: Re: Is bigotry always necessary in a story? I asked a question here on how to avoid political issues when I have a witch MC named Kem who is nonbinary, and a few people suggested that instead

@Kevin153

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Writing about a character who doesn't encounter any discrimination can come across as unrealistic if people of the same description in the real world frequently experience discrimination. Depending on how it is written, it could seem either like a wishful fantasy, or a deliberate whitewashing of real-life conditions. Even people who don't personally experience prejudice are often profoundly and psychologically affected by pervasive social conditions of prejudice directed at people like them.

If you're writing an invented fantasy world, you are well within your authorial rights to decide that this is a world where X group does NOT experience prejudice. Keep in mind, however, that your readers will need to suspend disbelief for this, just as they do for your magic or your futurist technology. You'll also want to make sure it's internally consistent. You also might spend some time thinking about who DOES experience prejudice in your world, assuming it is NOT group X. The risk you're running otherwise is that your portrayal of this person might seem shallow and inauthentic --more of a flavor than an identity.

Finally, if you want to write a realist story about a minority group, and not include cultural conflicts, your best bet is to set the story entirely within a subcommunity composed only of people from that minority. For an example of all of the above done really well, I would recommend Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, as a very believable, nuanced look at a world where EVERYONE is non-binary (except the narrator).

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