Stole the words out of my mouth, Craig.
I get what you are saying, I think. But I don't know the sexual orientation of Hagrid, or Mcgonagall, or Sirius, or Snape, or Voldemort, etc. I don't need to know the sexuality of every character in a story. Within the context of the story had Dumbledore's sexuality been different would anything have gone differently? (I can't say, that's for the author)
I do agree that adding it on after the fact feels tokeny. However if Rowling mentioned his orientation early in the realese of the books say between the releases of the first three books(but not neciessarily in the books) then I'd be OK with that. Its there for those who want to learn more about the character but has no impact on the story of Harry Potter.
I feel the same about Sentinels, its great to learn more about the characters, but Tachyon and Legacy would still be Hypersonic Assaulting and Heroiclly Intercepting and using all the other cards in their deck the same regardless of who they are married to.
Now the RPG is a different story, where the card game is focused on major story arcs and battles (where details like ethnicity, religion, orientation matter less than butt kicking for goodness) the RPG can be focused on the whole of their lives, this kind of info should be easily accessible there as I can impact how they are played.
Please don't confuse my position with an attack on non-hetero lifestyles. Pre-teen is far too young to be discussing sexual identity - my wife works as a theraputic counsellor specialising in assisting young people and deals with gender fluidity on a regular basis, so I see and hear a lot about this (although I certainly wouldn't claim any particular expertise on my own part). No maliciousness here folks, so if you're looking to explode with righteous indignation, you're looking in the wrong place.
The Potter books were written for a primary (grade?) school audience, around seven or eight years old, which is the same age as my kids right now. Nobody is talking to them about gender identity or sexual preferences because they are too young - that comes a few more years down the line. There sure isn't any kissing or dating in the books they read either, hetero or otherwise, and they still don't really 'get' the concept of attraction or romantic love anyway. Because they are too young.
There are indeed depictions in the books they read of families with two dads or two mums at home, which also mirrors the real life situation of one of their classmates, and I am glad that it is a thing that exists. There is vastly more support and openness around this which is great.
The specific problem with Potter, I believe, is that the characters matured along with the age of the readership and after crossing over into adult readership there is a demand for expanding on the material that doesn't belong there any more than we need to go back and explore Willy Wonka's home life. Dumbledore could have been written with a husband at home and that would be totally cool and in context, although maybe an unusual move for the time the books were first written. You've got to remember that the first one was written nearly twenty years ago! That's before some of y'all were born, I'm sure! Maybe if they were being written today for the first time, it would be a thing.
I think quite the opposite. I mean - he is not the only important character in the book in this case. The only professor we know had a "sexuality" was Rogue - and it was not so much "sexual" as "had a female love interest, didn't work". What sexual life did he have since, we don't know. Maybe I don't remember (I'll admit I haven't read the book in along time), but McGonagall's sexual or love life has no mention in the book either. And I have no idea who she could be interested in or not.
For me, it would a form of discrimination to expressly mention Dumbledore's gender preferences because it is "different". And we don't know if it is, by the way - how many other characters are gay, we will never know. We shouldn't assume that everybody is straight by default.
You could say that, for me, as long as we think it is necessary to define the sexuality of a character or someone, because it is "important", we are not far from discrimination.
About Sentinels. What I like is that it's not an important part of the story or the characters. When I see Tachyon's wife, I just add another character to the story in my mind. Male or female is not really important. Nor character or "sexuality" defining in any way - I mean, Tachyon may be "bi", and just happen to have met a female she wanted to marry. Or, like some people I know, be "hetero" - except for one person they met and fell in love with.
I may cause an uproar, but I have to say that I am always unsettled (is that a word ? I hope it has no bad connotations…) when people or characters are put in small boxes - like putting on them a label defining who they are and should be. To me, it feels discriminative. I know it's not what happens here - it's more people happy to see "other sexualities" represented in their favorite game, and happy to talk about this topic without fear of discrimination. But I am always uneasy with all these labels, boxes and, let's say "keywords". People don't fit in boxes. And I am always a little sad when someone tries to put him/her/hir/whatever-self in a box.
I am afraid that society is just slowly changing the stereotypes to new ones, rather than just deciding not to care anymore.
I hope no one will take my words wrong. Especailly because I am not sure to give my point of view clearly, nor that I should have given it anyway.
I'll second what a lot of people are saying here it's imporant to show not tell in writing. In the case maying telling in the story not on twitter is better. It doesn't need to be a big deal but if it's not in the canon material then it's not really them being a good role model for people who share orentation. It's another "Hide yourself and people can like you" situation. If Dumbledoor mentioned off hand that he had a boyfriend some years back that he missed or something to that effect it at least says he isn't ashamed of it.
When we see it but it's not what the character is about that is when it's best (minus in romance where that would obviously be the focus). Like if we got Happily ever after art of all the characters for the end of the multiverse I'd adore seeing people paired with ther partners (I don't think that will happen).
I feel that the idea of "not for kids" is a confusion on the meanings of sexuality and sexual.
Sure sexual things, pertaining to expressions of sexual activity and desire are commonly seen as inappropriate for children as it's an adult area which it is seen they need to be protected from.
Sexuality is different though, it encompasses more than just that direct sexual act or imagery people wouldn't want shown to children. It effects general relating to people on many levels - familial, platonic and romantic (which children do experience) - self identity, definition and expression.
While one can argue how much of their personality is or isn't made up of their sexuality, it still influences and changes the entire world view in many ways. These are ways children do interact within, can see for themselves and understand, and do form their opinions on whether you want to keep them from it or not. Making such areas taboo only reinforces heteronormativity and pushes anything else into an area of negative connotations by the very act of refusing to discuss it, even if the idea comes from a good place of trying to protect.
These ideas and identities form before someone is adult enough, however you might define it, ask many LGBT+ people and plenty will say they knew they were different in some way at least from a very early age.
I don't think your attacking anyone at all. That said kids are raised with gay parents and kids know they are trans from a young age, I know as a trans person. Not knowing the concept only hurt me and not seeing representation only hurt me further. I felt like a freak for many years of my life, I was a very angry teenager who had no support and didn't know what I was because I had to convince myself other wise.
Now I totally give you the written a while ago point. It likely would have slightly hurt the stories sales but by the time the last book came out we could have had it mentioned. Although focusing on Hary Potter I think is a bit outside of the point, we've gone a bit off the rails.
The best way to deal with any kind of representation is to treat it like it's not even a big deal, because in an ideal world, someone's gender or orientation wouldn't be a big deal, no matter what flavor it was. Sentinels does a great job with this, where an LGBT character's orientation is brought up under the same circumstances the straight characters' would be brought up (and by making Tachyon's interactions with her wife friggin' adorable, but that's beside the point).
I think inserting a trans/nonbinary character with that same balanced subtlety is inherently a bit trickier, because gender naturally comes up more often than orientation. The most common kind of representation is probably with androgenous aliens, like Tempest, but that's not exactly a true representation when the character is part of a fictional species. Also, a lot of the time the androgenous character will just be thought of as male by default anyway. I do that subconsiosly with Tempest sometimes, even though I tell my brain not to.
What about an ordinary human who just feels like they belong in a different sex's body? How do you make that clear without putting too much focus on that one specific aspect of their character? With superheroes, there's actually a useful oportunity to utilize alternate identities as a way for a character to express their gender identity. Without being too blunt about it, you could be fairly successful having a superhero based around becoming their "ideal self," and casually bring up the fact that their idealized form just happens to be a different sex than their "mundane" form. This is good because the trans-ness itself could be communicated without even verbal explanation; just show them when they're not a superhero and it's already established. Then any addtional details (use of pronouns, explanation of how the power manifests the user's true self, etc.) will solidify it gracefully yet definitively.
But I don’t know the sexual orientation of Hagrid, or Mcgonagall, or Sirius, or Snape, or Voldemort, etc.
Half of those you do. Snape’s sexuality is a major part of the plot, and Hagrid is shown smooching on Madam Maxime. (Maybe not smooching, but it’s made pretty clear that he’d like to.)
There’s a bunch of sexuality shown in the books - Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Harry, and a whole heap of other students have romantic plots. We meet so many married couples; many of them have kids.
Every relationship shown is explicitly straight.
My point exactly. Thanks, Peter, for providing examples.
Marry me?
I want to thank everybody for the thoughtful responses and discussion. I appreciate that I can ask a question and learn from the answers.
I'm sorry, but I don't represent poly relationships in this novel.
This is what I love about this community. That this conversation can happen, and it doesn't turn into a hate-fest (on either side) that I have to lock down.
At least, most of the time…
Yup! I spent some time waffling about how to ask that question, and even considering whether I should. I’m glad it went well. 
As for the Harry Potter thing, it was cool of JKR to decide Dumbledor was gay, but yeah, doing it outside of your stories is like the writer's equivilent of putting a possibly-gay couple in the background of a show. It's not really representation unless people have the chance to identify with those aspects of the characters' lives. The right time to do it would've been in those later novels when everyone started getting all kissy and going to balls and such. I don't think the author was trying to do anything underhanded by just sort of mentioning off-hand he was gay, and I don't think she's ever tried to claim that just saying it made her stories more diverse or anything lazy like that, but still. A missed opportunity for some nice representation there, especially since those books were so popular with young teens growing up who can always use a reminder that they're not alone. Ah well... maybe in that next thing she's making...
Hah shows what I remember right? Thanks for the correction.
I remembered the kids which is why I didn't bring them up. I was not pointing out that there is no sexuality in the books (snogging) just that there were other major characters besides Dumbledore that we don't know about.
Harry Potter lore fail.
I totally agree that it's a bit harder to be subtle about it. I mean I guess at the point we are in trans representation we could use a dab of bluntness. Being trans just shouldn't be their character. I totally agree super heroes bring up all sorts of cool ways to bring in a trans character. Maybe their super form is their ideal sex, hell maybe their super form is not their ideal sex so to become super they have to kind of become trans. It could be that they are just a trans person who transitioned and got super powers, nothing more then that. Someone like Nightmareist could easily just be a trans woman who passes and knows magic.
Really the only way to know for sure is for it to be spelled out clearly one way or another.
You need to be really, really cautious in tying somebodies powers to the way in which they are a member of a minority group. See the Magical Negro. So I'd prefer the last of your options.
EDIT to add: I know that you're trans yourself, but the people writing any such storyline would likely not be. It's much easier to accidentally be offensive if you're not a member of the minority group in question.
+1 to what Under3 said about the distinction between sexuality (appropriate for kids) and sexual (not). Sexuality and relationships are in fact omnipresent in society. I'd encourage everyone to pay attention next time you're around a young child (< 5) to pay attention to how often heterosexuality is pushed on them. "Oh, isn't it cute? She has a boyfriend!"
(I have friends with a 10-month-old infant who are currently being subjected to this.)
Can I just comment that it's not at all surprising that you didn't remember? People (straight or not) don't notice the presentation of straight relationships, because they are just so omnipresently pushed on us in society. But I can guarantee you would have remembered if any of the professors had been shown with a history of same-sex relationships.
(Just to emphasize, I'm just pointing out general tendencies here.)