Thanks for sharing your thoughts and your very correct feminist critique when it comes to female characters - no, not a lot has changed with regards to that, there is still a pittance of female characters that rise above the rest, Buffy is what comes to mind for me.

There isn't one cohesive or coherent queer culture, if I implied that, then that wasn't what I was aiming for. I'm not American, but I'm in American fandom and the history of lgbt culture and identity informs a lot in the way I perceive characters as queer or not.

I'm bisexual and a lesbian, I don't think those two are mutually exclusive.