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Notes -
"Representation" should be defined for this comment thread as people of diverse backgrounds being seen as protagonists, deuteragonists, and antagonists in fiction, being elected representatives, and being hired for visible jobs at management/executive levels.
Is Representation a primary goal of the progressive project? Or is it a secondary goal, a virtue signal for societal diversity, since it can be seen as a sign that oppression has ceased, a sign that diverse people should be expected walking around in public, using services, present in labor jobs, and other signs of diverse social integration?
In a sense, increased representation is a primary goal. Having minorities be acknowledged and normalized through representation is pretty high up there in terms of importance on the progressive agenda. You can't fight for trans rights if most people don't even know the trans exist.
In practice, I would say it depends on the author. Some write specifically for, say, an LGBT audience and have positive representation as one of the main reasons for why the story exists in the first place. Others do it for the sake of realism. A New York with no black people just doesn't really make sense. Any modern story exploring urban environments, especially if you delve in to the soft, slightly hidden underbelly, is by necessity going to include some level of representation of minority groups as they make up a sizeable part of most large western cities.
It is not usually a sign that oppression has ceased. If you lean more activist as a writer, the point of forcing diversity is exactly the opposite: Opression is still there, but through your writing you give a voice to the marginalized. If there was truly no opression, no one would bat an eye at a trans woman because she would just be another person to the rest of society. The fact that this identity matters enough to write about, and that doing so can garner pushback, is itself proof that there is still a lot of work to be done.
Funny how that works. For example, black characters in movies aren't surprising anyone for decades now. And yet, we get black Anne Boleyn, black vikings, black Snape, black Helen of Troy, black Snow White - damn the realism, who needs realism, we need to push representation! Moreover, the more it happens, the more oppression is being claimed, and the more attention is paid to the identity of the actor. It's like the Stalin's theory of class struggle - the more "representation" we get, the stronger and louder "oppression" claims are. Moreover, simultaneously identity does not matter at all (so what if Vikings are black? They are just actors, ignore their skin color and don't be a bigot!) and matters a huge deal (try casting a white person to play Rosa Parks or a straight person to play Harvey Milk and see what happens). As always, this is the sign that the rules aren't meant to achieve result, they are meant to exercise power. It's not for you to decide whether historical or fictional character looks one way or another. It's not even for the author to decide that. The needs of the Party will determine that. And if the Party says Anne Boleyn was black, then she was black, and if you object, that's the proof you are a racist and we need more power to the Party to force you in line.
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