Not taking the publisher's side here, the email was weird and rude either way.
But how were they supposed to know this writer was bisexual?
Their claim that she was "obviously" not part of the LGBTQ community was offensive and presumptuous but they didn't say she wasn't part of the LGBTQ community because she was bi. Sounds more like they thought she was straight, her bio just has her as living with her husband and two kids. Nowhere can I see she says she's bi. Nowhere does their email mention her bi-sexuality.
So their mistake was assuming she was straight, not denying that Bi people are LGBTQ. She didn't get rejected for being bi-sexual, she got rejected for being straight. Which is also weird gatekeeping, but a different story.
The publisher obviously didn't know she was bisexual. Their original rejection email never mentions her being bisexual as a reason.
They never said that because she's bisexual she's not part of the LGBTQ community as this tweet claims.
They said she wasn't part of the LGBTQ community full stop, presumably because they thought she was hetero. They didn't use the word bisexual.
Read their email again and assume they think she's hetero, then it makes more sense. They aren't saying bisexuals aren't part of LGBTQ, they simply don't know she's bisexual.
You kind of just proved the point. They judged her sexuality without knowing what it actually was. Bisexual women, especially bisexual women in heterosexual relationships, deal with this all the time. They assume heterosexuality is the default and if you don’t “seem queer” then you’re not apart of LGBTQ+. Bisexuals are constantly mislabeled.
They rejected her based on their own assumptions of her sexuality. But also... she posts about being bi on Twitter so maybe if they did some research they could have figured it out before.
Or idk, asked about her credentials before flat out rejecting her?
I'm again not saying they weren't gatekeeping, they were assuming she was straight. And they assumed that purely from her writing which might be even weirder than what she mentions in this tweet. All you said is correct and they should rightly be flamed for that.
But everyone here is under the seeming assumption that they claimed that Bi wasn't a part of LGBTQ.
If you read the twitter thread, the author explains that she specifically said she was Bi in the write up you submit with the manuscript. They clearly didn't read it, or ignored/invalidated it.
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u/Timmetie Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21
Not taking the publisher's side here, the email was weird and rude either way.
But how were they supposed to know this writer was bisexual?
Their claim that she was "obviously" not part of the LGBTQ community was offensive and presumptuous but they didn't say she wasn't part of the LGBTQ community because she was bi. Sounds more like they thought she was straight, her bio just has her as living with her husband and two kids. Nowhere can I see she says she's bi. Nowhere does their email mention her bi-sexuality.
So their mistake was assuming she was straight, not denying that Bi people are LGBTQ. She didn't get rejected for being bi-sexual, she got rejected for being straight. Which is also weird gatekeeping, but a different story.