I think modern-day writers and artists are just fucking hacks, man. If your fictional 10-year old suddenly loses a major part of his personality because he can't be gay anymore, then maybe he was always shit to begin with.

Even WALL-E, a character who is in a romance story, has more character traits outside of being in love with EVE. He's curious, gentle, lonely, creative, organized, dedicated, he's a fucking stacked character and he barely has to say a word.

Meanwhile, they really want to claim that Elio being a closest gay boy is integral to this story about meeting aliens and, even though he has no love interest, removing this element destroys the character? Really? Are you fucking sure it does? Or are you just a shit writer?