Birri-land

We also have to take into consideration that sexuality, gender, and how they are performed IRL are contextual and cultural. What we see in works from East Asia may not fit into what we want to see from a Western perspective. It's also possible that certain cultural codes that signal queerness elude us simply because we're not accustomed to them.

For example, the "only gay for you" trope you mentioned is still being tossed around, but it's been quite a long time since I've read a BL work that explicitly incorporates it. Now, one of the leads identifies as heterosexual until he meets the other lead, and after certain tribulations, they reach their hard-earned happy ending, but it isn't portrayed in a "I will never be with another man if we break up" kind of way, as certain older works have explicitly put those words onto the page to portray a very narrow, singular devotion. The characters cease to exist the moment a story ends, and unless the creator openly explores what happens after the breakup, we can't really speculate whether that ex-hetero character is now open to dating men or not.

To be honest, I'm reluctant to approach fiction simply through the lens of "How much of it exists in real life," but even if you wanted IRL correlation, there are people out there who, despite identifying as heterosexual, seek out gay sex for reasons of their own. Some BL explicitly mention discovering bisexuality and there are more and more openly queer characters in the genre. As I've talked about in a previous post of mine, people read very little BL and the ones that they read are the handful of extremely popular series, then they go around and base their whole opinion on a genre on these titles. They are loud, and the algorithm amplifies divisive takes. Then it looks as if everyone thinks that way.

Imagine believing every shonen series is like Naruto... It is no doubt an influential work, and you can trace the shonen staples in many works that come before or after it, but can you really say Gintama and Naruto are the same? Chainsaw Man? Promised Neverland? Or Marriagetoxin?

It is, again, important to keep in mind that BL in Japan is a genre that stemmed from shojo manga. You can, again, trace artistic sensibilities that are adopted — paneling, screentones, structure, tropes, you name it. BL's approach to love is also reminiscent of the shojo series that focus on romance. There is, and always will be, a wish-fulfillment side to BL, just like how there will be one to romantic shojo manga.

This fulfillment can be about a happy ending after hardship or about a world where two men can experience simple misunderstandings or run-of-the-mill interpersonal problems when getting together, instead of the crushing weight of heteronormativity and phobia. Or, it could be about extremely good-looking, kind, sweet, smart (or extremely evil, toxic, vile but hot) men that are either too good to be true, or you'd change countries if you were to come across one. Throw robots, beasts, and supernatural beings in the pot, and you have yourself a feast. The levels of this fulfillment vary as well. Some works are more grounded, while others are unrealistically sweet or unbearably kinky. Either way, it's so engaging, fun, and compelling to read all kinds of characters to find each other and fall in love and rearrange each other's guts in all kinds of ways!

I personally consider BL to be queer, not only because it focuses on two men, but also because we don't need fiction to spell things out for us. Simply engaging with fictional works creates the possibility of change, and it's no coincidence that countless people rethink/discover their own sexuality and/or gender through BL. I also suggest you check out Cathy's answer to an anon on subtext/canon BL. I'm not touching upon its transformative power for cishet women and their relationship with patriarchy since your message was about queerness.

Now that these are out of the way, I'll mention other key points that I don't often see taken into consideration.

Industry

Commercial BL, and comics in general, are an art form that is strongly tied to the publishing industry. What that means is that what gets published (both in and outside of Japan) is heavily shaped by the companies and, as an extension, fans. Each company, platform, and manga magazine has its own identity and style, and has a say in which series gets a bigger cut from the marketing budget. Fans are getting more and more reactionary, and with the purity culture that's infested the English-speaking fandom (can only speak for this fandom, as idk what the situation is like in others), the works that publishers dare to license are gradually getting sanitized. The overall far-right tendency around the world we've been experiencing over the past couple of years has been detrimental. Barely anyone takes any risks anymore, and that includes not taking risks in terms of art style or diverse works as well.

I highly suggest you check out Cream's blog post on Tsuki to Pieta. It's not like diverse works don't exist, or there aren't any artists who are interested in delving deeper. Sometimes, publishers don't take the risk or can't figure out how to frame a work in a neatly packaged, appealing way, and eventually, they reject said work. Other times, they don't promote certain works as much and they fly under the radar. I know I'm pretty biased about Dal Hyeonji's Love for Sale, to give you an example, but even disregarding the love I have for it, it's an excellent character study! Or you tell me why people aren't going crazy over Takahashi Hidebu's  Stigmata! I'm not approving publishers' behavior, but that's how commercial publishing works and a lot depends on where they will allocate their resources and time. What is being read, what is popular, and what gets published is like a cycle that feeds each other. I also want to finish this by mentioning Breeze's blog as a BL artist. There are lots of interesting bits and experiences that we readers may not know much about on the creation side, but they break it down in a fun-to-read manner!

Form and style

This is obviously tied to the industry side as well, but when we are talking about commercial BL, almost all series (unless you're a big name or you're serializing your work in a digital magazine and accept that your work may not get printed physically) are single-volume stories. Saying that it doesn't allow much space for exploration or delving deeper would be a misleading remark, but it does play a role.

Just like in literature, different forms require different stylistic approaches. You can't approach writing a short story in the same way as you would a novel. So obviously, you'd have to find a way to tell the story you want, according to the space you're given. A one-shot has to be structurally and tonally different from a single-volume or a several-volume work. It's true that not many are great at short-form storytelling and instead opt for incorporating the standard beats within a volume, at times disregarding how cramped it reads or how superficial the themes can become.

It is also true that not everything has to be about identity and one's struggle with normativity. This doesn't make a work objectively "less valuable" or "less queer". It is, I guess, a balancing act. You can't drown in your pain and struggle day in and day out, but you can't completely turn away from it either. And I wholeheartedly think BL, GL, and LGBTQ+ comics together cover everything I might want and more from a genre! These three don't work against each other, but complement one another. And together, they paint a fuller picture.

Artist preference

Since we can't form an argument over speculation, we don't really take this into consideration but... sometimes you just want to create something simple and sweet, no matter how overdone it is, and regardless of readers' expectations! One fic I've written that's super dear to me came out of me wanting to write something extremely cringy and melodramatic, like the daytime soap operas you see on TV. Of course, since I'm the creator, the fic ends up being "my version" of a cringy soap opera, but from a reader's point of view, it might be just another random, sappy, "mid" fic.

The same goes for any creator. Not every work has to leave a mark or aim to be exceptional or deep. Not every artist's body of work is diverse, either. Sally Rooney has an interesting take on this (she was so patient with this awful interviewer, stronger than I could ever be tbh). From the BL perspective, look at Furuya Nagisa's works; they keep returning to the very same themes and characteristics, to the point that it's sometimes hard to tell one work from the other. Are they doing it because they know it will sell? Or because, as an artist, they find themselves wanting to keep circling the same spot? Who knows! But it is an important parameter in the equation.

Reader/fan assumptions

I will talk about two assumptions here that I notice are being made both by the fans and the antis.

First is the assumption that the type of work one wants to read has to dominate the market and just magically fall into one's lap. No. You have to dig and swim neck deep into the sea, acquire your own taste, find your own favorites, and make friends who can introduce you to what you might be missing out on. You have to jump headfirst into series you have no idea about and get a taste for yourself. That is the only way to survive and get past the surface-level popular stuff that may or may not be okay at best. The worst that can happen is you'll stumble into something that's not for you, and you'll swim away. Easy as that.

I came across a dead dove fic the other way and started reading it out of curiosity. I don't seek out dead dove. I'm a pretty mild reader compared to some, but I consider myself to be immune to pretty much everything. The fic turned out to be much... more than I could ever imagine it to be, for lack of a better word. And I was just like, 3 paragraphs into it, mind you. I closed the tab and went on with my life. The mental image persisted for a while, but you know what? I survived. And discovered a boundary that I didn't know was there. Only through encounters like this one can one discover what's good or right for them, and this is why fiction is irreplaceable for me. It allows me to approach the world from a safe distance and helps me discover ideas, circumstances, or sides of me that I didn't know about before. You just have to keep in mind that your boundary or taste is not, cannot be the norm, and reading is not activism.

The second assumption is that BL is a silly genre. It is silly and whimsical at times, sure. That's the spirit of BL. But anything that focuses on romance is immediately put into the "not worth pondering on" box. Emotions are silly! Interpersonal relationships are silly! It's simply about, for example, two university students in the same club, and they fall in love. What kind of "deep thought" can you extract from that?

That's where people are wrong again. I have so many mutuals who write extensively on BL, both specifically on works themselves, BL as a genre, and discourse similar to the questions you asked me. Let me tell you, there aren't enough people who do this!! Some of them I linked above, but you can visit the directory Cream kindly put together, and discover long and short-form writing that people are consistently putting out. I argue it's much better than reading simplified, snappy takes on Twitter!