Fang and Vanille *spoiler*

[Cloudane]

There's no evidence either way but the fact that this debate comes up so many times here and other FF forums certainly seems to indicate that one way or another a "lovers" message came across to many people.

Personally I think they are. There's no single time when there's concrete court-submissible evidence but there seems to be a lot of subtle imagery that seems to suggest it's that way.
Sometimes sexual intimacy is just not sledgehammered. Recently I've been rewatching DS9 and a good example of this approach was one-to-one links between Changelings, beings that revert to a gelatenous state that can merge. There was enough subtle suggestion to think "hmm I wonder if that's a sort of sexual experience for them, it looks like it" but it wasn't stated as fact (at least not until several episodes later when it's stated that 1-to-1 links are indeed "like that").

I'd have to agree that if it was a guy (interesting that she was originally supposed to be) there'd be much less questioning of it and more talk of Fang/Vanille/Hope love triangles and such. I doubt many people are being genuinely bigoted; differing sexuality is pretty much accepted these days. I think it's just not yet reached a stage where we instinctively recognise a same sex relationship unless there's "proof" (probably tongue related)

It would've been braver for the creators to make her a female from the beginning and explicitly stated as in a relationship, but subtlety isn't a bad thing - it was certainly far better handled than the cringe inducing portrayal of homosexuality in FF7, IMHO.