Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
The inverse holds true, too. Men are perfectly capable of writing good f/f stories, just as women are perfectly capable of writing good m/m stories.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
I'm not keyed into the romance publishing ecosystem. What's the mechanism by which queer men are shut out? Publishers?
The M/M romance space is overwhelmingly populated by female authors, and throughout the years queer men have talked about feeling unwelcome in the space, being told that their voices were unwelcome in romance publishing spaces about queer men, etc. I can't speak to whether agents/publishers are prioritizing female authors or if it's more the broader marketing/influencer/published media ecosystem as a whole prioritizing female authors.
I can only speak to what I've seen some queer male authors saying, so if anyone has firsthand experience on this, please chime in.
In terms of professional publishing I think it’s probably going to be more useful to look at the identities of GATEKEEPERS (agents, editors). If all your editors are cis, straight (white) women, they’re going to unconsciously prefer books that are written to appeal to their tastes in men rather than necessarily prioritizing people with experience in m/m real-life encounters. This is a real problem but I think discussing author identities is a little bit of a red herring. The authors as individuals don’t create the problem, it’s the aggregate effect of having a limited diversity of gatekeepers in the industry
