bisexuality needs greater, healthier representation in media. so too do gay men and lesbians. this shouldn't be a one in, one out situation. richie is gay in the film and that is good. it IS odd no one else in the losers is confirmed lgbt bcs we pack travel

but more seriously: representation in the media of gay and lesbian and trans persons remains lacking, often stereotyped, and underplayed. there should be MORE representation of bisexual/pansexual persons in media but this does not mean there is enough of any other identity.

there is no One LGBT Person limit to any narrative. gay men and lesbians ARE underserved in media. the erasure of canonically gay or lesbian identities in fanworks or critical examinations of media is something that i believe to be deeply troubling.

rich tozier is & can be gay in the film. this does not exclude the potentiality that any other character may be bisexual.

i don't believe that every writer who has written film richie as having had sexual or emotional relationships with women in the past is homophobic. many gay and lesbian persons have had heterosexual relationships for a variety of reasons. gold star ideology is false

sexuality is also complicated and at times shifting. i have read works by writers who have thoughtfully and carefully addressed the possibility that film richie may have at times attached emotionally to women.

(i think that @IfItHollers in particular has done a very mindful job of exploring this possibility, but hollers does also write from a perspective of incorporating book and film canon together.)

but i do also believe that the reality of the world in which we live is such that gay men are demonized and punished for their romantic and/or sexual attraction to men. gay men are still encouraged to marry women for protection. lesbians are fetishized, infantilized, and subject

to societal gaslighting & violence for their romantic and/or sexual attraction to men. lesbian women are punished, as many women are punished, for not being sexually available to men. much of society is still built around the expectation that women must marry, and marry men

that richie tozier is gay in the film is a specific and purposeful creative choice on the end of the writers and muschietti. it informs his character as much as anything else that we see on screen in either film. the experience of a gay man IS unique from that of a bisexual man

none of this btw is to suggest that bisexual persons are not also subject to violence, scorn, prejudice, or gendered expectation. there are very specific forms of societal&cultural violence that bisexual people must face that may at times reflect those of a gay or lesbian person

*but are however* disparate from them. bisexual persons are more bluntly expected to 'pick' a sexuality; a bisexual person is demonized as being sexually or romantically promiscuous, untrustworthy, a liar in some way.

if a gay or lesbian person is still expected to conform to heterosexual relationship structures, it is because the heterosexual relationship structures is deemed the morally correct alignment. a bisexual person must deal with this but also with the cultural belief that a bisexual

is 'undecided,' that a bisexual person may simply choose to be attracted either to a man or to a woman. & biphobia does exist within the lgbt community, as a consequence of the ways in which comphet and anti-lgbt violence have punished & degraded gay and lesbian persons

(this may explain biphobia within the community but it neither justifies nor excuses it.)

anyway i think that while the author is dead it is also important to keep in mind the particular context and meaning behind a choice such as explicitly defining richie tozier in the films as a gay man vs as a bisexual man.