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INTEREST: I'm in Love with the Villainess Author Responds to Alterations in English-Language Release

What's interesting is that this line was also (partially) excluded from the manga adaptation. I mean, the part about Rei's behaviour being a defense mechanism is still there, but no reference to those real-life gay entertainers is made. This is actually why I didn't notice Seven Seas had made cuts. Since it was also absent in the manga I assumed the line was lost in the trasition from Web Novel to Light Novel, rather than in the translation.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Those portions of the text were removed during the editorial process at the time, but we have since changed how we edit these books to make sure important lines are not lost. We'll be revising the eBook within the next few weeks to add the cut portions back into the book, and the revision will also be reflected in all future printings of the paperback.

What are some other examples?

This pretty clearly isn't disrespectful to LGBT issues, though. It's very sympathetic. If anything, the omission of this causes the narrative to be more disrespectful to LGBT issues.

The only logical explanation I can think of for the omission is that the JP publisher didn't want a rather negative portrayal of Japanese entertainers to be published in the west...but we'll have to wait for an official response.

That's certainly possible, but you could also look at it from another angle: it's criticizing the way some gay people choose to present themselves. To paraphrase the issue, it's a character basically gatekeeping how gay people should act. I'm not saying it's an invalid or valid criticism or anything, just that people could certainly take it the wrong way to see a character basically criticizing a section of the gay community for making the rest of them look bad.

I mean this is unfortunate, but especially since Seven Seas seems to be responding to it I don't see any reason for people to burn bridges with them like expressed in other comments.

I mean this is unfortunate, but especially since Seven Seas seems to be responding to it I don't see any reason for people to burn bridges with them like expressed in other comments. I don't agree with altering the text that much, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that maybe an overzealous editor thought at a glance that this was a cultural reference that would be too hard to localize for not much benefit.

I can understand taking a wait and see approach for future releases but if you boycott the company as a whole the company will just think that light novels aren't selling anymore and it will only effect the success of individual series but they won't know what the problem is to fix it if you don't engage with the company. Like if you just stop buying Villianness completely even after they fix the problem, it's not going to make them change their policy. They're just going to think Villianness wasn't popular in the West or something and there might be more hesitation to bring over other yuri light novels. And other companies might not see it worth it to invest in yuri light novels.

I can understand taking a wait and see approach for future releases but if you boycott the company as a whole the company will just think that light novels aren't selling anymore and it will only effect the success of individual series but they won't know what the problem is to fix it if you don't engage with the company.