a bit late to the discussion but i have Thoughts
first i wanna state that there are multiple ways of making diverse characters: there’s race, there’s sexuality, there’s gender, there’s age groups, there’s neurodiversity, there’s disabilities…
if we think “diversity” as only one thing, we’re trying to lump it all together and pass it as one uniform “other”, instead of many different “others”, none of which is exactly the same to any other, just like any human being.
i think, and please know i am not attacking anyone here, that the fact that one can try to view “diversity” as a full on “other” or worse, a thing is part of the problem.
i do not want “diverse” RP casts. i want realistic and human RP casts. RP casts in which the characters are full fledged, layered and unique. they can have “diverse” characteristics, of course (please give them characteristics that are not white, cishet, able-bodied and neurotypical), but the most important thing to me is that they’re a character of their own, rather than a caricature or an identity
now, why does this happen?
i am going to make an assumption, and i hope no one takes offense on it, but i believe it is because the environment of these forums is… predominantly white, cishet, etc.
because of that, and seeing how RPing is kind of like acting in an improv scene, it’s understandable why people would feel the most comfortable playing characters like them, because, as many people have mentioned, there’s a fear of representing different charas “wrong”
the solution is simple, though:
no one, and i mean no one lives their life focused solely on how “different” they may be from others
so play your characters as such
sure, disability, neurodiversity, queerness, race, etc do shape some aspects of our life, but they’re not all there is to us
but you can take two pansexual colombian people and they can be completely different
our “diverse” identity is only one aspect in our lives, not all of it
so @ any RPer who wants to create a “diverse” character: go for it
go for it and play them as you’d play any other character, for “diverse” people are not less complex than others
now, a word from a queer POC
there is no one way to “properly” represent an entire group of people, everyone is different, so don’t be afraid of not playing a “diverse” character “as it should be”
every character is going to be different, that applies to diverse casts too, so don’t be discouraged because you can’t play them in a certain way
play them like a human being and that should be more than enough
I agree with Peppy, it might also be disrespectful