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Where is All the Lesbian Sci Fi? (And Transgender and Bisexual and…)

Adventuresses
Adventuresses from Inkstained Succubus Press
There’s a huge market for MM Romance these days. Dreamspinner and others have built a whole business plan around it, and I’m always astonished when I see just how many titles there are out there.

To a lesser extent, this holds true for MM sci fi, romance and otherwise. The same white male POV that has long held sway in traditional sci fi seems to exist in the LGBT sci fi market. Most stories out there seem to be about men, and often white men.

I’ve been wanting to see more diversity in LGBT sci fi for years, bot in the sense of having more non-romance, non HEA stories, and of broadening the cast to include all parts of our community.

So what’s holding back sci fi stories about other parts of our rainbow community? Is it publishers? Lack of a market? Authors who are used to writing MM? Or?

And what are some of your favorite sci fi stories, romance or otherwise, that include characters outside the traditional MM couple?

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4 thoughts on “Where is All the Lesbian Sci Fi? (And Transgender and Bisexual and…)”

  1. In my first published short “Heart of the Pines” one of the MC identifies as bisexual. I also have a new adult novel coming out this fall that is MMF.

    I think it’s challenging to write a bisexual character. You have to get across that they are bisexual, not gay, not straight and curious, without launching into some soapbox speech that will completely alienate the reader.

    For me, MMF was challenging because it was difficult to write a menage that was truly a triad and not a couple with a third for sex.

    So I agree, all areas of the rainbow should be represented. For me at least they have a special challenge writing them that I don’t feel writing MM.

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  2. I’m hoping to publish some lesbian scifi but it seems like there are so many more M/M publishers than ones that publish F/F. And I’m continually being told by other authors that lesfic just won’t sell–but isn’t that what they used to say about M/M?

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  3. I’m not sure of the exact reasoning, other than that it at least appears that the market is higher for MM than for other gender combinations. Though I’ve only written MM for the last few years, I plan on writing across the rainbow. I mainly have read MM recently, also, but I’ve come across more diverse sci-fi (and fantasy) lately because I’ve been listening to the Nobilis Erotica Podcast (nobilis.libsyn.com). The stories read on the podcast have characters of all kinds of sexual orientations and pairings/trios etc of various gender combinations. The current sponsor is Circlet Press (circlet.com), which is known for erotic speculative fiction of all sorts of gender combinations, including gender transformations and transgender characters, which is all sorts of awesome. Listening to the stories on the podcast, I’ve definitely heard a lot more F/F and stories with characters under the transgender umbrella, which makes me happy. Yay diversity! There’s also been more ethnic diversity in these stories than I am used to seeing (though not as much as I’d like to see, still). Anyway. This isn’t meant to be an ad for the podcast or that publisher, just letting you know where I have been seeing these subgenres.

    Reply

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