thumb|right|200px|Aurora and Margaret, the heroines of [[Gregory Casparian's 1906 lesbian science fiction novel An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future]]
LGBTQ themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres. Such elements may include an LGBTQ character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative.
Science fiction and fantasy have traditionally been aimed at a male readership, and can be more restricted than non-genre literature by their conventions of characterisation and the effect that these conventions have on depictions of sexuality and gender. However, speculative fiction also gives authors and readers the freedom to imagine societies that are different from real-life cultures. This freedom makes speculative fiction a useful means of examining sexual bias, by forcing the reader to reconsider their heteronormative cultural assumptions. It has also been claimed by critics such as Nicola Griffith that LGBTQ readers identify strongly with the mutants, aliens, and other outsider characters found in speculative fiction.
History
Before the 1960s, explicit sexuality of any kind was rare in speculative fiction, as the editors who controlled what was published attempted to protect their perceived key market of adolescent male readers. As the readership broadened, it became possible to include characters who were undisguised homosexuals, though these tended to be villains, and lesbians remained almost entirely unrepresented. In the 1960s, science fiction and fantasy began to reflect the changes prompted by the civil rights movement and the emergence of a counterculture. New wave and feminist science fiction authors realised cultures in which homosexuality, bisexuality and a variety of gender models were the norm, and in which sympathetic depictions of alternative sexuality were commonplace.
From the 1980s onwards, homosexuality gained much wider mainstream acceptance and was often incorporated into otherwise conventional speculative fiction stories. Works emerged that went beyond simple representation of homosexuality to explorations of specific issues relevant to the LGBT community. This development was helped by the growing number of openly gay or lesbian authors and their early acceptance by speculative fiction fandom. Specialist gay publishing presses and a number of awards recognising LGBT achievements in the genre emerged, and by the twenty-first century, blatant homophobia was no longer considered acceptable by most readers of speculative fiction.
There was a concurrent increase in representation of homosexuality within non-literary forms of speculative fiction. The inclusion of LGBT themes in comic books, television and film continues to attract media attention and controversy, while the perceived lack of sufficient representation, along with unrealistic depictions, provokes criticism from LGBT sources.
Critical analysis
thumb|[[Zephyrus and Hyacinthus: Greek mythology, which often features homosexuality, is a source for much modern speculative fiction and mythic figures continue to appear in fantasy stories. Sex is often linked to disgust in SF and horror, On the other hand, science fiction and fantasy can also provide more freedom than realistic literature to imagine alternatives to the default assumptions of heterosexuality and masculinity that permeate many cultures.
In speculative fiction, extrapolation allows writers to focus not on the way things are (or were), as non-genre literature does, but on the way things could be different. It provides science fiction with a quality that science fiction critic Darko Suvin has called "cognitive estrangement": the recognition that what we are reading is not the world as we know it, but a world whose differences force us to reconsider our own with an outsider's perspective. When the extrapolation involves sexuality or gender, it can force the reader to reconsider their heteronormative cultural assumptions; the freedom to imagine societies different from real-life cultures makes SF an effective tool for examining sexual bias. SF has also depicted a plethora of alien methods of reproduction and sex, and most SF stories take for granted the continuation of heteronormative institutions. Alternative sexualities have usually been approached allegorically, or by including LGBT characters in such a way as to not contradict mainstream society's assumptions about gender roles. Works that feature gay characters are more likely to be written by women writers, and to be viewed as being aimed at other women or girls; big-name male writers are less likely to explore gay themes.
Speculative fiction has traditionally been "straight"; Samuel R. Delany has written that the science fiction community is predominantly made up of white male heterosexuals, but that the proportion of minorities, including gay people, is generally higher than found in a "literary" group. The inclusion of homosexuality in SF has been described in Science Fiction Culture as "sometimes lagging behind the general population, sometimes surging ahead". Nicola Griffith has written that LGBT readers tend to identify strongly with the outsider status of mutants, aliens, and characters who lead hidden or double lives in science fiction. In comparison, Geoff Ryman has claimed that the gay and SF genre markets are incompatible, with his books being marketed as one or the other, but never both, Gay and lesbian science fiction have at times been grouped as distinct subgenres of SF, and have some tradition of separate publishers and awards.
Literature
Early speculative fiction
thumb|Illustration by [[D. H. Friston that accompanied the first publication of lesbian vampire novella Carmilla in The Dark Blue magazine in 1872]]
A True History by the Greek writer Lucian (A.D. 120–185) is noted for both its fantastical setting and its depiction of sexuality, being termed by some as the earliest surviving example of science fiction or the first ever "gay science fiction story". The narrator is suddenly enveloped by a typhoon and swept up to the moon, which is inhabited by a society of men that are at war with the sun. After the hero distinguishes himself in combat, the king gives him his son the prince in marriage. The all-male society reproduces (male children only) by giving birth from the thigh or by growing a child from a plant produced by planting the left testicle in the moon's soil.
In other fantastical works, sex itself, of any type, was equated with base desires or "beastliness", as in Gulliver's Travels, which contrasts the animalistic and overtly sexual Yahoos with the reserved and intelligent Houyhnhnms. Early works that contained LGBT themes and showed the gay characters to be morally impure include the first lesbian vampire story Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde, which shocked contemporary readers with its sensuality and overtly homosexual characters.
An Anglo-American Alliance, a 1906 novel by Gregory Casparian, was the first speculative novel to openly portray a lesbian romantic relationship.
Pulp era (1920–30s)
During the pulp era, explicit sexuality of any kind was rare in genre science fiction and fantasy.
Golden Age (1940–50s)
In the Golden Age of Science Fiction, As the readership for science fiction and fantasy began to age in the 1950s, however, writers like Philip José Farmer and Theodore Sturgeon were able to introduce more explicit sexuality into their work. Until the late 1960s, however, few other writers depicted alternative sexuality or revised gender roles, or openly investigated sexual questions. its sensitive treatment of homosexuality was unusual for science fiction published at that time, and it is now regarded as a milestone in science fiction's portrayal of homosexuality. According to an anecdote related by Samuel R. Delany, when Sturgeon first submitted the story, the editor (Haywood Braun) not only rejected it but phoned every other editor he knew and urged them to reject it as well. Sturgeon would later write Affair with a Green Monkey, which examined social stereotyping of homosexuals, and in 1960 published Venus Plus X, in which a single-gender society is depicted and the protagonist's homophobia portrayed unfavourably.
By the late 1960s, science fiction and fantasy began to reflect the changes prompted by the civil rights movement and the emergence of a counterculture. New Wave writers were more likely to claim an interest in "inner space" instead of outer space. They were less shy about explicit sexuality and more sympathetic to reconsiderations of gender roles and the social status of sexual minorities. Under the influence of New Wave editors and authors such as Michael Moorcock (editor of the influential New Worlds), sympathetic depictions of alternative sexuality and gender multiplied in science fiction and fantasy, becoming commonplace. The introduction of gay imagery has also been attributed to the influence of lesbian-feminist and gay liberation movements in the 1960s. In the 1970s, lesbians and gay men became a more visible presence in the SF community and as writers; notable gay authors included Joanna Russ, Thomas M. Disch and Samuel R. Delany.
Feminist SF authors imagined cultures in which homo- and bisexuality and a variety of gender models were the norm. she has stated that being openly lesbian was bad for her career and sales. and explored the sexual impulse as her main theme. Le Guin often explores alternative sexuality in her works, and has subsequently written many stories that examine the possibilities SF allows for non-traditional homosexuality, Sexual themes and fluid genders also figure in the works of John Varley, who came to prominence in the 1970s. In his "Eight Worlds" suite of stories and novels, humanity has achieved the ability to change sex on a whim. Homophobia is shown to initially inhibit uptake of this technology, as in his story "Options", as it engenders drastic changes in relationships, with bisexuality eventually becoming the norm for society. His Gaea trilogy features lesbian protagonists, and almost all the characters are to some degree bisexual.
Samuel R. Delany was one of the first openly gay science fiction authors; in his earliest stories the gay sexual aspect appears as a "sensibility", rather than in overt sexual references. In some stories, such as Babel-17 (1966), same-sex love and same-sex intercourse are clearly implied but are given a kind of protective colouration because the protagonist is a woman who is involved in a three-person marriage with two men. The affection all three characters share for each other is in the forefront, and sexual activity between or among them is not directly described. In Dhalgren (1975), his most famous science fiction novel, Delany peoples his large canvas with characters of a wide variety of sexualities. Once again, sexual activity is not the focus of the novel although there are some of the first explicitly described scenes of gay sex in SF and Delany depicts characters with a wide variety of motivations and behaviours. and some blur the line between science fiction and gay pornography.
Delany's SF series Return to Neveryon was the first novel from a major US publisher to deal with the impact of AIDS, and he later won the William Whitehead Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in gay and lesbian writing. The female bisexuality in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) has been described as mere titillation and male homosexuality in the same work was a "wrongness" deserving pity. Heinlein's use of sexuality is discussed in an essay entitled "The Embarrassments of Science Fiction" by SF writer Thomas Disch. Disch was publicly gay from 1968; this came out occasionally in his poetry and particularly in his novel On Wings of Song (1979). His other major SF novels also contained bisexual characters: in his mosaic novel 334, gay people are referred to as "republicans" in contrast to the straight "democrats". However, he did not try to write to a particular community: "I'm gay myself, but I don't write 'gay' literature."
Michael Moorcock was one of the first scifi authors to depict positive portrayals of homosexual, lesbian and bisexual relationships and sex in his novels. For example, in his 1965 novel, The Final Programme, most of the leading characters, including the central 'hero' Jerry Cornelius, engage in same sex relationships on multiple occasions and same sex relationships are depicted as entirely normal and without any moralising, negative consequences or gratuitous titillation, this is the case in the whole Jerry Cornelius series and in Moorcock's fiction generally (particularly in the Dancers at the End of Time series) sexuality is seen as polymorphic and fluid rather than based in fixed identities and gender roles.
Elizabeth Lynn is an openly lesbian science fiction and fantasy writer who has written numerous works featuring positive gay protagonists. Her Chronicles of Tornor novels (1979–80), the first of which won the World Fantasy Award, were among the first fantasy novels to have gay relationships as an unremarkable part of the cultural background, and included explicit and sympathetic depictions of same-sex love; the third novel is of particular lesbian interest. and inspired the name of the LGBT bookstore and chain "A Different Light". The "magical lesbian tale" "The Woman Who Loved the Moon" also won a World Fantasy Award and is the title story in the Lynn's The Woman Who Loved the Moon, a collection also containing other gay speculative fiction stories.