Don't know what you mean by yuri not being taken seriously. I think its just less popular. Looking at manga genre sales charts and yaoi just makes ALOT more revenue than yuri its not even close. Even on the Chinese side, danmei is very very popular and I haven't even heard of notable baihes. Personally I think its because most straight women aren't......
Not some, most. Go to baihe vs danmei discourse on twitter. You can see many of the gl fans dissing them and straight manga fans only cause they didn't want them reading their gl/baihe. Pretty weird. They claim to love girls love but diss any girl that doesn't go with their morals and read slop yuri. They tried to crucifix a few yuri fans who also ......
misogyny....and yuri???