my favorite “bad” lgbt rep:

I need to say something and I need y'all to be calm

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

yes, silly simple representation can annoy you if you've read thousands of pages about queer liberation or disability radical thought, but sometimes things are not for you.

Y'know, there's this gripe I've had for years that really frustrates me, and it has to do with Love, Simon and people joking about it and calling it too-pg and designed-for-straight-people and all the like. (A similar thing has happened to Heartstopper, but that's another conversation.)

I saw Love, Simon in theaters when it came out my senior year in high school. I saw it three times, once with my friends/parents on opening night, once with my brother over spring break, and once with my grandparents.

On opening night, the air in the room was electric. It was palpable. Half the heads in there were dyed various colors. Queer kids were holding hands. We were all crying and laughing and cheering as a group. My friends grabbed my hands at the part where Simon was outed and didn't let go until his parents were saying that they accepted him. My friend came out to me as non-binary. Another person in our group admitted that she had feelings for girls. It was incredible. I left shaking. This was the first mainstream queer romance movie that had ever been produced by one of the main five studios, and I know that sounds like another "first queer character from Disney" bit but you have to understand that even in 2018 this was groundbreaking. Getting to have a sweet queer rom-com where the main character was told that he got "to breathe now" after coming out meant so much to me and my friends.

But also, from a designed-for-straight-people POV (which, to be frank, it was written by a bisexual author and directed by a gay man, this was not designed for straight audiences), why is it a bad thing that it appealed to the widest possible audience? That it could make my parents and grandparents see things in a new light? My stepdad wasn't at all interested in rom-coms but he saw it with me because it was something I cared about and he hugged me when we came out of the theater. My very Catholic grandparents watched it with me and though my grandpa said he still didn't quite understand the whole 'gay thing,' all he wanted was for me to be happy and to have a happy ending like Simon did. My Nana actually cried when Simon came out and squeeze my hand when his mother told him he could breathe.

And when Martin blackmailed Simon, my mom, badass ally that she is, literally hissed "Dropkick him. Dropkick him in the balls" leading to multiple queer kids in the audience to laugh or smile. Having my parents there- the only parents, by the way, out of my group of queer and questioning friends- made multiple people realize that supportive adults were out there. That parents like those in Love, Simon do exist in real life.

When people complain about Heartstopper not being realistic or Love, Simon being too cutesy, I remember seeing Love, Simon on opening night. I remember my friend coming out and my stepdad hugging me and my mom defending us through this character. I remember the cheers that went through the audience when Bram and Simon kissed and the chatter in the foyer after the movie was over and the way that this movie made me understand that happy endings do exist.

Queer kids need happy endings. Straight people need entry points to becoming allies. Both of these things can come together in beautiful ways. They can find out about more queer culture later, but for now, let them have this. Let them all have a glimpse at a better, happier world. Let them have queer joy.

Something I don’t think enough people recognize when it comes to making shows more diverse, there is so much going on behind the scene that you literally can’t “just add them.” 

Alex Hirsch had to wait until the end of Gravity Falls to show that Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland were in love so that way the show didn’t get prematurely cancelled. And even still, that was censored in other countries. 

________

The Owl House has a bisexual afro Latina protagonist that falls in love with a white lesbian. They kiss several times on screen and say “my awesome girlfriend.” It also has Disney’s first nonbinary character (Raine Whispers), their bisexual love interest (Eda Clawthorne), and an aro/ace woman (Lilith Clawthorne). However, because like five people said that TOH wasn’t the “Disney brand” the show is prematurely cancelled. So even with everything that TOH did, it only won battle but lost the war. 

________

The art crew for Encanto had to fight to make Luisa buff. And when they were finally able to make her buff, Disney didn’t make as much Luisa merchandise because they thought little girls would want Mirabel or Isabela’s since they’re more “feminine.” (I think the same thing happened with Namaari when RATLD came out but I’m not sure. So don’t quote me on that.)

*Also, Luisa out preformed. So that’s a win. 

________

Bubblegum and Marceline couldn’t kiss until the series finale of Adventure Time because it would’ve been cancelled. So throughout the entire series, the crew always just had to imply undertones about their past. Since HBO produced Obsidian, they were able to kiss on screen.

________

Korra and Asami’s relationship had to tempt down so that way Nick could continue airing the show and they weren’t allowed to kiss until the comics. 

________

Turning Red got so much unwarranted criticism because not only did Mei’s mom say “pads” but she showed them on screen. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if that made you uncomfortable, that’s a sign that we need to do this more and not less.)

________

Some countries marked She Ra as 18+ because Catra and Adora kissed on screen. (Once again, I’m not sure if this completely true but Nate Stevenson had to fight to actually show them kissing on screen instead of a fade to white.)

________

Steven Universe is the gayest show I’ve ever seen in my life which was both good and bad. It was good for obvious reasons. Example being that it was the first show that introduced to me nonbinary people in a way that wasn’t “haha, look, she uses they/them pronouns. She’s so funny and quirky.” 

And it’s bad because it put a target on it’s back. SU has been censored so much that it’s honestly a miracle that we got an ending. And in most of the countries that censored SU, they usually portray Ruby as a man. So I can’t imagine how bad the censors were when the wedding happened and Ruby wore a dress and Sapphire wore a suit. 

________

Also, you have to remember the outdated idea that gay/trans topics are “too mature” for kids to handle (there’s an episode of Adam Ruins Everything that talks about this). So it’s easier for shows with an older audience (like Arcane) to have queer/trans rep.

Not to mention, if you ever go on Insider’s website to look at the queer/trans characters in cartoons [here], most of the characters are revealed to be queer only online and not in the actual show.

________

All of this BS because God forbid that kids find out that other people exist. 

Representation is important but please, just be aware of the actually struggles that go on that you don’t see and be thankful that this is where we are now because even though it might seem like it at times remember that this is actual progress. We need to keep pushing studios to do more. I’m sure that there’s millions of untold stories that would be made if not for this prejudice. 

Yk something that lowkey really bugs me? I hate how often when people talk about Steven Universe in terms of LGBTQ rep, there’s always this stupid ‘I know, but’ angle to it. Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about the stuff other people don’t like about its writing (hell, quite frankly there are plenty of things that are arguably better regarded which I find less compelling or worse written). It was a series with not just one or two but literally dozens of queer characters, and told a story about self-acceptance and fighting against bigoted systems of power that spoke to me and a lot of people, one which didn’t pretend prejudice and abuse don’t exist like some shows with LGBTQ rep like to. And it did it before almost any other kid’s shows even touched the subject- you wouldn’t have stuff like She-Ra or TOH without it and their showrunners have basically said as much. It deserves to be treated as the jewel in the crown of Gay Cartoons and not just some also-ran.

although this is a big step forward, please do not forget that Disney donated a large sum of money to the 'Dont Say Gay' Bill and how Disney treats all of its creators who are trying to add lgbt characters into their shows

the new baymax show is killing the game tbh

i get that for most people tragedy is just always gonna feel Bad to read and that informs a lot of bury your gays discourse but we must not forget that a lot of people sincerely enjoy writing and reading tragedy and queer audiences still deserve to have good tragedies written by and for them imo

like i hope i don't have to explain that there's a difference between a lovingly crafted tragic romance by a queer author featuring characters that represent them and a shitty tv show introducing a single gay character for brownie points then immediately killing them off for shock value

So look. I agree there should be more queer folks involved in the creation of media, particularly mainstream media. (Other groups too but I’m speaking on queer folks right now.) Queer people are underrepresented and shoved to the side and poorly portrayed and that sucks, and there should be more of us involved, particularly when it comes to telling our stories.

HOWEVER

Nothing good comes of the idea that ONLY queer folks should tell queer stories or portray queer characters, or that it’s okay to critique and harass straight folks purely for telling queer stories.

Why?

1. Segregation is not going to work in our favor. We know how “well make your own, then” plays out when the other group has the resources and institutional power. Especially if there’s no one even making them pay lip service to “separate but equal.” It’s not going to be any better if the segregation is self-imposed.

2. Saying straight folks can’t make queer media gives them a convenient excuse to simply not include any queer characters at all in the majority of stories, and I thought we hated that? I thought that was explicitly a bad thing? We WANT straight creators to be doing their best to write us well so we’ll be represented in a full range of mainstream media. Saying they can’t do it right and shouldn’t try lets them off the hook.

3. It puts closeted queer creators in a bind. Either they stay closeted and be harassed by angry queer folks, they come out and expose themselves to harassment from bigots, or they simply never tell queer stories, their own stories. The world gets worse for some subset of queer folks and fewer authentic queer stories get told. Net loss.

4. It makes the small pool of out queer creators the arbiters of queer narratives, which sucks for people who don’t see themselves well represented. There is no single definitive queer narrative and the smaller the pool of Approved Creators the more we risk instating a false one.

5. It opens the door to further divisions within the community. If a straight person can’t possibly understand a trans person well enough to write about or act them, can a cis gay person? So should a cis gay man ONLY write characters who are cis gay men? Ridiculous. No, all queer people are not alike and do not have the same experiences. So either we need to overcome that to learn about and empathize with other people and stand in solidarity, or we’re all going to splinter off into our own little bubbles which, again, is explicitly bad for both our real-life community and our fiction.

We want people to write about others who aren’t like them. We want people to write about others who aren’t like them. We also want people like us to have the opportunity to tell our stories but making it an exclusive privilege can only backfire.

LGBT Representation: Saga

Prince Robot IV (Genderfluid Bisexual)

Introduced: 2012 (Issue #1)

Happily married to his wife, but admits in Issue 17 that he’s had sexual fantasies about everyone in his former platoon, male and female alike. And then in Issue #46, he tells Petrichor that her identity as a trans woman doesn’t bother because his own gender identity is fluid. 

Izabel (Lesbian)

Introduced: 2012 (Issue #2)

Since she’s a ghost who’s been dead for decades, Izabel doesn’t really have an active love life to discuss her sexuality, but in Issue 23, she mentions one of her biggest regrets was not realizing how precious her relationship with her ex-girlfriend was until after she’d already died. 

Gwendolyn (Bisexual)

Introduced In: 2012 (Issue #8)

She’s the ex-girlfriend of Marko, and she falls in love with The Will, but Issue 16 reveals that she lost her virginity to a woman named Velour, who she ends up marrying in the 6th arc. 

Upsher (Gay)

Introduced In: 2013 (Issue #13)

Upsher and Doff have been in an open romantic relationship since their first appearance. 

Doff (Gay)

Introduced In: 2013 (Issue #13)

He and Doff are already in an established relationship when they first appear. And they are adorable together.    

Velour (Unspecified)

Introduced In: 2013 (Issue #16 {as a hallucination. Appears in person in Issue #38)

She first appears to her ex-girlfriend Gwendolyn as a plant-induced hallucination, before appearing for real during the War For Phang arc as Gwendolyn’s wife. 

Petrichor (Transgender)

Introduced In: 2015 (Issue #31)

Her very first appearance has her explaining her identity to Hazel after the latter walks in on her in the showers. 

adding a version from a gay man for u wlw out there

It’s true and you should say it

that supergirl lesbian kiss where the girls look like they are going to quit after that take is the polar opposite of the scene in brokeback where alma sees jack and ennis making out and heath ledger almost broke jake gyllenhaals nose

the binary

#someone said ‘the supergirl kiss looks like when michael kissed oscar on the office’ and it does and i’m screaming

this is literally the same gif

I fucking choked

Hollywood cast queer folks to play queer characters challenge. And cast POC to play POC

This last point is absolutely true.

HOWEVER.

Having been in high school when Brokeback Mountain came out, I can tell you Heath and Jake took A LOT of heat for many of the scenes in it (including this one), because they WEREN’T all awkward and afraid to touch each other. They both went in with the attitude of “we’ve been hired to portray a relationship, and we’re going to do that.” I lost count of the number of times they were asked if it was weird/different to kiss another man. I think it was Jake who made the most confused face ever at the camera and kind of went “….no…..? A kiss is a kiss?” The speculation on their sexualities ran RAMPANT—at the same time that Heath started dating Michelle Williams (who played his wife, in the most positive-but-ironic turn of events ever). They literally were basically not allowed to say “queer people are people, and you don’t have to be queer to see that queer people can love and cherish each other emotionally and physically.” They did their best to do that, working against a mass media that was going “look, it’s a story about TWO MEN!! And they HAVE SEX!!! HOW FREAKY!!!”

So while I agree that in 2019 we should be aspiring to cast queer actors to play queer roles, please recognize that the fact we can aspire to that now is partly because of what two straight actors did fifteen years ago, when they decided they weren’t going to be afraid to risk breaking each other’s faces in a show of passion and longing.

#I’m happy that young queers are getting so much compared to my youth #but there’s such a lack of understanding at the same time #like you can tell they never grew up in a world where their first experience with queerness was a brutal violent murder

Brokeback Mountain was released in 2005.

Lawrence v Texas, the lawsuit that overturned sodomy laws that made gay sex illegal, was in 2003.

The cast was set before SCOTUS made that ruling. The film was already being planned at a time when gay sex was a crime in more than a dozen US states.

They couldn’t “get queer actors to play queer roles” because the majority of queer actors were deeply closeted, because it was a crime in a lot of places, including all of Texas and Florida. Your movie has a scene at Disneyworld? Can’t have known queer actors or they could be arrested during filming.

I don’t know how to get across how different it is now.

Insider is creating a database to track queer representation in children's cartoons. I searched through it a bit and it's pretty cool. I wished it had some links to sources of confirmation to some of them and I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is, but it seems accurate enough at first glance. You can check it out yourself if you want.

today’s topic : diversity.

actually im just gonna make my own post about it: please read more webcomics. please try them. every time people make posts about “aw man i wish SOMEone would WRITE about FLAVOR OF QUEER THING/TRAUMA OR ABUSE BUT IN SPECIFIC WAYS I CAN RELATE TO/WHATEVER” and then it gets reblogged into a giant thread of people agreeing with it and demanding Content i die because whatever it is is definitely being painstakingly created by an indie author who would really like for people to consume it and every time i point this out people suddenly can’t read lmao

it is out there it is free it is being made from firsthand experiences by people who care very very deeply who would be DELIGHTED to hear that it’s resonating with anybody at all, please throw some of that enthusiasm and support at people who will actually appreciate it

if you’re an indie comic person and any of this applies to you i encourage you to reblog this with a link to your comic and a short synopsis so people can browse the notes and find shit they’re looking for. or make your own post on your own blog if you don’t want to fool with other people i don’t care this is a sign from the universe that you should be louder about what you’re working on because people can’t fucking find it apparently.

i’ll go first i make kidd commander and it’s about an ensemble cast of queers on their way to kill god, they live on an airship and they’re all too pissed off to die. it’s free to read and it’s in the middle of its third arc right now. it lives here http://kiddcommander.com/

go go go

on second thought gonna add if you’re a READER and you’ve had Feelings about a webcomic feel free to recommend it here too

In addition to Kidd Commander, I enjoy:

Dumbing of Age - semi-autobiographical webcomic by an ex-Christian fundamentalist; explores a wide bevy of social justice issues in more nuanced ways than I often see, especially in regards to abuse

Monster Pulse - A group of kids (some of them explicitly queer) have their body parts turn into monsters; great analyses of trauma and transhumanism

Leftover Soup - slice-of-life story about the most philosophically inclined 20somethings in the world, seriously they spiral off into fascinating discussions all the time, this is basically Having Difficult Conversations: The Webcomic; the opening is terrible but stick with it

Forward - I’m just gonna link to the author’s artist’s statement and you can decide for yourself if it’s for you

i follow a lot of podcasts, i can put together a curated list.

http://ohumanstar.com/ is incredible, it’s about trans robots (in minneapolis! not a huge plot point, but it’s where i’m from). it finished recently, so you can have a completed reading experience.

https://www.baldwinpage.com/spacetrawler/2010/01/01/spacetrawler-4/ spacetrawler started as the story of six humans kidnapped by an incompetent alien to help free the eebs, an enslaved alien race. it’s very good, sometimes it hits very hard. the first and second series are complete, the third series is updating currently.

http://www.rice-boy.com/see/ rice boy is a “brightly colored and surreal fantasy adventure story”. bittersweet chosen one stuff. also by the same author is the order of tales (completed) and vattu (on going, i think it’s near completion)

https://www.egscomics.com/ very queer cast of magical teens. starts out very rough, but that was 19 years ago. lots of gender transformation magic and magical hijinks, with a helping of tragic backstories and nerd stuff.

https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1 about a couple of weird magic british school children at a weird british boarding school. there are a couple chapters in particular that hit hard. also, it’s just very well drawn and written and it always updates MWF, which is more than most webcomics can say.

http://diggercomic.com/ digger is just a good comic, i should reread it again, it’s been awhile. it’s about a “take-no-nonsense” wombat who finds herself dealing with a talking buddha statue, a tribe of the best anthropomorphic hyenas you’ll see, and a dead god.

boy have i got good news for YOU

the good news is that on this list (to my limited knowledge) both my comic and gunnerkrigg court feature wlw protagonists!

the other good news is there are TONS of us working outside the aggregate sites, please please don’t assume those companies are indicative of everything going on in webcomics as a genre. my thoughts on that could fill a whole other post but i wanted to bring it up here at least.

I also just remembered there’s the website https://archivebinge.com , which is FANTASTIC if you’re looking for something specific. It’s limited by the fact that the creator needs to post the comic themself, but it’s got a great tagging system for both genres and content warnings:

and lets you know when new posts go up even on independent sites! Extremely useful for finding and reading a bunch of comics without taking agency from the creators.

i read a shitton of webcomics but here are my recs specifically for ones that aren’t on networks like hiveworks so they need more love (on mobile so sorry if formatting gets weird)

Softies i can’t summarize better than page one sorry. there’s a bit about a stubbed toe that will hit you like a freight train to the feels.

Job Satisfaction is slice of life about queers and demons and queer demons.

Radio Silence is a coming of age story about a British band on tour.

Ingress Adventuring Company is about Professor Toivo Kissa. He is an elf and he goes on adventures instead of doing his job, which is professoring.

Skin Deep is about a girl who goes to college and finds out she’s a sphinx (i feel like everyone reads skin deep but also not enough people read skin deep).

Sfeer Theory has a magical university for a very complicated magic system, if you’re into Lore.

Outliers takes place in a superhero world but these boys are just trying to be happily married in peace.

Some LGBT webcomics just off the top of my head

Muted - fantasy comic about a gay, poly witch in New Orleans.

Paranatural - All ages fantasy comic about middle schoolers who fight ghosts.

2 Slices - Classic, trope-y romance comic with a queer spin

Alice and the nighmare - Fantasy/sci-fi retelling of Alice in Wonderland.

Sleepless Domain - Magical Girl genre deconstruction. In a mysterious fantasy/sci-fi world where teenage girls sometimes have superpowers, how are those girls treated and valued? Content warning: This comic is usually pretty cute but has some serious violence early on.

Chaos Life - autobiographical slice-of-life comics about an agender illistrator and their gay, disabled wife.

Boy In Pink Earmuffs - All ages comic about two best friends who solve mysteries together and are also crushing on eachother.

Magical Boy - Fantasy comic about a trans boy who finds out he’s descended from a long line of magical girls and is destined to save the world. (tapas exclusive)

what’s up if you’re in the notes looking for recs you can’t see most of them because tumblr hides anything with a link in it, view this reblog to see a big ol’ list of webcomic links

tiger tiger is so gorgeous and funny! a girl steals her twin brother’s identity and jaunts off with his ship to study sea sponges. really amazing.

skinhorse it’s been a long time since i caught up but i’ve admired garrity since i was reading narbonic in middle school. skinhorse is about a government department full of weirdos that tries to regulate nonhuman intelligences and it’s also just very funny and cute.

kill six billion demons is extremely dense, extremely gorgeous. a woman wakes up in hell with a magic thingy in her forehead and it only gets weirder from there.

https://pathtotimbala.com/ - Paru is a little noblelady boasting all sorts of impressive ancestors, but the only ones she really cares about are the royalty of ancient Timbala– who according to legend left behind an empty city of wonders! Less legendary are the “sigils” that only timbalan royals can attune to, and which confer all sorts of superhuman skills. So she leaves home with her parents’ blessing to go play adventurer archaeologist, kicking ass and making friends along the way!

Comic includes: Paru’s homebody girlfriend, a gifted weaver who decided to become a paladin, a very dangerous sheep, an autistic elf, whatever Lord Ursulanov is, thigh boots, Badass Lady Samurai Of Mystery. It’s almost at the end of the second arc and there’s so much more to come!

https://various-everythings.tumblr.com/

https://tapas.io/series/Various-Everythings - Various Everythings is a queer slice-of-life fantasy webcomic that follows the individual occurrences between David, a young witch who’s a sex worker, Seirath, a newly appointed succubus, and Mathias, a demon who is a veterinarian for the small petting zoo/farm he works at. 

(the comic is both on tumblr and tapas hell yeah!)

David explaining his pansexuality to Stevie

This is SO well done. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻