beachdeath:

will byers is not “gay coded” he’s just gay oh my god… “gay coding” is the ascribing of gay characteristics to characters who are not textually gay (e.g. disney villains who wear hot pink and lisp a lot), it is not an appropriate descriptor for a fourteen-year-old child growing up in a notoriously anti-gay historical and cultural milieu who is described by the creators of the show as having “sexual identity issues” and who repeatedly makes clear his lack of romantic interest in girls while other characters persistently target him for homophobic bullying. sorry to go so hard on this i just think it’s very important that none of this be dismissed as fan speculation or sneaky, under-the-radar “coding” when in fact we have every indication that this is a deliberate and overt part of the text of the show. you can definitely write a gay character without writing an openly gay character, and writing a closeted/questioning kid is not the same thing as gay coding or queerbaiting.