: More women, people of color, and non-English speakers too.

Good reading.

I never really got the point of reading fiction with checklist at hand.

Binary gender. For all we know, Miranda Keyes was born Mark. What does that change about her character? Well, let me answer that with another question: A few days ago, I thought you were born a female. Now I know you weren't. What does that change?

Nothing. Because the sexual orientation of the Halo characters has jack to do with the story, and because I'm not going to treat you any less than human.

And then there's race.
For a lot of media, race is completely irrelevant to a character. Culture shapes their character a hell of a lot more, and believe me, what culture a person is from has little to do with the shape of their nose or the color of their skin.

Of course, there's some who would say that a writer has a duty to present racially diverse casts because it promotes 'social justice'. Heh. That they should take time from writing the best story they can and wonder "Am I being inclusive enough?"

Better reading.

*Note: When he says "Cismale gendernormative fascism/fascist", that's an in-joke. A troll lobbed that appellation at him, and he had to look up the first two words to get what it meant. He found the combination of two words that shrivel up and die outside of a Gender Studies class with a word that basically means "Someone I don't agree with" humorous.*

And this is the twenty-fifth century. Can we kindly get those universal translators working?