Fff thank you all, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to this silly topic!
I admit I've been beside myself about this partially due to how things have been on the internet lately, a lot of fiction policing, a lot of accusations based on what art someone creates, sometimes leading to dogpiling. I'm nervous about offending the wrong people down the line and getting trashed since I've seen it happen more times than it should in the past couple years. Also I do want my character to be seen as a "good character", not a positive one, just a fully realized one and I worry about messing up. I've noticed intersex folks are very into you knowing all the medical details of intersexuality before applying it to your character, and I've gotten a bit overwhelmed since there are so many little details.
Also whenever doing a story about difficult topics it is frowned upon to use character from a community you're not a part of since it comes off as fetishizing or phobic of that group, and it is no longer your story.
@Kaydreamer I'll be honest with the one who was more alright with it I didn't go to far into the more difficult details. It was a video call, and my brain registered it as a interview or test so I brain dumped everything as soon as the call started. Plus it is much harder for me to verbalize difficult topics than type them out, but yeah, that person seemed more focused on the medical stuff and making sure I wasn't making my character a stereotype. (They were actually kinda happy that this character started out as a different sex, and that I only changed them after doing some reading up on it.) At the end I gave them a link to my comic, and they didn't have any issue with it, this person liked the art. Lol
What made me second guess myself more after getting both was a video the first one made on intersex rep, and it felt like some of it was directed at me, or at least people like me. It's a pretty informative video nonetheless.
The second one got a written doc with all intersex related scenes, it wasn't super detailed since I didn't have a proper manuscript and just described the situations, but it was detailed enough to be offensive. Although I was a bit confused about some of their critique since one of my scenes had really implied sexual harassments with the character's partner, and I put content warnings for sexual assault, but they thought it was a consensual kink scene... and told me that the partner was fetishizing them and that the reader was really uncomfortable. Which is what I intended, so I wasn't sure what to do about that criticism. It felt as though they generally saw me as someone wanting to bring this intersex character torment because I thought it would be edgy or unique, which was an expected response but it still made me really apprehensive to continue with my decision about the character's sex.
You're right though it's kind of a lose-lose situation with rep with some people. I know I've already been called a few choice things due to my characters. Also fiction would be extremely boring if everyone only stuck to their experiences, I can't imagine not going out and expanding your horizon for a story. Sorry for the ramble, I've been running myself in circles over this, and I can talk for ages about it.
@Oto_Kouda Hey, you don't know that! The fiction Mafia could very well be with me right now, threatening that very thing. They could have a gun to my head right now. -dramatic music-
Gosh, I'm kinda weird about rep. I don't care who does it, just give me a shitty human character over a positive rep cardboard cutout. Respectful to me is having characters that are presented as people with flaws, bad decisions and that ugly stuff, it feels like I'm being acknowledged as a person... or I'll take a really camp, fun villain character that doesn't need any kind of depth, just fabulous clothes and bombastic mannerisms.
Fff speaking of writing negative experiences and in-group attacks, I've been called transphobic a few times for some of my characters being casually transphobic. I have a good reason for some of those scenes, and why the characters didn't get their comeuppance, but to a reader who don't know that it can come off as me being alright with their actions.
@Birbmagadon You have a good point! I admit I've gotten in the habit of thinking my characters represent their entire community, it feels like anymore you need to keep yourself and your characters in-line so you don't offend anyone. Not saying that as a negative thing since I understand the need for good rep, but some people get really anal about how positive fiction when featuring minority characters, and I've kinda fallen into the "How my characters act will determine how people see 'x' community, and will determine how 'x' community sees me" mindset. The thought gets somewhat terrifying when you're an anxious person who overthinks and like conflict.
@burgundy Lol I'm trying to do a story set in a southern California city like LA or San Francisco with a higher diversity demographic, also LGBT+ people hang out more with people in their community than with cis-het people, at least in my experience. More research is definitely something I need to do, I've done a lot of studying on the social aspect of it, but there's a lot of...nuance? to intersexuality that I haven't been able to wrap my head around yet. I didn't think about how indie webcomics are vs. published as far as taking up space, I've seen a lot of people preach keeping certain stories for own voice creators because you would be taking attention away from them if you didn't, but there is practically endless free space on the internet. I wouldn't be taking any more away from an own voice creator than any other person posting their story on the internet (Heck, they may even get slightly more attention because people like authenticity with stories featuring minority characters.), even if they decided to work with the super niche category my comic is in there are so few people making those types of stories I doubt they would have anymore trouble getting attention than the rest of us.
Again, thank you all so much for taking the time to give me your opinions on this! Sorry if my grammar and spelling or anything else is off, I'm tired and just about to go to bed.