I just came all the way back and you seemed to be accusing me of something I did not say (or meant to imply).
Eventually all the way down our little tète-à-tète you’ll see I’m explicitly saying that it makes all sense to mention an artists sexual orientation when that is part of what makes the art she or he makes be what it is.
(However in that thread you seem to be defending unprompted celebration of specific human characteristics because they have contributed to making the art of some people what it is, and that’s WAY broader than recognizing them for their specific contribution in specific artist, artworks and art styles).
As for artistic works themselves, everything and nothing are relevant and irrelevant: it’s all up to the artist what should go there.
However in this specific case somebody was telling a true story (so, not a work of art) and what was being disputed was if mentioning a specific person’s sexual orientation made sense or not here, which IMHO does make all sense (it’s actually quit crucial).
Telling a true story is all about conveying information, in which case relevance does make sense as a criteria in including or not something.
I’m culturally very dutch, having lived there for almost a decade at a key point of my life, so from my point of view all sexual orientations are absolutelly normal, same as, for example, eye color - only wierdos would ever treat people differently based on eye color, sexual orientation or any such things.
From my point of view the continued emphasising of the differences but with a different “tone” that some in anglo-saxon cultures think of as “progressive” is actually culturally backwards, as for me the ideal world is one were people don’t get classified, put in little boxes and judged and treated differently on things they were born with.
So yeah, when all sexual orientations are normal there is about as much need to point them out when not relevant as there is a need to point out the color of the eyes of somebody when not relevant. Equally, there is no reason whatsoever to refrain from mentioning it when they are relevant: you don’t act differently around and about a specific normal something than you would around and about all other normal things - if you do then that is clearly not normal for you.
I can understand that from your cultural environment the visible reflections of my own “only wierdoes emphasise absolutelly normal things” posture might be confused with the kind of thinly disguised “anti-gay” sentiment the types who in your own culture are seen as backwards put out, as you’re still in an environment were the fight for equality is done by keeping on classifying people on things they were born with and emphasising whenever you can in a positive way certain classifications to make up for past (and also still very much present from other people in your culture) negative sentiment against them, hence it’s only natural to from that worldview perceive those who disagree with such positive emphasising as anti-gay (because in your mind you assume that everybody is doing the classifying part, so those who refuse to recognize certain classifications positivelly must be “anti” them) and the unfortunate widespread belief in the Two-side Falacy in your culture doesn’t exactly help with even considering the possibility that there are more takes on such an important subject as Equality that just the 2 you’ve been led to believe are the only ones possible.
(Still, I was hoping that my logical argumentation approach on my original post hinted at were I was coming from, but I guess it didn’t for everybody)
I suggest you review the Logic of the concept that other people not celebrating every single thing associated with somebody else’s “experiences” when talking about something else and were those are totally irrelevant, somehow cheapens such “experiences”, unless you think that only some very specifical innate characteristics associated with “experiences” deserve reafirmation and celebration at every moment including when not applicable, but not other innate characteristics, in which case you’ve proven my point about not treating all normal things as normal.
(For example, just because I have blue eyes and I’ve had experiences thanks to that doesn’t mean other people should be going around talking about blue-eyed people and expecting ptherwise would be very very wierd of me)
What an incredibly narcissitic and moralistic take on the world to expect others to constantly celebrate very specific chracteristics you were born with that lead to very specific experiences you find important for yourself - you, your characteristics and your experiences are not inherently important and deserving of constant recognition by everybody else just to prevent you from feeling that they’re being cheapenned.
Mind you, such a “I see only me and what’s important for me must be treated as important by all” is also a common cultural artifact in the modern anglo world so it makes sense to see that “logic” used as an “argument” by pretty much everybody in the cultural wars over there (even nationalists and religious nutters anchor their “logic” on "“what’s important for me should be treated as important by all”).
