Likewise, though my MCs aren't NB or demi (yetâanother protag is in fact on the ace spectrum), but I feel like BL as a genre doesn't really offer the freedom to explore your characters? Does that make sense?
I remember asking in the forum recently if I should even tag my fantasy story BL at all because my MCs are waaaay older than the usual demographic, both character- and audience-wise. Plus, while one focus of the novel will be a romance between two men, what REALLY is important to me in my world is the fact that there's literally no concept of heterosexuality or homosexuality and so on, because people just... are. (Including multiple ways to express your gender, or being gender-fluid etc.)
So a standalone lgbt+ genre would offer a lot of people on here a way to really mark their stories the way they should be marked. BL really is just ONE way of expressing the myriad of lgbt+ people's experiences.
As an aside, have there already been discussions about the subgenres? Like, premium creators can mark their stories with two genres, right? Are there movements to open that for regular creators as well? If that were possible, then I could easily mark my novel "fantasy" and "lgbt+" (if it were a genre lol), and I feel like many of us could need that. Like... really need it. xD It's not often a story really has just ONE genre these days, after all.