The Muppets, Laverne Cox, And 13 Other People And Things That Made LGBTQ+ Folks Feel Represented

From Harley Quinn to RuPaul's Drag Race, LGBTQ+ entertainers, authors, and activists talked to BuzzFeed about when they first saw someone like them in the world.

Queer people don’t come into the world knowing ourselves. We look for clues around us, whether they are found in the movies and television shows we consume or a gaze that lingers a moment too long. As a young queer person, I discovered myself gradually, often in cinematic glimpses of a future to come: the homoerotic friendship of Y Tu Mamá También that culminates in a kiss dissolving the limits of possibility, the queer longing for connection that permeates A Home at the End of the World, and the barbed revolutionary romp of The Dreamers, all of which somehow slipped past my parents’ radar. Suffice it to say, I had a thing for messy bisexuals. Now a messy bisexual adult, I look at each of these as critical moments in my becoming — a journey that each of us tread as we slowly define who are we and envision who we want to be. 

As all of us continue our chosen paths forward, BuzzFeed asked 15 LGBTQ+ people when they first saw themselves reflected back in the environment around them. In their stories of life-changing friendships, favorite books, and even a gender-ambiguous Dairy Queen dessert, it’s clear that representation isn’t just important. For many of us, it provides the language to speak ourselves into existence.

1. Brian Michael Smith, Actor, 911: Lone Star

Kenneth Dolin

I was 19 the first time I learned that there were other people in the world that were like me and that there was a word that describes the kind of guy I am: a trans man. The first trans man I ever saw was Jamison Green, a writer, educator, and living proof that a future was possible. Coming across his website and later reading his book, Becoming a Visible Man, was this very beautiful, affirming moment that carried me through some of the darkest times of my 20s. I’ll also add that seeing Laverne Cox's portrayal of Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black had a similar impact on my life. The way she and the show depicted her story was so realistic and powerful that it confirmed my belief that I would be able to achieve my artistic goals without having to sacrifice any parts of myself — that a future was possible for me to play an authentic trans masculine character on TV. And here I am.

2. Hans Lindahl, Intersex Advocate

Eler de Grey

I read Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore at age 30, 20 years after it first came out in Japan. I hadn’t been looking for it, but I screamed when I read it: Murakami created what might still be my only treasured example of exceptional queer intersex representation — a librarian named Oshima. In Schitt’s Creek fashion, Oshima’s inherent humanity is respected by everyone around him. He doesn’t have to face hate or medical trauma in order to have a storyline. After acknowledging his anatomical diversity one time, hundreds of pages in, he carries on his life slinging books and driving fast cars. Even in 2022, intersex storylines seem pretty sparse in US network media, film, and popular literature, other than horrifying “hermaphrodite” jokes or shocks in medical dramas. But I’m blessed to belong to a cohort of peers who are working on changing that! Look out, world!

3. Samantha Allen, Author, Patricia Wants to Cuddle

Corey Burke

I hesitate to say I didn’t see myself represented until my mid-30s, but if I’m being honest, Harley Quinn was the first time I ever saw my profane queer weirdness on screen. In film and TV, queer women are so often constrained to tear-jerking period dramas or, more recently, young adult shows that have to maintain a glossy sheen of respectability. Tonally, neither genre really matches the vibe of my own community: My friends and I aren’t exactly heartwarming, “love is love” gays nor do we like to stare longingly at the ocean. We do like horror movies and gore and chaos, and that’s why Joker’s bisexual ex-girlfriend and her merry band of misfits feel more like queer family to me. Sledgehammers and sapphic romance simply belong together.

4. Jennicet Gutiérrez, Co-Executive Director, Familia TQLM

Courtesy of Jennicet Gutiérrez

I grew up loving watching novelas in my beloved México, but throughout that time, I never felt represented in any soap operas, movies, or much of the entertainment world. It was until I moved to the United States that I met a dear friend, Rosy, who lives her life openly as a transgender immigrant woman. She owns a beauty salon in Los Angeles, and we became good friends. I related to her because I struggled with my gender identity for years. I used to ask myself, “How is it possible for Rosy to live her life so openly?” Seeing her exist in a world where transphobia is still so dominant, I knew it was a matter of time before I started my own transition. Early in my gender journey, I used to be nervous to even go anywhere in public by myself, but today, I am a proud, unapologetic trans woman strong in my identity. It was Rosy who inspired me to live my truth.

5. Kahmora Hall, Drag Performer, Season 13 of RuPaul's Drag Race

Adam Ouahmane

The first time I ever felt represented was seeing Jujubee strutting down the runway on the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I’d never seen someone Asian that was so proudly gay and flamboyant before. I remember vividly her coral pink dress, long brown hair, and the attitude she was serving the judges. Her confidence and fierceness gave me a sense of comfort in myself, and she showed me that it’s OK to embrace my femininity. Jujubee is a big part of the reason why I pursued drag, and she inspired me to enter the student drag show at Loyola University Chicago. Look where I am now! Thank you, Jujubee.

6. Fran Hutchins, Executive Director, Equality Federation

Bill Brymer Photography

As a queer, genderqueer person growing up in Alabama in the 1990s, I didn’t see myself reflected in much TV or film. While I had seen popular media with a great deal of lesbian subtext, I had yet to be exposed to anything queer-created. But when I was a freshman in college, I traveled to Atlanta to visit a friend who happened to be staying with an older lesbian couple. At their house, I found their well-worn copy of Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, and I stayed up all night reading that book. Despite being set in the 1950s, Feinberg’s novel was the first thing I read with characters who experienced gender in the same way I did and who were queer in the same way I was. It was revolutionary for me.

7. Theo Germaine, Actor, They/Them

Theo Wargo / Getty Images

This is probably a weird answer, but I looked for representation everywhere when I was a kid. It was hard to find. I found it in a surprising spot: the old Dairy Queen in my tiny, rural hometown. They had this dessert called the Mister Misty Float, and it was a cylinder of vanilla ice cream with a swirl on top in a big cup of flavored slushie. It was so queer to me. I used to get the kiwi-strawberry flavor, and I loved this dessert because I felt repped by it as a kid. I always thought of the phrase “mister-misty” as “mister-miss” or “mister-missus,” essentially the Victor/Victoria of desserts. And that’s still kind of how I identify: the Victor/Victoria of desserts. The dopamine rush I got from a giant delicious treat, as someone who was constantly dopamine hungry when I was young, really helped, too.  

8. Niko Stratis, Journalist, Culture Writer

Courtesy of Niko Stratis

The first time I felt seen as a trans woman was Laura Jane Grace coming out in Rolling Stone in 2012. I was 30. I was a punk rock kid who barely graduated, went into trades, and generally just felt outside of any conversations about being queer, being trans, being anything other than what I felt was my fated outcome. I lived in a remote part of Canada without any queer community, so I looked to art for answers, desperate for a scrap of something real that I might hoard away and slowly accumulate enough real feelings that I could craft a simulacrum of a better life. When Laura Jane Grace came out in May 2012, reality for me was torn asunder. Heaven and earth moved in an instant and created physical space where I could see myself standing, not as the mess of who I was but tall in the possibility of who I might become. 

9. Jeffrey Masters, Host, LGBTQ&A podcast

Courtesy of Jeffrey Masters

I originally discovered the musical Rent through its Broadway cast recording, and as queer as that show is, something about listening to the show and not being able to actually see its queerness with my own eyes didn’t spark any sort of grand recognition in me. That soundtrack, however, did lead to me borrowing Anthony Rapp's memoir, Without You, from the local library, and to my great surprise, he was gay. Not just gay, but comfortable enough with his sexuality that he would publish it in a book, a seeming marvel at the time. I was closeted and hadn’t yet even dared to crack the door, but it was revelatory to read.

10. Nina West, Drag Performer, Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race

Stanley Munro

I don’t know when I first saw someone like me in the world, but as a kid, I was completely drawn in by the Muppets. My favorite has always been Gonzo, who acknowledges their unique existence but also feels alone and isolated, struggling to fit in. The whole secret sauce of the Muppets, though, is that they represent different, distinctive parts that together make up a whole. When the team is struggling to figure out why their show, “Manhattan Melodies,” isn’t clicking in The Muppets Take Manhattan, Kermit has a lightbulb moment: “That’s what we need! More frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and...whatever!” Those are the same ideals I try to celebrate in my new children’s book, The You Kind of Kind. It is about seeing yourself in the story, learning to celebrate yourself and one another. While I was disappointed as a child to find out that I wasn’t a Muppet, I was lucky enough to grow up to become one. 

11. Kayla Gore, Co-Founder, My Sistah's House

Courtesy of My Sistah's House

It’s always been about searching for something or someone to validate my existence. After 25 years of looking, Laverne Cox visited the University of Memphis in 2018. My friends and I stood in line for the chance to take a photo and to hear her speak. Some of the younger trans people with us decided against going backstage, but I anticipated the moment like it was the last day of school. Some people gave her notes and flowers. I stood there bearing no gifts, but in that moment, I realized that we are gifts to each other: two Southern girls who happen to be trans sharing space.

12. Hugh Ryan, Author, The Women’s House of Detention

Lia Clay for the 2018 Queer|Art Community Portrait Project

I was a bookish kid who haunted the library (which was just a block from my house growing up) looking for friends and adventure in convenient paper packages, where they had none of the muss and fuss of real life. I worked my way from one end of that library to the other like a locust, consuming everything in my path — which is how I came across Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Pawn, a slight, sweet, sometimes dirty fantasy novel that centered on a gay teen named Vanyel. I’d never read a book with a gay protagonist before, and we had so much in common: He was lonely; I was lonely. He hated sports; I hated sports. He was an all powerful magician with a psychic horse; I had a small collection of My Little Ponies that I bought for myself at tag sales (because they were “girls toys”), which I pretended could talk. We were basically twins!

13. Emmett Schelling, Executive Director, Transgender Education Network of Texas

Win O'Neal/Chapman Studios

Boys Don't Cry was the first time in my life that I felt like I wasn't completely alone in who I am and that I wasn't broken — that is, until the movie got to the end. Within the course of the movie, I went through a myriad of emotions: first, feeling comfort that I wasn’t the only one who felt the way I did about my gender until the ending, which reflects the horrific sexual assault and murder of Brandon Teena in 1993 after he was outed as trans. The film sent the message to me that being who I am was a deep danger to share with anyone. One of the things that I am continuously encouraged by is knowing that young trans and queer people have been able to see themselves reflected in a positive way, as opposed to the trauma that I experienced.

14. Parvesh Cheena, Actor, The Resort

Bjoern Kommerell

Chutney Popcorn, the landmark queer film directed by Nisha Ganatra, changed my world. I was barely 21 and thought my gay life would be so white and full of loneliness and pain. White people could be gay and out and free. I watched Will & Grace in the '90s, but where were the people of color? There were no Black or Latino folks, let alone Asian folks. But in Chutney Popcorn, queer people of all colors and economic backgrounds were everywhere. I hadn’t even gone on a date yet, and here was a future of possibilities: acceptance, love, family, and children. To be brown and gay in America has been a challenge and struggle, and to see this film was to know that people like me existed in this country. It meant knowing our stories would be told.

15. Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force

Courtesy of National LGBTQ Task Force

I read The Color Purple when I was 13 and saw the movie soon after. I was in middle school in Dekalb County, Georgia, and I didn’t know I was queer. I had yet to meet anyone who was out as LGBTQ+. Even so, Shug Avery was a magical character to me. I was so drawn to her, and I wanted to know more about who she was and how she came to be. A Black woman who was a boss, a talented musician, confident, bold, stylish, and beloved by many, she courageously rejected gender norms and lived and loved outside the lines. Today, I am an out bisexual/pansexual Black mom and the executive director of one of the nation’s leading LGBTQ+ organizations, and looking back, I think my introduction to Shug Avery was an affirmation of a spark within not yet known to me. It was a spark that lit a fire that continues to burn and a fire that I hope ignites others as they find their way out into the light.