Why lesbian erasure should be a focus of Women's History Month
Lesbians exist.
Lesbians, like gay men, have always existed.
If there is a singular lesson to be learned this LGBT History Month, it is that lesbians didn’t just appear suddenly in the 20th century, anomalous figures with no antecedents throughout history. Lesbians have lived and loved and had bodice-ripping passionate sex for millennia.
In a brutal irony, the erasing of lesbian sexuality has been done most effectively by female academics who hesitate to define same-sex relationships between women as sexual for reasons that are wholly rooted in male contrivance of female sexuality and the male gaze on it. The theory that women never performed sexual acts together before the 20th century is appallingly smug and not a little homophobic.
Every woman regardless of her orientation knows from a young age that lesbians are a trigger for men. The most common retort when a woman rejects a man’s advances or catcalls is to call her a "dyke" or "lesbo." It happens every day, everywhere. The terms are meant to be both vulgar and dismissive, like "lezzie," a diminution and infantilizing of a very real female sexual orientation.
This lesbophobic, misogynist and blatantly ahistorical erasure of lesbian sexuality is similar to the erasure of all autonomous female sexuality: women’s sexual desire has always been viewed, discussed and portrayed within the construct and purview of the male gaze, and as such has never seemed complete without the intrusion of a male into that space of wholly female desire. The trope of a male entering onto the scene of a lesbian sexual coupling just in time to "complete" the sex has been recorded in erotica and pornography since at least the 17th century in the West and far earlier in Asian erotic art.
One of the most notorious depictions of lesbian sexuality occurs in John Cleland’s infamous erotic novel, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, more commonly known by its smutty name, Fanny Hill, published in 1748. (In British slang "Fanny" means vulva, hence Fanny Hill was a cheeky play on mons veneris.)
In Cleland’s novel, Fanny engages in lesbian sex with Phoebe, a bisexual prostitute. Fanny also witnesses – and describes vividly – other lesbian sex scenes. The novel was first banned in the U.S. in 1821 in Boston, and may have been a progenitor for the term "banned in Boston."
Initially the American colonies had sought to imprison lesbians. The criminalization of same-sex female relationships followed that of English Common Law. How often it was actually enforced is unclear. But in the U.S. alone there were laws against lesbianism as early as the 17th century. If there hadn’t been examples of lesbians and lesbian sex, why the laws prohibiting it?
In 1636, John Cotton of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proposed a law prohibiting sex between two women, punishable by death. The law read, "Unnatural filthiness, to be punished with death, whether sodomy, which is carnal fellowship of man with man, or woman with woman, or buggery, which is carnal fellowship of man or woman with beasts or fowls." There is no record of this law being enacted.
In 1649 in Plymouth Colony, Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were prosecuted for "lewd behavior with each other upon a bed." The trial documents are the only known record of sex between female English colonists in North America in the 17th century. Hammon, who was the younger of the two, was given a formal admonition, but Norman was convicted. As part of her punishment, she had to allocute publicly to her "unchaste behavior" with Hammon.
In 1655, the Connecticut colony passed a law criminalizing sodomy between women (and men). In 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposed a federal law that included lesbian and gay sex. The law read, "Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least."
Lesbianism has been perceived by many–and Sigmund Freud perpetuated this misperception--as a phase of female sexuality that women grow out of. Schoolgirl crushes and teenage experimentation with lesbian relationships was written about by Freud as a stepping-stone to "true," "adult" female sexuality: heterosexuality. (Ironically or not, Freud’s daughter, Dr. Anna Freud, was in a lesbian relationship with child psychoanalyst Dr. Dorothy Tiffany-Burlingham for more than 50 years.)
Is language the problem? It’s true that the terminology itself is fairly recent. "Homosexual" was first coined in an 1869 pamphlet written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny to decry anti-sodomy laws in Germany. In 1886, Richard Krafft-Ebing, the noted German psychiatrist, coined the terms "heterosexuality" and "homosexuality" in his work Psychopathia Sexualis.
The term "lesbian" was first seen in poems by men in the 1860s and then more commonly as a medical term for lesbian sex in 1890. The term "Sapphist" occurs earlier, in early 19th century poetry and literature.
The Greek poet Sappho. Courtesy photo.
The Greek poet, Sappho, whose birthplace of Lesbos spawned the term "lesbianism" and whose name has become synonymous with female homosexuals—Sapphists—was born in 630 B.C. The relationship of Ruth and Naomi in the Bible and Talmud, the oft-cited verses in Leviticus as well as St. Paul’s comments on same-sex relationships in Corinthians all signal lesbianism as a real–and definitively sexual–fact.
Sappho’s extant poetry and other writings explore her love for other girls and women and there are depictions in art throughout the centuries from classical Greece to the 19th century pre-Raphaelites of lesbian lovers entwined in each others’ arms, often fully naked. At the turn of the last century, Toulouse-Lautrec and other French and German post-Impressionists incorporated lesbians into their work as denizens of a Bohemian demi-monde. In Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin communities of lesbians were thriving, albeit underground, which by the turn of the 19th into the 20th century would include large enclaves of American women, expatriates whose names are now revived each year at LGBT history month as veritable monoliths in our compendia of writers and artists: Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Romaine Brooks, Djuna Barnes, Natalie Barney, Josephine Baker, Renée Vivien, Ida Rubenstein and more. While these women fled the U.S. and the mores that made it difficult for them to live the openly–some would claim flagrantly–lesbian lives they led in the U.S., there remained hundreds of thousands of lesbians still in America, leading very different lesbian lives–yet not the neutered lives we have been led to believe.
Part II
Examples of lesbian sexuality are all over early American history. The 19th century saw a myriad of reasons why lesbianism was actually embraced, right up until the turn of the 20th century, when it wasn’t. If there are all these depictions of blissfully naked lesbians over centuries, why does anyone keep writing that "We don’t really know if A and B who shared the same bed for 50 years were sexual"?
They were.
There is ample proof if we examine the confluent and overlapping milieux of women’s education and the suffrage movement, both of which opened up new vistas for women to examine their choices in society. One of those choices was lesbian relationships instead of marriage to a man and the constraints of a family. Raising children and running a household was restrictive of women’s time and energy and left little for the work of suffrage or social reform. Lesbian relationships bore none of the oppressive and repressive hallmarks of compulsory heterosexuality. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was married to a man and the mother of seven, but who had a long relationship with Susan B. Anthony, wrote of her same-sex relationship, "I prefer a tyrant of my own sex, so I shall not deny the patent fact of my subjection; for I do believe that I have developed into much more of a woman under her jurisdiction."
Susan B. Anthony. Courtesy photo.
For her part, Anthony was clear: Men held women back. At 18 she had written in her diary, "I think any female would rather live and die an old maid." Throughout her life as a suffragist she never failed to mourn the losses of other suffragists to the constraints of marriage and family which overrode their time and took them from the cause of women’s enfranchisement. The efforts to suppress women’s independence were hardly new. For millennia women’s lives had been controlled, particularly their sexual autonomy.
How do we know women were engaged in sexual lesbian relationships? We know because teenage girls and young women were already having sex together at boarding schools and seminaries–why would they stop when they got older?
When women’s education advanced past the local schoolhouse and became an acceptable option in the 19th century, same-sex seminaries – places for secondary education – began to evolve. One of the pressing concerns in the writings of the time was lesbianism. Young female students – most in their mid to late teens – were developing what were reductively referred to as "passionate" or "romantic" friendships. Mashes, crushes, smashes: these were all terms used to describe love affairs between young women at school in the late 19th century.
At the same time, women’s education was becoming more of a concern as a masculinizing threat to feminine–and heterosexual–women. In 1874, Edward Clarke wrote of the dangers of these all-female environments turning women into men. Sex Education or a Fair Chance for Girls is one such exhibit of social fears. Too much education for women would be perilous, Clarke explained, repeating anxieties that women were both too limited to absorb education as men do and that if they were inculcated with too much knowledge, it would harm them irreparably by turning them into, well, lesbians.
Clarke argued that studying hard in an all-female environment would do damage to women’s reproductive organs, tax their brains and cause hysteria "and other derangements of the nervous system." Clarke evinced concern that if women became too educated and too independent they would also become masculine.
Lesbianism was a significant threat, according to Clarke, and educated women had to be careful to "remain women, not strive to be men, or they will ignominiously fail."
Charles Thwing, warning of the lesbian takeover of women’s colleges, in 1894 in The College Woman, was succinct 20 years after Clarke: What if women became "brutes" at college and lost their femininity by behaving like men? Worse, Thwing asserted, what if educated women began to think that relationships between women were a substitute for heterosexual relationships?
Against the backdrop of a burgeoning suffrage movement was this pulse of women educating themselves and becoming more and more independent of men. Thwing never mentioned moral objections to these lesbian relationships within the confines of colleges, but he did believe their intensity—women being far more emotional than men—was dangerous to the young lovers’ health.
“Many college friendships are exceedingly exhausting,” Thwing said. “Women give themselves up more readily than men to intimate relations. College officers are wise in cautioning students against too warm friendships, especially against forming them in the first year of college life.”
The shift away from the embrace of these lesbian affairs that had once been seen as a means of keeping women’s sexuality in check occurred because fewer women were ready to marry once they had had an education. Lesbian relationships were fine as Freudian stepping stone to grown-up heterosexual relationships, but not as an end in themselves. All these fears about lesbians abounded, even as people were told that lesbian sexuality was actually a fiction.
But was it? The most famous lesbian in America in the 19th century was suffragist Susan B. Anthony, whose affairs with women–the aforementioned Elizabeth Cady Stanton as well as Rachel Avery, Anna Dickinson, and Emily Gross--were well-known even at the time.
Anthony was one of the most ardent and vociferous suffragists and as such was targeted by the media as a "manly," which was the worst accusation that could be hurled at a woman. It was an accusation she refuted in a 1900 essay titled "The New Century’s Manly Woman."
Ida B. Wells. Courtesy photo.
Anthony believed strongly that women were damaged by their relationships with men, which she perceived as stifling a woman’s talents and abilities beyond the maintaining of home and family. Ida B. Wells, the journalist, suffragist and civil rights activist, complained that once she married and had her first child, Anthony was annoyed with her, telling her that she was too talented for marriage and motherhood.
In erasing the physical passion of the lesbian relationships among suffragists, historians miss the importance that that sexual component had for these women–the very reason their heterosexual peers married: companionable, accessible, intimate sex.
In her love affair with Dickinson, Anthony wrote flirtatiously. But it had been Dickinson–much pursued by other women–who had pursued the older Anthony. She wrote, "I want to see you very much indeed, to hold your hand in mine, to hear your voice, in a word, I want you — I can't have you? Well, I will at least put down a little fragment of my foolish self and send it to look up at you."
Are we expected to believe these were sexless exchanges of the mind only? That’s revisionist nonsense. Whether or not these women put the word "lesbian" to their relationships did not make those relationships any less fully lesbian–including sexually.
Anna E. Dickinson. Courtesy photo.
Anthony also wrote encouraging words to Dickinson, who was on the front lines as well, noting, "Ah, Anna, your mission will brighten and beautify every day if you will but keep the eye of your own spirit turned within ... [where] that precious jewel of truth is to be sought — and formed — And darling — you will find it & speak it, and live it — and all men and women will call you blessed."
The letters between the two are full of over-heated comments and sexy talk; these women who have been portrayed as "unsexed" or "old maids," were in fact engaged in passionate affairs that propelled them forward in their work for women.
Throughout America there were lesbian couples at the women’s colleges and in the various reform movements from abolition to suffrage and then the rising social work and worker’s rights movements. The “Boston Marriage”–two women living together–was desexualized specifically because men feared those relationships and how they might spread, like a contagion.
That fear is an undercurrent and thread throughout Henry James’ classic novel The Bostonians, in which a romantic triangle includes Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a Boston feminist and suffragist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protégée of Olive's. The entirety of the 1886 novel is a battle between Basil and Olive for the affections of Verena–as well as for her personhood. That Basil and Olive are presented as equal suitors for Verena’s love is indicative of how deeply lesbian relationships had penetrated the Zeitgeist and how confused and confusing it was for society in deciding what to do with both the relationships and the lesbians themselves.
They were there–from Sappho to Susan B. Anthony–these lesbians with their passionate affairs and life-long partnerships. Nearly 400 years ago, Mary Hammon and Sarah Norman may have been the only lesbian couple in America prosecuted for "being lewd upon a bed together," but they were not the only lesbian couple being lewd upon a bed, nor kissing a girl and liking it. All history has an element of revisionism, but to revise the breadth of lesbian sexuality out of these relationships because they were in a time before our own is to erase a significant part of our history, and as such, ourselves.
Author’s note: for the purposes of space, except for brief references, this article focuses on lesbian couplings in the United States.
Trixie Mattel and Kim Chi Makeup Collaboration
If you haven't heard of Kim Chi, she is the first Korean-American on RuPaul's Drag Race and was named one of the most powerful drag queens in America. Kim Chi was runner-up on Season 8 of RuPaul's Drag RaceRuPaul's Drag Race and was sent home by Bob The Drag Queen later in the season. Well, since then, she's been quite busy. She started her own makeup line and has been making appearances all over the place. Now, she's teamed up with none other than Trixie Mattel to do a limited edition makeup collaboration.
We got in a little chat with Kim Chi where she talks about life, love, the runway...nah, just kidding. She did take some time out to answer a few questions for us on what it was like being on RPDR, what one product she can't live without, and so much more.
All of the products are cruelty-free and 2% of all sales to The Trevor Project. If you haven't checked out Kim Chi's beauty line, you should, the KimChi Chic Beauty line is stocked with a ton of makeup products and that bowtie is pretty cute too.
Q: What brought you to the decision to start a makeup line?
WTHighlight Double Diamonds makeup
Photo courtesy of KimChi Chic Beauty
A: The options were very limited for good affordalbe makeup, so it was important to me to create quality makeup that every makeup lover could enjoy.
Q: What does the collaboration between you and Trixie Mattel look like?
A: Putrid. Pungent. Audacious. It is a perfect representation of both Trixie and my style!
Q: Where and how did the two of you meet and subsequently become BFFs?
A: She stalked me on Facebook and forced me to book her in Chicago. Haven’t been able to get away from her since!
Q: What makeup product can you NOT live without?
A: Definitely eyeliner. The KimChi Chic Beauty Stage Proof Liquid Liner and The Effin Liner never leaves my makeup kit.
Q: Can you give us some makeup tips?
A: Don’t be afraid to experiment. It's okay to wipe away mistakes and start over if needed.
Q: How has appearing on RuPaul shaped your lives, career, and outlook?
A: It has made me the 17th most powerful drag queen in the world according to some list by a famous publication. Kidding again! It gave me this really amazing platform to live out my wildest dreams, connect with people all around the world, and hopefully inspire others like myself. It showed me the importance of holding on to your passions and living life authentically.
Q: What are your top 3 charities to support?
A: Seniors Fight Back, The Trevor Project, Elton John Aids Foundation
Q: What 2 things would you say to an aspiring drag queen?
A: Success doesn't happen overnight, be patient and prepare to spend a lot of money!
Q: How big of a difference is it between your drag queen persona and non-drag queen persona? Or is there? Do you sometimes forget when you’re “on” or “off”?
A: It depends on whether I’m wearing a wig or not. Kim is a little louder, snarkier, and outgoing than Sang.
Q: What’s next? You have the appearances, the collaboration, the friendship…What is on the horizon?
A: Lots of touring, more KimChi Chic Beauty launches, and one day...hopefully, retirement!
Q: What would you be doing if you weren't a drag queen performer and makeup entrepreneur?
A: Before doing drag I was an art director, so probably something similar relating to fashion design, art, or something similar.
KimChi Chic Beauty
KimChi Chic Beauty and Trixie Mattel Makeup Line
Photo courtesy of KimChi Chic Beauty
You can see the limited edition Trixie x Kim Chi Collab BFF4EVR on KimChi's Chic Beauty site. It's a fun and whimsical product line. The limited edition includes 5 different products with various shades and colors to choose from as well as a KimChi and Trixie Girl Fan or purchase the entire line in one bundle.
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Rumble Boxing Gulch, Nashville
Rumble Boxing, the boxing-inspired group fitness studio, opened its doors for the first time in Nashville on June 20 at 609 Overton St, Nashville, TN. The hottest workout on the block is hosting its official grand opening from August 4th-7th with daily classes, membership specials, and prizes from local vendors. The new Rumble Boxing studio is currently offering a buy one class, get one free promotion for the Nashville community.
Rumble Boxing delivers 45-minute, 10-round, strength and conditioning group workouts, crafted around teardrop-style aqua boxing bags and high-intensity strength training circuits. This brings all fitness levels together to experience what Rumble is known for: combining the sweet science of boxing with high energy and positive vibes.
Boutique Fitness
Rumble Boxing Fitness Studio
Photo courtesy of Rumble Boxing Gulch Nashville
This boutique fitness brand offers serious benefits like increased stamina and strength, with cardio that’s actually fun. The seasoned trainers at the new studio are thrilled to serve their local community while offering this fun, new modern approach to boxing and welcome members of all fitness levels to the Rumble family.
The new Rumble Boxing studio is owned and operated by Blake Baskin and Antonio Compton. With their background in the fitness industry, this dynamic duo is excited to bring their passion for boxing and group fitness to Nashville. As business and life partners, Blake and Antonio aim to create a strong community within their new Rumble Boxing studio and share their message of non-apologetic inclusivity.
Black and Gay-Owned Business
Rumble Boxing Store with Dolly Parton Mural
Photo courtesy of Rumble Boxing Gulch Nashville
“We own who we are, and this brand aligns with that perfectly,” said Antonio. “This is what we want to create and bring to this community: a fitness class that is designed for anyone and a place for people to be who they are. As a Black and gay-owned business, we want to help lower the division we see in the world right now. Our goal is to bring people together through Rumble, set everything aside, and have fun.”
To echo their message of acceptance and inclusion, Blake and Antonio commissioned a local Nashville artist to paint an 11 X 6-ft. mural of Nashville icon and philanthropist, Dolly Parton. The massive portrait features the country star in Rumble Boxing gear in the lobby of the studio.
The excitement and buzz around Rumble allowed Blake and Antonio to recruit top-tier trainers to head up the new studio, including Head Trainer Oronde Jones, a well-known celebrity trainer in the Nashville market.
Rumble Boxing Fitness Studio
Photo courtesy of Rumble Boxing Gulch Nashville
“Compared to other fitness classes, Rumble is a class you can truly get lost in for 45 minutes. With the dark room, you don’t have to worry if anyone is paying attention to you. The music is awesome and inspiring, and the beat drops right when you need it the most. Also, with boxing being a sport you can never truly master, you’re always improving and crafting your skill. On the floor, you’re consistently doing something new, which prevents you from ever hitting a plateau.” Said Oronde Jones about his favorite part of Rumble.
Rumble has massive brand loyalty and widespread appeal, partly thanks to attracting top names like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Kendall Jenner, Hailey Baldwin, Jason Derulo, David Beckham, and Kevin Hart to its studios.
About Rumble Boxing
Founded in New York City in 2017, Rumble is a group fitness concept delivering a mix (or combination) of boxing-inspired circuits and the transformative power of resistance training. Pro and amateur fighters glove up together, no matter their fitness level or skill, to reveal their inner fighter. The experience is a 45-minute, 10-round, full-body cardio and strength workout crafted around specially designed water-filled, teardrop-style boxing bags. Rumble was founded by Noah Neiman (former Barry’s Bootcamp Master Trainer, and cast member of Bravo’s Work Out New York), Eugene Remm (Co-Founder of Catch Hospitality Group (Catch Restaurants, CATCH STEAK, Lexington Brass), Andy Stenzler (Co-Founder Cosí, Kidville), and Anthony DiMarco (13-time IRONMAN, former Managing Director, Google).
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Mjolnir
Like many of the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe films, LGBTQ+ fans awaited the release of Thor: Love and Thunder in open anticipation of the inclusivity that both Marvel and Disney had promised. However, the fans were only setting themselves up for disappointment when the film was finally released.
Despite passionate assurances from studio heads to key actors, Thor: Love and Thunder was NOT spectacularly gay. It wasn’t even that good…Premiere Night Promises
Lightning bold across the sky
Photo by Bill D.
Standing on the red carpet at the London Premiere of the film, director and actor Taika Waititi and fellow cast members Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson were offered up the inevitable question: “How gay is the film?”
Amidst some laughter from the crowds, Waititi gestured towards Portman to respond. The actress (who plays Thor’s love interest, Jane Foster, throughout the franchise) raised the microphone to her lips and thought for a moment, before delivering a quiet yet fateful: “So gay!”
Barely a moment had passed before the gathered fans went wild and Taika Waititi gave his own verdict: “Super gay!”. Tessa Thompson made no statement on the ‘gayness’ of the film, instead opting to swing her microphone around suggestively. As more cheers erupted, a second round of “super gay” slipped out of Waititi’s mouth, before he urged the fans to enjoy the film.Thor: Love and Thunder’s LGBTQ+ Potential
Thor’s movie-goers were definitely hyped up for a gay extravaganza and they had a specific character in mind. The fan-favorite Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson, stumbled her way into the MCU during Thor’s third film, Ragnarok. The Asgardian warrior won many people over with her wit, sarcasm, and pure badassery.
After the events of Avengers: Endgame *spoilers*, Thor Odinson gives up his claim to the throne of Asgard and names Valkyrie as king in his stead. This left many fans excited to see what would become of the character, especially after certain revelations were made at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con:
“As a new king, she has to find her queen. So that’ll be her first order of business.”
With these words, Tessa Thompson threw her LGBTQ+ fans into a frenzy, with heavy expectations for the then-upcoming fourth installment of the Thor films. Indeed, in an interview with the LA Times, shortly before the film's release, Tessa Thompson was asked to comment on the sexuality of her character. She responded with several promising remarks, including “there’s a lot of folks that are righteously very hungry for that representation to exist in these movies, as am I”.
*Warning: spoilers ahead!*
So, How Gay Was Thor 4?
To put it simply: not gay at all. Not only did Valkyrie end up without a fabulous new queen, her non-heteronormative sexuality only got the barest mention (a brief line about a previous, now dead, girlfriend). Valkyrie may have made bedroom eyes at some pretty ladies before an action scene spoils the moment, but that’s about as much as we get.
The film does get some credit for introducing a trans character in a minor yet significant role. Thor returns to his people (after a brief stint as a Guardian of the Galaxy) only to find out that the daughter of one of his closest (and deceased) friends is now a boy. The issue is, whether due to personal prejudice or some alien inability to grasp the concept of being transgender, it does take Thor a frustrating few moments to come to terms with the change. And to stop deadnaming.
In fact, the only concession to the queer community was Taika Waititi’s extraterrestrial character Korg finding a husband in one of the closing scenes. This heartfelt moment was somewhat underscored by the revelation that Korg’s entire species is male, meaning he had no other choice but to be ‘gay’.This Is Not Marvel’s First Queerbaiting Attempt
Photo by Harry Q.
This is, by far, not the first time that LGBTQ+ fans have been sorely disappointed by the workings of Marvel and Disney. In fact, people across many social media platforms have been chiding expectant viewers for once again falling for classic queerbaiting tactics. “Being queerbaited by the MCU is like being a golden retriever with a human who always pretends to throw the ball”, one Tumblr user declared.
Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, was the perfect moment for the MCU to introduce its first lesbian lead. Larson’s character seemed to have an intense relationship with another woman, going so far as to help raise her child (before Larson’s Carol Danvers disappeared from Earth for 6 years). Despite leaning into several romantic tropes, the status of their relationship was never fully fleshed out. However, it was also the franchise’s first female-led superhero movie, so maybe they thought that introducing her as a lesbian would make the film too awesome.
The heavily anticipated Avengers: Endgame was also slated to introduce the MCU’s ‘first gay character'. While many fans were excited, particularly as this would be the second of Larson’s appearances on screen, the big gay build-up was a massive letdown. The film’s director Joe Russo made a cameo as a blip survivor mourning the loss of his husband. A five-second throw-away scene that had no impact on the outcome of the film. Big whoop...
Even when we did see a film with a gay lead, The Eternals, there were also ten other straight leads. At that point, it just seemed more like basic probability than an attempt at pushing LGBT+ superheroes into the spotlight.
Why Can’t Disney Let Marvel Be Gay?
The big problem with allowing a few characters to be anything other than cishet is that there are still many countries in the world that outlaw homosexuality. As much as we like to think that the MCU is being made for comic book fans, we all know the purpose of the films is to make money for Disney. And without certain markets in Asia and the Middle East, Disney wouldn’t be raking in up to (and over) one billion dollars per theatrical release.
Is There Any Hope For LGBTQ+ Fans In The MCU’s Future?
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the second in the much-loved Black Panther arc, will be released in cinemas this November. The studio has confirmed that the film will contain a queer character. Actress Michaela Coel will play Aneka, a warrior, and trainer of the king’s guard. Whether or not her diversity will stand out in the film (let alone endure for more than a 10-second scene that can be easily cut) remains to be seen.
Next year’s The Marvels film, starring Brie Larson, Iman Vellani, and Lashana Lynch may offer the MCU a chance to redeem itself in the eyes of its LGBT+ fans. The studios may feel it’s finally time to offer us the heartwarming lesbian relationship between Larson’s Carol Danvers and Lynch’s Maria Rambeau that seemed to be teased in the first Captain Marvel. Don’t raise your hopes too high, though, as you may yet end up as a stubborn golden retriever waiting for a cinematic universe to finally throw that rainbow ball.