Forums and LJ/journals sites? ARE real life. FANDOM is a part of real life. The shows we watch? The stories we read? We watch and read these things in real life. Why can't I get hurt and upset at the fact that nine point nine times out of ten, someone is killing another gay person so a straight person can feel bad and the story can move on? Or that the only gay character falls hopelessly in love with their straight BFF? Why shouldn't I be upset, when these kinds of tropes effect my real life?

There are straight people who've never met a gay person before they met me. And so if I'm affectionate with a straight friend of the same gender as me? They assume I have a hopeless love. If I happen to touch a girl on the shoulder? Well, I must be hitting on her. Calling something gay in a derogatory way is perfectly acceptable, because hay, gays are usually evil when they pop up in fiction and their lives always suck otherwise.

So why the hell shouldn't I be allowed to talk about that? Why the hell shouldn't I be allowed to bring it up in a place where people are used to criticizing the texts/media they consume? A place where people might actually listen to me, where I can say my whole "ten-page" piece and not be interrupted and written off as a crazy fan?

And one final point on fandom being real life. Each and every fan is someone who lives in real life when they log off. And some of them have never met another gay person besides them who likes what they like. Or they've never met another black person in this show or that one. In speaking out, we can discover that we're not alone, that there are others who think like us, who feel the hurt like us, who understand us. It can make dealing with the real life insults in our media just a bit easier.