Lady Business

Well, yes, of course. But Alabaster has a relationship that doesn't end well, and the narrative explicitly suggests it was because of the fact it was a queer relationship. Queer characters are forced into same-sex relationships. Trans characters are disowned and ejected from their family. A young boy who is in a same-sex relationship with a man has that relationship implicitly critiqued, not only along the axis of age/abusive but because of the queer aspect. Incidental oppression is still oppression, otherwise they wouldn't have forced Alabaster into multiple same-sex encounters he didn't want in order to provide powerful orogene slaves. I'm not sure how, as a queer person, I could read this book and look at these instances, and come away from the story with the idea that queer people were "generally accepted". Just because they're being oppressed along one intersection doesn't mean the other intersections stop counting, you know what I mean? They all work together and effect each other. That's how intersection works.