10 Kids Cartoons Featuring LGBTQ+ Characters
Take that, censorship!
It wasn't too long ago that even a whiff of queer content in children's entertainment could get a censor or a ban, forcing shows to drive up their age ratings over completely innocent depictions of non-heterosexual love, deeming any LGBTQ+ representation as "too adult" for "sensitive young minds".
However, in the past decade, there have been leaps and bounds made in representation for the queer community, the most prominent of which can be found in the cartoons that were so against even acknowledging queer people exist.
Especially now, when the rise in representation in media and victories for the queer community across the world are met with horrific amounts of resistance in certain countries, having this kind of media teach kids about love and acceptance is a big win for humanity as a whole.
So here's a list of ten cartoons marketed towards kids and teens that are, for all intents and purposes, presenting young people with likely the first queer characters they'll get to know.
This list doesn't include anime, since the number of queer characters in popular anime marketed mostly towards all ages could fill its own list.
10. Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil
This was a comparatively small moment, but was important for the time it came out and what it represented.
Not more than a few years ago, the Disney channel was notorious for blocking open queer representation in their shows - one instance in particular related to the popular cartoon, Gravity Falls, to be touched on later in this list.
So when this background couple was seen smooching in one of their more popular titles, Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil, people started talking, with this being the first same-sex kiss appearing on an all-ages cartoon on Disney, one that was explicitly romantic within the context of the episode. There were also some other same-sex couples seen later in more background shots, but this was the most visible.
It was seemingly enough for Disney to pull the episode from their site at the time of release.
More recently on the program, implications, but no outright confirmations, have been made towards characters being bisexual (or pansexual), with characters such as Jackie Lynn Thomas seemingly having a girlfriend onscreen, and Star herself expressing interest in and attraction towards both male and female characters in the show.