The Do's and Do Not Do's of writing a LGBT character

So I wrote a blog post that turned out a little more hetronormative then I wanted, and I thought to kind of even things out I would talk about one of my favorite things, character development (whoop whoop). More importantly I wanted to talk about the good and not so good ways to write for a LGBT character. I broke it down to two do not do's and one do when it comes to pinning the life of one of these characters

A FEW NOTES
1. I am not an expert, I am merrily sharing in opinion and in doing so I may offend a few people with my examples, this is not my intention at all but feel free to tell me I'm wrong in the comments (or real life, in fact I would commend you for doing so. Not enough people yell at me)

2. I'm going to avoid simple things like "don't make the character into a stereotype" because come on, that's to easy and should just be common knowledge (but looking at that Modern Family clip, it isn't)

On we go!

DO NOT DO'S

1. Do not make the fact the character is LGBT the only thing about him/her.

More often then not when a LGBT character is introduced, we are meant to know that they are loud and proud (I.E stereotypical) and that's about it. I mean honestly, can anyone tell me anything about Kurt from Glee or Irene Adler from Sherlock other then they're gay or bisexual. No, those characters are just like paper thin posters the show writers can put over the actually blank representation of the LGBT community. It's troublesome because since the basic premises of these characters is to appear on screen and doing something amusingly gay for the hetro audience, it perpetuates the stereotype most people have. It also limits what you can do with a character (there are only so many gay jokes you can mine) so they become stale and boring rather quickly. They soon have the presence of a Jar-Jar Binks, we just want them to do their little thing and leave. By focusing on more important things like; personality, inner thoughts and feelings, and dreams instead of what the character likes to do when the lights are off you can develop better, more well rounded characters whom we want to spend time with. But completely ignoring sexuality can lead to our second no-no…

2. Don't ignore or leave out things like sexuality (and race) 
Whenever I tell people how garbage the Harry Potter series is when it comes to themes of sexuality, I always hear those magical (ayeeee) four words "but Dumbledore was gay!" (or "Go away I'm eating"). Yes the old Dumbledore was gay argument, the idea that there is no need to make a character openly gay because we're all "progressive" and those things don't have to be mentioned, man. Well of course how could I discredit Mrs. Rowling, I mean as a deep worldly writer who didn't include a single LGBT character, and almost no character of different races (and don't even mention Cho Chang) she has proven to be great at providing a magical world where all the magical people can live in harmony, because there is no other races or sexuality to scare the young wizards. Now I'm not saying Dumbledore should of been out there in a pink robe shooting sparkles, but maybe having a chapter or even a paragraph where we might get some explanation about his sexuality could of given the books some much needed LGBT representation. And that's the point I'm trying to make, sexuality shouldn't be the focal point, but it also shouldn't be glanced over till you finish your series and feel the need to mention it offhandedly. Representation of LGBT characters (especially good, well rounded ones) is important in providing role models for younger kids growing up in this heretonormative world.

Okay, now that I insulted Harry Potter and Sherlock (crimes which I am sure to be punished for) lets move onto some good things to do when writing your LGBT character!

DO's

1. Make the characters flawed 
Lets go back to Glee for a second and talk about Kurt (or as I refer to him as, Gay Jesus). Now I haven't kept up with the show since last season (I did watch the Finn dies episode, which was hilarious in it's melodrama) but I can't remember anytime in the shows run where Kurt was wrong or portrayed as flawed. I do remember however most of his story lines were devoted to someone in the Glee club insulting him (for some reason Kurt has a forcefield of ignorance that when perfectly normal, non homophobic people enter it they become as anti-gay as possible) and then they would have to seek out his forgiveness, usually by doing something "gay" (I remember one episode where a character dressed in drag to prove he was down with gay community) and then Kurt would bisto his holy hands and clinse them of their sins. But you see a lot of the time people were not being mean to Kurt because he was gay, it was usually because he was jerk (I say this knowing that some people on the show did say homophobic things to him, but I'm referring to the times when other characters would simple disagree with him) . But since being gay was all the characterization he had, Kurt would turn it around into some Very Special Episode teaching moment. That sense of absolute perfection fits into shows like Modern Family and The New Normal and makes them icky in their representations of sexuality. One show that doesn't do this is HBO's Girls, and the character of Elijah Krantz.  In that show Elijah is bisexual, like to drink and do drugs, is wrong and petty to people, and experiences inner crises that make him more human then his basic cable counterparts. By making the character flawed we as the hereto audience get the idea that (shocker!) people in the LGBT community are just like you and me, full of flaws and regrets. I personally thing this is a better representation then say something like Glee because it makes the characters humans (who just happened to be LGBT) instead of perfect gay saviors. 

So yeah, that's a lot of writing but I think it needs to be said. As someone who grew up in a family of LGBT people I just got so tired so seeing stereotyped people who were meant to represent my uncles (Cam on Modern Family does come close I'm willing to admit) when it's fairly easy to write well rounded, thoughtful characters who can be good representations of one's sexuality. But then again, I'm no expert so if you think different that's cool and I would love to hear it!