It were always stories revolving around male characters, and many of them eventually got romantically & intimately linked. Also I noticed I loved androgynous aesthetics and look on myself. I was confused about it. I need to note that it was 10+ years ago, before the smartphone era, when I had access to internet only in school.

When I was accidentally introduced to BJD community, I discovered I am not alone, and what I dream about and like is not unusual, more like the opposite. What then made me feel strange is very common today, also outside this community. But back then it was the BJD community that made me feel like there is nothing unusual on my feelings, and also nothing wrong about being LGBT. I noticed that a lot of people in BJD community, both straight & LGBT, do create a lot of LGBT characters, and are usually very open-minded. Being in the hobby helped me a lot, answering a lot of my questions.

 

I have a f/f relationship (though its polyamory so there are two males in there but it's different then the other faerie polyamory in the story in that most just do it for pleasure and have a free love outlook where those two genuinely want to be a couple and nobody really cares).
I don't do much with their story because the one is a really jerkish character (to most except her lady love).
There are the sexless alien Siv, though they look like boys and girls so assume that gender to exist in our world, they could easily switch if desired to.
But they are destroyers and only one of them actually seems interested in romantic love (and she being an alien doesn't really understand much of the difference between men and women beyond our base parts), the others seem more interested in platonic love -eg being in a family where someone loves them and they love those people.

 

With the amount of dolls I have their little world would feel weird and unrealistic to me if it would only have straight couples.

 

Echoing what others have said, I'm not cis and not straight and I worry about the fetishy aspects of people's dolls...like, do with your dolls what you want but I hope certain views I've seen expressed don't extend to real people....

 

All my dolls are characters, as i'm a roleplayer and can't help but create fleshed out characters no matter what i'm doing lol. Anyway, my philosophy has always been "people are people first and foremost" and tend to write sexuality as a sort of... afterthought, once i've fleshed out every other aspect of the character, then I consider whether their sexuality in their culture may have impacted their life or attitudes in any way. (For instance someone growing up in a very homophobic environment is going to be quite different than someone who grew up in a society that flat out doesn't care right?)

A lot of this stemmed from rping with teenaged girls who well, tended to write gay male characters in a rather flamboyant manner. Now i've nothing against flamboyant gayness, but in my experience, most lgbt people i've met aren't quite so uh... flaming. That particular stereotype is a bit less common than media or rp would have us believe, least in my personal experience. Also these people are still PEOPLE beyond their sexuality (with the exception of one guy I knew who seemed to believe his sexuality was his only defining characteristic, but I suspect he was a very sad individual lacking confidence to be his real self so clung to that to hide everything else. He was an odd guy)
But usually people are more than just their sexual orientation right? They have lives and ideals and opinions all their own. Least that's always been how I approach anything I write or create. "who is this person? How has their life experience shaped them beyond that?"

I generally just don't mention a character's sexuality unless it's relevant in a conversation or it comes up in play. I'll just say "his boyfriend" and if people go "wait what?" I'm all "what?" lol. It works for me, but of course, I never grew up gay, I grew up biromantic and demisexual, and thus passing as straight but being SOOOO bewildered by my female friend's crushes on people they'd never met omg. So my sexuality has just never been a huge issue. I didn't bother coming out to my parents till I was like 30 because it didn't matter! So it's waaaay easier being bi than it is to grow up gay i'm sure of it. But I still prefer not to make a big deal of it for my ocs, to be honest, it's not in their personal nature to make a big deal of it anyway.

Of course a lot of my characters end up bi/pan, but I think that's because I'm Bi/pan so it's familiar territory for me. But I do have a few who are gay (I tend to play male characters so with like 60+ male characters to like 3 female ones, odds are, i'm gonna have way more guys who aren't straight right? And no I don't know why I tend to play male, i've always been more comfortable playing a male role despite presenting comfortably as female. Maybe it's an extra layer of escapism? I don't really get it, but i've always just defaulted to the prince rather than the princess even as a child.) a few who are various flavours of ace (one sex repulsed, the others just not interested in that sort of relationship.), several pan, one who's poly and even a trans character who I genuinely couldn't explain to you WHY he's trans (as in, why i created him to be that way). He strolled on into my brain and told me this was a fact and I just shrugged and got on with it. (My characters tell me a lot of things just out of the blue, I have little control over them apparently).
Now that one DOES concern me because his views could be seen as a bit... transphobic. He himself grew up in an era where there wasn't so much acceptance so he's internalized a lot of it (also he has a whole host of other issues stemming from being immortal but yeah... he's a bit of a mess of a person) . But I worry because i'm not myself trans I might not be getting it "right", so I downplay it to avoid controversy if I want to play that character. One day I hope to find a few trans people to read over his character stuff and give me some honest feedback, but i'm kinda scared because to do so would be to tackle and work on my own potentially internalised issues that I haven't noticed I had you know? I mean, everyone, even the most liberal minded has some learned prejudices they don't even notice they have till they're pointed out, but that's a bit hard to swallow so I need to be in a nice strong frame of mind to handle what ultimately, will become a criticism of my own learned behaviors. (does that make any sense?)
I also have a character who is "they/them" pronouns, or more accurately "xyr/xe" and as yet nobody's actually questioned me on that, so that's good. Seems if you don't make much of a thing of something, people just don't ask.

Anyway,

As others have said, if you have characters, actual characters, rather than just shallow "awww cute gaybois!" or whatever then I can't see why anyone would complain, except homophobes and let's face it, nobody really wants to associate with those jerks anyway.

At the end of the day, your dolls or your ocs are yours and all that really matters is that you enjoy them. So long as you aren't actually HURTING someone, what's the problem?

I mean heck, I admit, sometimes I do it just to mock a stereotype. Having a super macho gay guy who likes football and beer and all those stereotypical straight man things, a really femme gay girl and so on. Ace vampires are a particular favourite of mine (I love me some asexual vampires okay? It peeves off my rp partners who wanted sweet sexy vampire love ahahahaha, i'm a jerk.) and aliens who have unusual or interesting views of sex and relationships because not every culture is gonna be like western humans dangit.
I love world building and part of that always includes something about relationships because it's an important part of a world and a culture. Now because I like variety, I like to explore all different sorts of ideas. it's fun and it's interesting and tbh, I think writing characters who don't share your views, your ideals or your life experiences is actually quite good for your empathy.
I believe that if you can get into the mindset of someone who isn't you, you're probably going to have a more successful life dealing with other people and be more inclined to want to help those who need help fighting against injustice and inequality right? So if anything, more straight people should try to rp lgbt characters! then maybe they wouldn't be such jerks about it!

Fetishisation exists and i'm fairly sure all of us at some point are guilty of something that could be considered fetishy, but at the end of the day, do what makes you happy and comfortable. If you want a gay doll or whatever, go for it. If people complain, don't take it personally, take in what they say and learn, grow as a person. After all, we all are products of our environment and we all therefore have internalized issues that we don't like to admit. The only way to unlearn those is if we acknowledge them.

but most of the time, unless you're being a real jerk about it, people don't seem to care what sexuality or gender identity your character or doll has, it's not their business.

 

I find the BJD community very accepting of LGBT. Funny enough, I sometimes feel judged for my own preferences: being a bisexual female, I love f+f, but dislike m+m. It doesn’t mean that I insult m+m couples or gay characters — I just avoid looking at them. Well, it’s not my cup of tea, nothing wrong with that, right? Sometimes I have to un-follow people who post a lot of stuff that I don’t like looking at. But then again, it’s my problem, not theirs.

 

I'm going to throw this in the ring, and then honestly probably never revisit this thread, just in case it goes down in flames.
Somewhere, some way, some one is going to be prejudiced. I've been trans and gay my whole life... and boy, is it a trip. Even LGB people hate me. In my experience, especially L&G. (no, I realize not every lesbian and gay person hates me! but it's a sad 'coincidence' I've noticed... Over the period of ten years)
So yeah, I definitely think that this prejudice against owners of lgbt dolls exists, (or lgbt owners) even at times in a 'friendly' space. I think this might be what you, OP, are worried about, and all I can say is that yes, there's going to be hate, but there are also going to be kind, generous people who want to hear what you have to say and share, and there might even be someone who needs it.

However, sometimes in other circumstances, I find that people thinking they are being insulted are not understanding of a different view. For instance, my writing partner, a non-trans person, had a trans character, and for all their good intention, they made them a gross, insulting stereotype. It happens. Good intentions don't fix these things. Now, all it takes to fix is the non-trans person listening to a trans person sharing their experience and explaining why that isn't such a good representation, but this isn't always what happens... Sometimes the non-trans person freaks out, going nuts over 'it's my character can't I have what I want?!'
And the answer to that is, 'No.' Not when it involves other groups of people the creators are not a part of, creators can't say or do whatever they want without critique, positive and negative, or without expecting some kind of reaction. One must be tolerate feedback when not in the group. I find it makes one a more tolerant, interesting, and compassionate person to make the attempt to understand if one is approached about a character like this instead of just give up, but to each their own.

Tl;dr: People hate the LGBT everywhere. Feels like there's no escape sometimes, honestly. So can there be prejudice in the hobby? Absolutely. But also there are a lot of kind people, too, and maybe someone who needs to hear from your viewpoint.
What happens more often from what I've seen and read? Straight/cis owners are given critique about lgbt characters from actual lgbt people and don't take it with grace. (same goes for characters of color)

This is simply the cleanest, cut to the bone way I have ever seen this put. Excellently said.

 

i'm a queer poc. i feel like there's a lot of freedom and acceptance for lgbt+ dolls and that making your doll lgbt+ in itself is not bad or problematic because we're all basically character-building here and that's a personal creative process! i've never seen much judgement. just like in any space, the real issue is when an identity becomes too trope-y, stereotypical, superficial, or essentializing to the point of reducing a character to something flat or even harmful. some modicum of research needs to go into building a character's lgbt+ identity, just like if you wanted to give a character an ethnic or professional background that you have no personal experience with. it's wise to look into things to avoid misrepresentation.

it can be tricky though since the presentation of dolls is so visual! on the one hand, i've seen gender and sexual identities being conflated with certain types of clothing or aesthetics that a doll wears. like, someone making their doll a tr*p (a slur i've seen used, yikes) on a whim specifically because they want to dress that doll in girls' clothes. or feminine/masculine/androgyne looks being linked to a specific sexuality. on the other hand, i do feel like it's difficult to fully grasp a character at a glance. guessing at sexuality or gender identity just from looks can be as presumptuous, and you can't tell what kind of legwork the doll owner may have put into their character at a glance or in a quick blurb either!

 

As others in this thread have so eloquently put, there are stereotypes, prejudices, and fetishization that can be harmful. I know where a lot of those who create fetishized stereotypes get their inspiration from. They even hashtag their instagram posts with "#ya*i#" (I'm not sure it's appropriate for this forum so I'm censoring it).
And believe me, in my desperate search to find manga with nice LGBT representation (I am a fool) I have read enough to get a clear picture of the range of content it offers. Some of it can be surprisinly nice; a lot of is kind of 'a little wack but you got spirit'. But much of the 'genre' is not only misinformed about L+G, they also tend to be transphobic, and very stereotyped (i.e. assigning one character to be the 'woman' of the relationship and who is very sensitive and passive, which in that way I guess is also somewhat sexist), but the genre is especially misinformed about bisexuality. It is not necessarily intentional on the part of the authors, it's just a reflection of the kind of information they get from their environment so you can't exactly blame them - but it does end up spreading this misinformation or some harmful ways of thinking to its readers (depending on the manga of course).

The point is when a lot of the BJD hobbyists get their uh.. inspiration for dolls from certain parts of this genre of manga, it results in the same kind of harmful content from BJD hobbyists. And it is harmful in my opinion, because it perpetuates this misinformed attitude and makes people think that this kind stereotyping and mild transphobia etc. is okay when it isn't.

That being said, I really do appreciate when LGBT+ BJD characters are crafted with well-informed knowledge and care. There will always be haters, but I for one am unapologetic about being LGBT+. We've got nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. Don't let hate stop you from living your life and enjoying the things you love because you have every right to do so. We aren't hurting anyone.

tl;dr I for one would like more well-researched, openly LGBT+ BJD.
And I wouldn't worry too much about how open you are with it, because there are ways to do it without making people feel like it is being shoved in their faces.

 

I'm thinking back on a conversation I had at a doll meet where I was talking about why I wanted different type of bodies for dolls, and I accidentally ended up in a gender-essentialist trap. I was talking about wanting girl dolls or "girl shaped" bodies because there is more variety of clothing for bodies shaped like cis women. But also, because at that time I had a doll with me who is genderfluid but wears mostly girl clothing, and I was lamenting that clothing doesn't fit right on this doll because the shape of the body isn't the same as a girl-shape. It ended up being really cringey (on my part) because by trying to illustrate why I have dolls wear certain types of clothing, I realised we were talking about bodies that are only shaped like cis women or cis men (and a very limited range of shapes within that. Still waiting for a chubby male body.) The community locally is really good about it, but sometimes I do think there's too much to encourage gender-essentialist/gender binary thinking. Like making clothing shaped only for certain bodies. Or modelling only certain styles for those bodies.

 

I would hope not, as I myself am aceflux, and plan to shell characters who are demisexual and bisexual. I also tend to dislike m/m content, but that doesn't translate to me hating gay men in real life, either.

 

This. (but opposite) Due to extreme dysphoria, being forced to 'express myself as a woman,' intensive attempts and courses of actions to force me to 'be proud of myself as a woman' and from some circles, being told to embrace being a ?lesbian? when actually I'm a gay man means that after 27 years of it, guess who isn't interested in seeing a ton of f/f content... but I scroll on, don't need to hate! No need to spread the trauma.

 

Just my two cents, I have a story that I'm writing for my dolls and the main characters are lesbians. It's kind of my way of expressing my homosexual side because my partner is male and we are both pansexual. I'm making a male character to express my more masculine side(I think I may be one who identifies as both? I don't know if that's a thing) So, in short, you are not alone.

My apologies for the double post but I forgot to make a point, I can't say what hasn't already been said but I do have one point to make, if you have a homosexual couple, male or female, I don't think you should be afraid to have them have a relationship. I mean, being a lesbians (I use that because that's my couple) is a part of who they are a person... But it's not their character. My girl is going to come home and hand her wife flowers. They may hold hands in public and get a few weird looks from uneducated people... They are going to have dinner together and have intimate moments, just as hetero/cis people do. I guess all I ask as a member of the community is make sure it's real. The love and life.

 

Oh my god, yes, THIS! I was thinking about that recently, but I'm glad you got to it in this thread before I did, and you put it so very well.

The doll hobby (and most of life, tbqh, but we'll hold off on that lol) is so, so, so very binary, gender-wise. It's tiring...
The hobby really doesn't lend itself to a terribly nuanced view of gender, and I haven't seen much push for change on that front.
Dolls exist in strict categories of "male" and "female", with often very gender-normative/essentialist physical features (thin and muscular men; women that are curvy regardless of weight, and both have simplified-but-still-distinctly-cisgender genitalia), which - ugh. There are a lot of crossdressing male dolls (or at least there were the last time I was super active in the hobby), but that's about as much gender fluidity and non-conformity as the larger portion of the doll hobby seems to be used to.

I've been wanting to try sculpting again, and I was thinking about (once I've got the techniques down) making a deliberately genderfluid (or a typical view of genderfluid presentation, at least) doll. Dolls can have magnetically attached faceplates and multiple chest sizes, so why not combine that, and have magnetically attached chest plates, with the option to have breasts or not, a decently androgynous body and face (most stylized dolls are fairly androgynous - under a standard definition of androgyny, which is a different issue), and no genitalia or switchable hip pieces? It'd be a pretty ambitious project, but pretty personally fulfilling. Who knows. Anyways, that's a concept.


On a slightly off-topic note, I've been enjoying following along with the discussion here, and (save for a couple awkward hets and some questionable advice to keep the queerness subtle) this thread seems to be full of good people.
Any interest in a LGB(JD)T (the portmanteau's a bit silly, but I tried!) off-topic thread and/or Discord server, for LGBT+ BJD collectors/future collectors/etc? Y'all seem like lovely people that I'd like to get to know better (and have more discussion on LGBT+ doll hobby stuff with, as well as, well, making hobbyist friends), but this forum's layout and rules don't entirely lend themselves to rambling chats and occasional entirely off-topic conversations. I don't exactly know how to go about doing that, but I'd figure it out if there's any interest!

 

All of my characters--and therefore all my dolls--are some form of queer! Out of my two current dolls, one is nonbinary (like me!), bisexual, and intersex. The other is ace/demi! The next doll I plan to get is bi and a trans man. So far I've found that everyone I've talked to has been very nice, although I have heard a horror story or two from another trans guy in the hobby...