So I've been thinking very hard about how to word this (and whether to word this, because it treads close to criticizing reviewers; I came down on the side of "word it," because it's also culturally endemic), but: several times in the last few days, in reviews of work by...

...both myself and others, I've encountered references to any non-heteronormative relationship being an "inexplicable plot twist," "out of nowhere," or "a retcon," if characters who were not established as straight at any point produce a significant other or enter a new...

...relationship. And I would be down for this, if characters going "oh, did you not meet my husband/boyfriend/lover before?" were getting the same treatment. But they're not.

A female character we have previously met, who has never been seen in a relationship, suddenly inviting her husband to a party, is seen as a reasonable plot twist; that same character inviting her wife is "out of nowhere" or "a retcon." And part of this is assumed...

...heterosexuality on the part of all characters not specified otherwise. And sometimes it's because the author genuinely didn't know about the husband OR the wife when they introduced the character: it's only a retcon if it contradicts something we already knew.

Not every queer relationship should be a "ha ha! Gotcha, SECRET LESBIANS!" moment. But not every queer character is going to bring up "by the way, I'm totally pan and I have six significant others of varying gender identities" over coffee.

You are not wrong, as a reader or reviewer, if one of these reveals feels forced or strange to you. Your feelings are always valid. But if you don't blink at surprise husband, why are you blinking at surprise wife? We have to interrogate that reaction in ourselves.

IDK. It was just seeing it multiple times, when I had read all the works in question (and wrote one of them) and knew that each contained an equivalent "secretly straight" moment, none of which was called out as strange. It feels like a different standard for queer characters.

Like, if a character has to announce their sexual and romantic orientations in the scene that introduces them in order to be queer, I just want to see the same requirement for the heterosexual, heteroromantic characters.