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

I've never seen ANY negative attitudes towards LGBT dolls. In fact, I would say that a majority of the dolls whose stories I've read, are in those categories. It's very popular to have doll characters depicting yaoi in particular. In fact, go on Deviantart and search for bjd images, and you will see that most of them depict yaoi characters. Love it!

 

I am guilty of this for reasons I will explain.

When I was 14 my parents divorced and my mom came out as a lesbian. As a teenager and well into my adulthood when talking to guys whenever my mother came up I would mention she was a lesbian and their response 99% of the time was "That's hot" *Neckbeard breathing intensifies* sometimes followed by "Do you and your mom ever...."


This helped cultivate a molten hot hatred of people who objectified LGBTQ. I later discovered Yoai and the Bishie yoai tropes and approached it with the same attitude. Its not that I have issues with LGBTQ but the fetishization and the objectification of people who are real, have struggles and pains and lives. And that in many media's its less about personalities and any real love story more about two lipstick lesbians rubbing against one another for the male gaze or two hot guys kissing for their perspective audience. I recognize my bias as such and have tried to be less critical but that bias is still there.

 

I think that they are your dolls and you express yourself and many of us through them how you like. There's always hate, no matter what you do or what you are. What you can do is share your dolls and things they represent in positive light. It will give more realistic aura to both LGBTQ and BJD crowds. We're in the end just humans and BJD's are just incredibly beautiful dolls and characters. ^^
Not everyone will be okay with everything and that's fine too. You do you.

 

In my case, it's funny how the judgement came from people outside the hobby or aren't hobbyists of any type either. Just because my male doll got long hair, they decide to label him as "female", when as I intended it only to be feminine. It's somewhat there but the silence that comes afterwards is what gets me.
But there's this one instance I saw somewhere that some people inside the hobby attacking someone who owns an LGBT themed doll for their choice of words, that I rather not elaborate but there's that.

 

Like lot of people mentioned, there's lot of fetishising. But one thing I haven't seen mentioned, is that (and there's LOT of that in this thread) people demand LGBT+ identities to be brushed under a rug. Such as, don't make the identity into a big deal, don't mention it to people, etc. Which, look, I get the point, we don't want token characters and, again, fetishising. But when it's LGBT+ ppl who just want to be seen and feel joy for their identity, well. It's rather erasing, and rather like micro-aggresion.

I have a doll that partly expresses my identity, my transness, it's how I celebrate it. I had multiple people tell me I shouldn't make his character focus only on his transness or stereotype. Which wasn't even what I was doing, I just took part of myself I wanted to express through. And besides, what if I did that? What does that matter to you? It's my doll, and telling trans person how they should express themselves is not nice. (Also, they didn't actually know anything about this doll or his character, so...)

 

Society is so illogically binary I find it (the way a binary is forced on us from birth and reinforced from then on) fascinating as well as outrageous, and wrote an essay and a play about it last semester. I think it's great that bjd can allow us to explore and express alternatives, and I believe we should be able to do the same IRL but it's far more challenging due to the inevitable misunderstanding and negative attention you will receive, especially if you're on your own out there, or live someplace where being different is very negatively perceived. You need to be really very brave to blatantly defy social norms, and being brave constantly is just exhausting, so it's good that our dolls can do it for us sometimes I think - it's a form of self-expression. So it's sad that even this can attract negative attention and misunderstanding from some other people. Generally though, people like people who are like them - so if you're different in any way, you'll get flack - it's human nature unfortunately.

 

I think there might've been a misunderstanding.
I do not think anyone meant to say, much less demand, that it's a matter that should be brushed under the rug, but rather that it does not have to be the be-all, end-all. That there are LGBTQ individuals who are not all about being in the LGBTQ circle. That there are many ways to go about the matter, as we are all people first and foremost. Someone doesn't have to be depicted in a certain way to qualify as trans, or gay, or what have you.
Instead of finger-pointing to a definite "don't do this/that" chart.

I guess it is a bit of back-seat driving, that most of us is guilty of, when it comes to other peoples characters. - We want to help out. Even when it is not asked...
A doll, or a character, is sometimes just a "therapeutic tool", that does not need the medling of others.

(Going a bit off-tangent... Is it not erasure too, to reduce someone to a term? If all you are being seen as is trans/gay/non-binary, instead of the unique individual that you are? A sort of us-and-them reinforcement mentality - is that good/healthy in the long run?)

 

I think you have to take context into account when you talk about this. Historically, queer people have been erased. We’re not supposed to talk about ourselves in any capacity that might tip someone off to our “otherness” because it might make them uncomfortable, because it might jeopardize our own safety if they react badly, because it’s just “easier” that way. And by talk about, I mean I can’t say simple things like, “My wife and I went to the movies this weekend,” without considering my audience and where I am in the same way my straight coworkers go on and on and on about their husbands without ever having to pause and think about it.

I totally agree that overt queerness doesn’t have to be a character’s defining trait, but it’s also not a bad thing if it is. One of the things I find really comfortable about the BJD community is how overt some of the queerness in people’s characters are. It tells me this is a pretty safe place to explore some of those themes, and that’s awesome. We should encourage that to continue, because our inclusivity as a community is really one of our strong points.

 

I mean that's entirely possible, I'm not very socially skilled. But, it's just that I have seen many people mention that transness or gayness etc etc should not be mentioned at all, or brought up, because it's not relevant, or because 'we are all just people', while cishets are still seen as a norm, and their stories can be freely told without worrying about such things. Nobody's gonna say that when there's a character with straight romance, that it's too focused on it, or that they're people first and foremost, etc.

"Someone doesn't have to be depicted in a certain way to qualify as trans, or gay, or what have you." I like this, that's very nicely put and I entirely agree with that.

Yeah, I feel like characters are very personal thing, at least for me. I think all of my characters and dolls for that matter have things from me, which I don't even do on purpose usually. It just sort of happens. Idk, maybe that's a thing I should work on, but either way.

Well, I feel like that's where being token comes to a play? When people around you only see you as, sort of, a friend who's part of minority but nothing else. And I mean, me for example, of course I am much more than my transness and queerness,(I mean I'm on this forum, that only tells that I have other interests lmao) but also, these are still large aspects you can't erase. I experience things differently than cishets because of that.

I actually talked recently with a trans man who wanted to sort of erase difference between cis and trans men, and just be seen as a man, and I found it unusual and almost confusing! Of course it's a valid way of wanting to be seen, but... Personally, I find the thought unfitting for me. But it was interesting to hear those thoughts. All of my friends are some form of queer, but I hadn't hear opinion like that.

THIS. I don't have good response to this tbh, you just pretty much nailed it!

 

To be honest, I've always seen most BJD male dolls as a bit androgynous and it was one of the reasons why I fell in love with them so much (although I'm personally totally straight person and in reality, I like big beefy guys). So I do not think that you could face being judged often - people in this hobby are usually very tolerant and understanding.

But on the other hand, I think that nobody should treat being criticised as being judged or attacked. The most of my mates in this hobby don't like androgynous dolls and they prefer male dolls who look obviously like males - and there is totally nothing wrong with it because everyone has got their personal taste. I understand that many people can identify with their dolls, but it's not good to take everything related to them personally, especially if it comes from people totally not interested in others' sexuality. If somebody wants to be tolerated, they have to tolerate other people, too. So if somebody doesn't like my doll, I can just reply: "I understand, everybody is different. So what dolls do you like?".

 

I am brand new in the hobby and was actually surprised at how many doll characters and doll owners are LGBT, etc. But that is just because I don't get out much or probably even know all that much about what is going on in the world these days.

I truly hope that no one would be rude or mean to any of you about it. That would be very wrong. I hate seeing people hurting other people just because they aren't the same, have different beliefs, sexuality, appearance, well just anything.

I think it's easier to style a doll's personality, orientation, well just everything in ways that you yourself are familiar with. It's like that old adage about writing, you should write what you know. Of course that doesn't pertain to a fantasy character, but with fantasy, you can make up whatever you want and it's canon in your world.

I hope this doesn't come across as clumsily as it feels like it is. : )

 

Oh, after reading your post, @hollym, I realized that there is something else I'd like to say.

As you know, I am straight, but I love the original characters. In the game I played lately was a man who was born without genitals. He was raised as a girl, but when he started to grow up he started to become a man (you know, voice changing, no breasts etc.), but his family didn't want to accept that. He found out that he was a man from the beginning, but because of his appearance, his real sex has been mistaken. At the end of the story, he finds a woman who loves him in the way he is.

I think that I'm not the only one straight person who love the story, so I really think that even people who see LGBT in the other way than you and have other opinions about the gender problem, will still like your dolls. As far as I am in the hobby I've never seen anyone who bullied somebody because their male dolls look feminine. Although I met people who could say: "That doll is ugly" but behind the owner's back and it always pissed me off.

 

I know a lot of people have weighed in on this, but I want to add in as a nonbinary transmasculine aro ace person (I know, a mouthful) with, uh... nearly all queer characters. Because I'm queer. Write what you know.

You're always going to find people being mean. But my experience in the doll community, while short, has been the following:

1. So many people are also queer. So... so many.

2. I've been pleasantly surprised by how accepting people are. That rudeness is pretty lacking. I swear, I'm more likely to deal with one of my doctors not taking me seriously than someone on DoA.

So - be prepared for the occasional jerk, but I wouldn't worry much about it. Put yourself out there and you'll find more people like you and me than wanting to stake you and your babies.

 

Personally, I've never run into jerks within the hobby. I am bi, but my dolls have a range of sexualities and no one has ever had an issue with it. Honestly, doll sexuality had never come up when talking to other owners, but that is only my experience. The only negative incident I have ever had was someone outside of the hobby following me around and insisting that my doll was trans. I don't know why or how they came to that conclusion considering I had never said anything either way, but they continued to follow me all the way back to my dorm spouting increasingly transphobic nonsense.

Anyway, that, as I said, was from someone outside of the hobby. Inside, I've never had any issues.

 

As a big old queer myself, I've definitely never encountered any outright hostility in the hobby-- there are certainly people, as there are in most hobbies, who are not as open and there are microaggressions which often come from a place of ignorance/misunderstanding rather than malice, but I've seen much more support, and so many other people who fit under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella in one or more ways.

None of my dolls are heterosexual, and tbh... while maybe someday I'd shell a character who is, I'm not super motivated to. There are plenty of heterosexual characters out there as it is, when I create things for me it's because I want to get away from a cis-and-hetero-normative world.

Being non-binary transmasc, my male dolls are also an outlet for exploring and expressing the male parts of myself, and the broad spectrum of what that can mean-- clothing doesn't have to be gendered, and expression for some characters is more fixed while others are more fluid. A couple of my dolls are ace, a couple are gay, one is pan... their queerness isn't always front and center, but it is important to ME, because my queerness is important to me, and it's not something I could separate out from myself, even if it's not something immediately visible. So it's a big part of them even if they don't have romantic storylines or sexy photo shoots, and while it might not always come up, it's also something I'm not interested in sweeping under the rug. Pete is just as gay as Jack, even though his story is more found family with no sexy stuff and Jack's really revolves around his search for his kidnapped husband.

 

I have an a gender character I’m eventually going to be posting when their body comes in, and everywhere I’ve mentioned them while being excited, no one had any reaction other than being pumped about the sculpt I chose. A lot of other people in this thread have hit the nail on the head by talking about fetishy rep. One thing I’ll say is that people can occasionally assume something is fetishistic when it isn’t. Most of my dolls are wlw, And so am I. I have a character who’s pan and has Been with a lot of my other doll characters (though she’s also a queen of a powerful plane and a stone-cold badass) who would look like a stereotype of pan people if not for the other traits, and the other pan character I have who is likely panromantic ace.

I will also argue that people are less likely to fetishize their own orientation. As a wlw, the wlw couples I make (even ones I make exclusively for really explicit writing projects I have) are people with personalities and traits, and lives outside of that. I think it’s because it’s a lived experience I have, so I innately just assume they’re people, even if the snapshot of their lives doesn’t break down all their interests/backstory. When I write about people of other genders or orientations, I do the same thing.

The important part to a lot of people, I think, is that characters aren’t caricatures of something important to them, whether that’s their gender, sexual orientation, or other factors.

 

From what I've noticed in the community as long as your doll isn't offensive, you should be entirely fine. I think that many BJD people are really accepting and open to all kinds of characters. I imagine that if you're passionate about that character and love your doll, others will respect your choice for your character, as that's how I would see the situation if I read about any character that fell into the LGBT community among many others.

 

I decided to make a nonbinary doll, and I am a little nervous. I dunno why I decided to do it either - I just felt I needed to, and found a doll that had the look I wanted. I don't tend to think about doll characters that much, so it's new territory. (Oddly, the doll isn't enby in my mind yet, because she doesn't have a faceup or anything else that sets a doll's character for me. So because right now the doll is just the sculpt, I still think of her as female because that's what the sculpt is. Is that weird? XD It's just a cognitive stumbling block that I'll get past as soon as I start working on her to make her into my own little nonbinary doll.)

Sorry if that was confusing. I chose a female sculpt for my nonbinary doll because I am afab nonbinary, and I will never pass. Not in a million years. XD I think my doll will probably do a better job of being nonbinary than I do haha!

I think my main worry is because I don't think much about characters, I don't write or role-play with dolls, that people might think my doll is nonbinary out of tokenism or something. But I'm hopefully just going to see my doll grow as I own them, see what happens when I start taking photos.