[foldr]

I don't think it's unusual at all for fiction to describe internal characteristics of characters that aren't easily knowable. That happens pretty much any time a story tells you something about what a character is thinking or feeling. If you object to an author mentioning that a character is gay, it surely can't be because that's not a directly observable characteristic. You could cut The Portrait of a Lady down to about 5 pages if you removed all the descriptions of people's psychological states.

While we're on the topic of Roald Dahl (who perhaps doesn't quite reach the psychological depth of Henry James), here are a couple of examples that I easily found in The Twits:

"Mr Twit thought that this hariness made him look terrifically wise and grand."

"...his evil mind kept working away on the latest horrid trick he was going to play on the old woman."

[prepend]

First, I don’t object to an author mentioning that a character is gay.

And there’s many reasons why an author will describe an internal characteristic and it’s usually either omniscient narrator or first person describing the assumptions that the narrator makes.

I’m not referring to that at all as those are natural and not weird at all. For example “I thought Hernando was gay because I’ve always just had a hunch.” Is different from “I walked into a room and saw four straight people and a gay person.” Without describing why the narrator things one person is gay. It’s as unusual as saying “I walked into a room and saw a person who loved almond milk.”

This is very different from an omniscient narrator and reveals these characteristics because the narrator knows all, internal and external.

In either case, hair and eye color is mentioned to help the reader picture the character in their minds eye. It serves a general purpose other than to serve the plot.

My example of Lost is not because I object to Haitians in tv. It’s because the show has the characters know something they have no reason to know, another character’s nationality. I think the intention was to be nice and not have to say “hand it to the black guy” and replaced it with “hand it to the Haitian.” guy

[fennecfoxy]

Eh except in specific circumstances there's no reason to mention the sexuality of a character; how often do authors point out that their characters are heterosexual? Never, people just assume so and their assumption is often confirmed by the character's actions.

I think it's much better to write gay characters same as any other; it's just instead of pursuing the opposite sex, they'll pursue the same. Pretty simple.

Just like in real life where I only mention that I'm gay if it's relevant to the conversation, it should be the same in media: for example known characters in a later chapter discussing a plan to get their friend, someone they just met, a date. Interrupted by one character in the group who has known said friend for longer, laughing at the others' suggestions of partners and exclaiming, "this won't work!" she exclaims, "but why?" they ask, "she's a perfect match" "but he's gay!" she laughs, "but if she has a brother..."

[foldr]

I guess it would be helpful to have a real example of the kind of thing you object to (in the case of gay characters). I'm having trouble understanding what it would look like in the context of an actual narrative, as I don't think I've ever come across anything like it myself.

[prepend]

I don’t remember a specific example of gay, but I gave the example from Lost so that might help you understand the context of an actual narrative.