It’s kinda weird to try to include representation without it feeling shoe horned. The world of TES (of any fictional world) is entirely hand-created. There are no accidents, all of it is intentional.
This means that, no matter how it’s done, any character deviating from the “norm” was consciously chosen to be so. These things that need representation (disabilities, gender identity, sexuality, race, etc) are all things people don’t get to choose, so there’s an inherent disconnect between the hand crafted world choosing to include diversity, and the real world necessarily having diversity because of chaos.
Following this thread, there’s never been a case of inclusivity, or exclusivity, that isn’t shoehorned in. It’s always been entirely the will of the author to include or exclude these representations. With that in mind, I think it’s only a good thing to see more diverse authors bringing more diverse worlds and characters into existence.
Eh, I think we just have different perspectives on things being short horned. In my view, anything that isn’t critical information to the story, it’s shoehorned in. If you tell me the main characters favorite food is pasta, and then don’t do anything with it, it’s shoe horned in. If you tell me a character is gay, and then don’t do anything they couldn’t have done the same with a straight character, changing a couple of pronouns, it’s shoehorned in.
To be clear though, I don’t think this is a bad thing. A story with only critical information will… Well, it’ll work, but it’ll be bland. Same if you make all of your characters blond, blue eyed, straight white men. Adding these details tends to be what makes us remember and identify with a character. That doesn’t make it any more strictly relevant to the story. Most characters people would view as “diverse” - even the ones people like - fall into this category, i think.
I think a better argument is, if these traits ARE shoehorned in, their alternative “normal” traits would be as well. If you go out of your way to state a character is straight, it’s just as shoehorned if everything else is equivalent. Do THOSE characters inspire the same ire? If not, we should examine the why of that specifically.