Another reason for representation is this:

It helps straight white people be less bigoted. It really does.

One of my stories was taught in a community college class. The story contains two nonbinary characters who use they/them pronouns.

One of the students, an older gentleman who was apparently taking the class because he was bored in retirement (and kudos to him!), said that my story had taught him how "This pronoun thing all the kids are doing" works.

So now I'm going to recommend that anyone who struggles with it and is willing to learn read a short story with a nonbinary character in it, because just *seeing it in action on the page* may be enough.

Not to knock the importance of representation to us, but getting straight white people to read stories with others in them is really important.