I Grew Up Without a Mirror

The first time I saw a queer person on TV, he was a gay man in a soap opera. I knew he was gay because that was everything he was. He was an obnoxiously loud hairdresser who constantly flirted with the straight, macho men around him, demonstrating a severe lack of boundaries and making everyone uncomfortable. This man, whose every quality made him more a woman than a man, had limp wrists, a persistent lisp, and constantly put his hands on his hips. His purpose was clear: he was here to be ridiculed.

I’m lying, of course. This wasn’t the first queer character I’ve ever encountered. This was every queer character on Brazilian TV when I was growing up. He was in movies, soap operas, and even children’s shows. I can’t remember when my understanding of him went from “this is a character that acts funny!” to “this is a gay character and that’s why he’s funny!”, but the shift happened and we all understood that homosexuality was to be laughed at and ostracized.

Sure, it was fine in small doses when you needed to get your hair done or when you wanted to have a fun time, but these people were not your friends and neighbors; they were a comedic archetype, along with other commonly seen characters: the fat and undesirable woman who chased gorgeous men, the weak and nerdy kid who was bullied a lot, the promiscuous and dumb blond who should never speak, only smile, and the masculine-coded feminist who made people uncomfortable by calling out the patriarchy.

I suppose one would call them comic relief. After all, they were supposed to be exaggerated to make us laugh. However, we weren’t laughing at these characters because they were funny, though some became rather popular. We were laughing because they were dangerous to the straight men around them. The gay character threatened their masculinity and their understanding of what it meant to be a man.

Queer-coded women were similarly treated, even though they were few and far between. Usually, these masculine women were angry-looking advocates for women’s rights who despised makeup and beauty on principle. They were, of course, put through makeovers that awakened their femininity to the rest of the world and made them acceptable to society and, most importantly, adequate to their male love interest.

These characters came with harmful stereotypes that twisted not only our peers' perception of queerness (and fatness, and femininity, and so on) but also our perception of ourselves. Queerness on TV and on every piece of media I consumed as a child and as a young lady only distorted my image of myself as a fat, angry feminist who liked boys and girls - but that was rather the point, wasn’t it? The LGBTQA+ characters in media were not supposed to be loved and they were not supposed to love themselves. After all, they didn’t represent “good people”. More often than not, they antagonized the heroes as heavily queer-coded villains who dressed fabulously and had the best songs, but who stole infants from their cribs or cursed heroes into beasts (e.g., all of Disney).

So we laughed along. We pointed and mocked and repeated their catchphrases with lisps and limp wrists. Boys at school threw the names of gay characters at each other like an offense and opinionated women were quickly labeled lesbians or men-haters.

Since we were being bombarded by negative images of queerness, then seeing it reinforced by our peers daily, it isn’t surprising that we grew up with such a negative image of ourselves. Moreover, it isn’t surprising that some of us still try to guard ourselves by saying “but I’m not one of those gays” as though that is any less harmful to our community. Effeminate men, after all, did not cast themselves in the roles of predators; that was something done to them.

In Brazil, I know a shift happened at some point in the 1990s. Unsurprisingly, it was met with great resistance and it still is to this day. How could it not? You can’t undo decades of homophobia by introducing a lesbian couple and hoping for the best.

I was too young to remember this, but I know for a fact that a soap opera (Torre de Babel, Rede Globo, 1998) introduced a lesbian couple in a non-negative light. They were open. They were proud. They had a home and a business. They were very clearly together even if their physical displays of affection were limited.

And they were killed off in a mall explosion.

Ah, Brazilian soap operas! I could never count on you when it came to representation, but you always did bring in the drama!

Who caused the mall to explode? Homophobia, of course. The backlash was such that they couldn’t go on living. They had to die together, running towards each other for comfort while the mall fell around them in subpar special effects.

And so the narrative changed: some gays are only there to be the butt of the joke, and some gays (the less stereotypical ones) can be together as long as they don’t live to tell their story.

Effeminate men were disgraceful. Masculine women were simply going through a phase. Gayness was fixed by the power of love. If it wasn’t, it was killed off in violent ways. Sometimes, if they behaved and didn’t call too much attention to themselves, they got to retire discreetly and be eternally roommates. No wonder “kill your gays” is a trope that is detested - but still used - to this day.

As a woman, there was a lot of negativity in the media that didn’t involve being queer, so it took me a moment to understand why the portrayal of queerness began to upset me. After all, I had my own issues with my own archetypes: fat girls with messy hair who were nerdy, socially awkward, and without a boyfriend at the age of 15 (unacceptable!). Adding bisexuality to that list of issues was out of the question for little teenage me, but I was so desperate to see myself in media that I found a place of refuge: queerness as told through the eyes of straights.

My favorite characters were never the exaggerated, effeminate men, nor the women who only needed a makeover to find true love. I gravitated towards Strong Female Characters (TM) who weren’t afraid to take up arms and didn’t need a man to save them, even though they were always married by the end of the story (Mulan, Disney, 1998). I loved the men who rebelled against expectations and fought to be themselves (Aladdin, Disney, 1992, and Hercules, Disney, 1997). And, of course, the weakling nerds with glasses who saved the day by being more clever than their manly counterparts, even though they were often cast in a supporting role (Sokka, Avatar: The Last Airbender, 2005).

I didn’t know these stories - rebelling against a system that harmed you, being yourself when your family disapproved of whom you are (Zuko, Avatar: The Last Airbender, 2005), fighting “like a man”, solving problems “like a woman”, or just being caught between two worlds - were inherently queer. These were our stories being told to audiences the world over and being claimed as "universal".

Were they exclusively queer? No. I believe the need to belong and the need to be yourself is one of the oldest themes in human storytelling. No wonder the Hero’s Journey can be observed in everything from modern media to fairytales. It is all about inner transformation.

However, finding a way to belong despite not being “man enough” or “feminine enough” are such a large part of the queer experience that it is unfair that most portrayals of it in the media have been claimed by straight creators through straight characters. Adding insult to injury, so many times these stories end up with the character conforming to society’s standards that even good portrayals of queerness end up sanitized to fit the general audience. The weakling picks up arms and defeats the beast the old-fashioned way. The ugly duckling is made over into a swan so she can get the man (basically every 1990s romcom). The princess who took up arms to save the kingdom is either married or killed, leaving her victories behind (Éowin, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, 2003).

Meanwhile, straight creators portrayed queerness with such a lack of understanding that we often ended up in supporting roles, always with that one goal in mind: gay, but not what you’re expecting. In other words: gay, but not one of those gays. You were allowed to like these gays because they looked just like you and they didn't make you feel threatened in any way, be it in your sexuality or in your preconceptions of gender.

Stories matter. We don’t learn only by repetition, but by making lessons feel personal to us. When we see ourselves in a tale, we know who we are and we know what we are supposed to learn. And most queer kids grow up without a reflection; worse, we grew up with a distortion of ourselves.

I’m not just talking about positive portrayals. Occasionally, you would find a Sensible Gay Best Friend who would dispense wisdom and kindness through sass. I’m talking about complex portrayals. Mirrors are supposed to point out our beauty, but they’re also supposed to show us our flaws. As members of the LGBTQA+ community, we were denied both. All we had was the mock-a-ble and undesirable (predatory men, men-hating lesbians, sissyphobia), and then the perfection and compliance (wealthy, white gays with two adopted children who had a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence). No wonder so many of us struggle with our sense of self; we had no in-between, no accuracy, only the revolting or the unachievable.

Our mirrors growing up showed only mockery and hate and we turned this inside so quickly we are still struggling with it - if you’re not, I applaud you through mouthfuls of binge-eating and a side of anti-depressants.

To this day, even with openly queer and excellent portrayals out there (Schitts’ Creek, Love, Simon, Moonlight), we still flock towards the effeminate villains (Loki, Marvel Cinamatic Universe), the disruptors (Bucky, Marvel Cinematic Universe), the ones who defy expectations (Dean and Castiel, Supernatural), the powerful witches (Regina Mills, from Once upon a Time). We see representation not where it is not, but where it should have been.

The more I learned, the more frustrated I got. And the more frustrated I got, the more I questioned just how straight I was. Turned out I’m an angry, bisexual disaster who didn’t even know the term existed until my early twenties. And since I didn’t have a mirror growing up, I started writing queer stories. Tentatively at first, making two straight characters kiss or hold hands in fanfiction because that was all I had (feel free to cringe), and then full-on making them the protagonists of most stories I write today.

Nowadays, most of the queer media I consume has complex portrayals of LGBTQA+ characters. Sometimes, you need the catharsis of sorrow (More Happy Than Not, Adam Silveira, 2015), and the power of being treated like any other love story (The Old Guard, Netflix, 2020), and the chance to mourn our losses (Given, Natsuki Kizo, 2020), or being the villains who defy the status quo (Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel, 2017), to have a found family (Sense8, Netflix, 2015), or just to be cheesy and silly and in love (Cherry Magic, TV Tokyo, 2020).

It's easier now to be part of a community, and so our stories grow. Now that BookTok is a thing, I’m constantly bombarded with stories that my community is putting out there. I want them all. I want to hear from people who are different from me and I want to know as many stories as possible. After all, an able-bodied white Latina from a middle-class family can only tell so much. Complex queer portrayals NEED to come in every shape, size, form, color, and genre because this is what we are. We are EVERYTHING.

This is my passion. I want to write stories about our community for our community. I want to sell them and be read by millions - well, one can hope. However, that is not enough. A person’s story is only a start. I want to know how you see yourself and I want to know the stories you want to read and tell. So I’ve put together a very thorough questionnaire about queer stories (links below) and I'd love for you to participate.

What kind of stories do you want to see? What stories did you grow up with? What are some of your favorite plots? What are your favorite tropes? What are the tropes you detest? And do you create anything?

If you’re part of the LGBTQA+ community (or even if you’re just an ally), head over there and let me know you and the mirrors you’ve been using to find yourself. It is entirely anonymous and I will publish the results in another article sometime in July.

We are complex people who are more than just our sexuality. We deserve to be warriors and brides, dancers and fighters, witches and queens. We should see ourselves in families, in villainy, in jobs, in journeys. We deserve to be normalized and revered by people of all orientations and all genders.

Most of all, we deserve to live. We deserve to have characters who survive their arcs and who find joy and happiness in the arms of their beloved.

We are a powerful community with stories to tell. Let us write them but, most importantly, let us share them so we can know we’re not alone.

If you’d like to take part in the QUEER STORIES questionnaire, click here.

If you’re an LGBTQA+ CREATOR or otherwise creator of queer content, I’ve put together another questionnaire for you right here - feel free to take both.