* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The X-men comics helped many LGBT+ children accept their queerness“But then why do they hate us?”
“People fear what they do not understand.”
These two sentences resonated so strongly with my young self in 1992. “Night of the Sentinels” was the first episode of the five season “X-Men: The Animated Series”, which opened up the world of Marvel Comics to me, but especially the characters known as the X-Men. The X-Men are a team of fictional mutant superheroes who fight for equality between mutants and humans. They teach acceptance for those that are different, and tolerance for those who struggle to welcome who you truly are.
The pre-teen years of my life were confusing, as they are for most children going through puberty, only my situation was coming to terms with being gay while attending a Catholic middle school in Minnesota. My environment did not teach me the same values the X-Men taught me, and this story resonated with countless other LGBT+ people across the world.
The allegory of the X-Men can be applied to civil rights, those in the LGBT+ space, and so much more. The characters inside the comic pages and on the screen were persecuted for simply being born different to regular humans. I am here today to celebrate what the X-Men have done for me and how in recent years the LGBT+ population on the internet has exploded around these heroes.
In 2019, at Comic-Con International in San Diego, I launched a podcast, “X-Reads”, with my friend Chris Riley that started as an excuse to dive into previous issues of “Uncanny X-Men”, but soon opened doors to the X-Men universe that I did not anticipate.
It started with a colleague of mine introducing me to the voice actress of Rogue from “X-Men: The Animated Series”, Lenore Zann. After she appeared on our show, I began to receive letter after letter from listeners repeating back the exact same experience I had as a child – how the animated series helped them come to terms and accept their queerness.
This led me to a wider understanding of other queer X-Men content creators. I soon realized Chris and I were not the only queer kids talking about X-Men, but one of many within a wonderful community online.
Fellow podcasters such as “Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men”, “House of X”, “Homosuperior, “Is It An X-Man?”, plus artists and content creators across the LGBT+ spectrum were gathering during this COVID-19 pandemic, offering comfort and discussion around our favorite band of mutants.
At the same time, Jonathan Hickman’s “Dawn of X” storyline was in full swing at Marvel Comics. Soon queer characters were multiplying in the pages. One of the most archetypical couples in comics, Cyclops and Jean Grey, are hinting at a throuple with one of the most masculine characters – Wolverine.
The now GLAAD Media Award-nominated X-Factor features an almost entirely queer team of heroes bringing together the first gay Marvel superhero Northstar, plus bisexual men of color Daken and Prodigy, and the heavily queer-coded Rachel Summers.
What started as a metaphor for LGBT+ culture has now become the culture itself. We are seeing ourselves represented within the pages of comics as well as the creative staff at Marvel.
Queer-identifying authors such as the non-binary Vita Ayala, bisexual Leah Williams, and gay artist Russell Daughterman are just some of the many new voices bringing unique sorties to the LGBT+ community through the X-Men.
This celebration of queerness at the creative source and the wider fanbase on social media brings me so much satisfaction, and the evolution of representation within the X-Men universe has made this fanboy x-tremely happy.
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