THE LGBTQ CHARACTERS OF MY CHILDHOOD

This is a rainbow post, part of the Month of Pride initiative.

I have known LGBTQ lifestyles since I was a child, in spite of being born and raised in a local community in the hinterland of Spain, with an über-Catholic bourgeois family. And you wonder why and how I became aware of the existence of free love?

Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit number one: It's So Amazing!, by Robie H. Harris, translated into Spanish.

AKA "The Book of Sexuality that Made Granny Ana (blessed be her soul) Freak Out."

This was the book that started it all. The one I found in the usual bookshop but my seventy-something and devoutly Catholic nan refused to purchase.

The book that caused me to be aware that love knows no distinction of gender or lifestyle. That love is free.

Exhibit number two: The cupbearers of royal gods.

The author of this blog and of this article is an Aquarius, who, having read all the usual fairytales, began to delve into classical mythology and found out that star signs have their roots in the Hellenistic world. In particular, her own sign depicts Ganymede, the cupbearer on Olympus and the only time Zeus had a different kind of fling. At his underwater palace of Euba, Zeus's brother Poseidon had about the same idea and spirited away another good-looking mortal prince, Pelops, to serve him and his court the nectar.

PS. "Échanson," "cupbearer," is one of my favourite French words.

Exhibit number three: A ladybug who is no lady.

This has always been one of my favourite Pixar characters, from the first time I saw the film.

Lashes? Check. Beauty mark? Check. Rosy lips? Check.

Name? Francis. Vocal range? Bass-baritone. Manners: Uncouth and badass.

Long story short: a he that looks like a she. And whose anger trigger is being called a "ladybug" (or "mariquita" in Spanish), in spite of being an unmistakeable Coccinella septempunctata.

For more information, Francis is an actor and a drag queen (what a profession!),

 and explicitly referred to by other bugs as being male ("a guy" and "he"). Except by those who think he is a she, that is!

Exhibit number four: Hinzite and Kunzite. (Highlight if you don't get the pun) 
For those who don't understand the pun: "Hinz und Kunz" is the German equivalent of "Fulano y Mengano" or "Tom, Dick, and Stanley."

The Catalan dub of Sailor Moon I watched on Club Super3 as a weekday afternoon cartoon gave Zoisite (the more feminine, strawberry blond one) a woman's voice and the pronoun "she" ("ella"), but I could see it was a man through the dub and the pronoun. Those shoulders were too broad and that chest too flat for Kunzite's fellow officer to be female, and besides, the other generals at Queen Beryl's service were also male and wore the same uniform... (After all, the military of several nations, like organized religion, has enforced gender seggregation for ages with rather queer results...)

Zoisite was the third fictional character whose death I wept in my life, after Mufasa and Bambi's mum. I mean, I'll kill Queen Beryl like I'll kill Scar and Gaston for ruining my childhood...

Exhibit number five: Peach Blossom and Snow Bunny.

The blond one's name is Yukito, "Snow Rabbit." The dark one's name is Tóya, "Peach Blossom." 

They are classmates in their late teens and rarely seen separated from one another, and both of them are suave and fond of the arts (though Tóya can be tough with his little sister and female admirers). 

Both of them have acted in their school production of Cinderella, with the whole cast in drag, Tóya starring as the orphan maid and Yukito as her unlikely fairy godperson. They have also starred together in a period film for school, though both of them played male roles in that one.

Tóya even sacrifices his supernatural powers to sacrifice a dying Yukito. 

And both of them are doubtlessly male.

Reader, you do the maths to realize what I knew from the moment I got to see these two in Cardcaptor on Club Super 3.

Exhibit number six: Your Anus and Neptune.

The teal-haired lady is called Michiru, a Pisces, a graceful and talented violinist and composer.

The person with short fair hair, who looks like me and like Brienne of Tarth, is called Haruka, an Aquarius endowed with rather masculine manners (like me), and is into every kind of racing. My first impression was that of Haruka being male, but after seeing her shirt a little closer and hearing her contralto voice, there was no doubt of her real gender.

Both girls are learned and well-educated wealthy scions in their late teens, and classmates as well, they date each other and are rarely seen without one another. At least by daylight. By moonlight, they're an invincible battle couple. 

And both are so badass and so cultured, always, that the Inner Senshi (the main five) are second to them.

And they also happen to be my Sailor Moon OTP since early childhood...

Exhibit number seven: A Fishy Eye.

At first, Fisheye hatched from an egg underwater in the Pacific, growing into a beautiful and poisonous dragonfish. A male dragonfish.

Then everything changed when the Dead Moon attacked.

Now Fisheye can breathe air and stand on his own two feet.

And, sent by his queen to find the golden dream mirror that conceals a powerful alicorn, 

he targets good-looking young men in creative professions (fashion designers, fairytale illustrators, ballet teachers...), whom he approaches donning women's clothing. And yes, he hangs around in bars (or, at least, in the Dead Moon's den of iniquity).

The Catalan dub I saw of Sailor Moon in Club Super3 gave Ull de Peix (that's literally "Fish-Eye") the Zoisite Treatment, which consists of a mezzosoprano voice (Castration implied? The pillar and the stones?) and the female pronoun "she" ("ella"). Still, with that fishy thorax shape and that fawning over young men, it was doubtless that Fisheye is male. Like in the case of Zoisite, I saw through the voice and the pronoun.

Exhibit number eight: Granny, what a pink frock you have! Granny, what a maid's uniform you have!

Every single Westerner has surely heard the story of Red Riding Hood as a child, and how the big bad wolf of the tale put the old grandmother's frock and bonnet on to fool the innocent girl (and how RRH fell for it, despite a big bad wolf resembling her nan as much as the MGM lion resembles Sean Bean).

In the Shrek saga, we are shown what Wolfie did after he expelled the stones the huntsman filled him with. Putting on the frock and bonnet that seem to have grown onto him, and hanging around in bars. A rightish fairy godmother has condemned him as "gender-confused..."

During Rumplestiltskin's usurpation of the Kingdom Far Far Away, Wolfie was employed at court as Royal Wigmaster (wig handler) to the crowned imp, trading his usual pink frock and bonnet for a French maid uniform. For such an eighteenth-century powdered wig needs a lot of care...

Exhibit number nine: He's a lumberjack and he's okay...

He goes to the lavatory squatting.

Not convinced?

He has buttered scones for tea.

Not convinced?

He likes to press wildflowers.

A little suspicious... Still not convinced?

He puts on women's clothing and hangs around in bars.

(I am imagining your reactions by now)

He wears high heels, suspenders, and a bra.

And he hangs around in bars...

And he wishes he were a girly just like his dear papa (and like his Austrian Onkel Walter).

(Sorry, rightish bigots out there, this is not the Brawny lumberjack...)

But this Monty Python sketch surprised me to the core.

Exhibit number ten: Fluorite and Black Steel

All right, I first got to know Fai and Kurogane when I was in my early teens (two or three years ere I met Renly and Loras), but soon they became an OTP of mine and I even purchased their exclusive chess piece figurines, which are among my greatest treasures.

These two have got amazing chemistry, much like other of my queer OTPs, coupled with the fact that I share Fai's hair colour, haircut, and cheerful upbeat personality (which made him part of my hit list). And there's also Fai's tendency to annoy Kurogane by calling him names like "Kurorin" and "Kuropon", with the dark warrior's subsequent anger, a running gag that always makes me laugh.

Their relationship unfolds like a flower, as we learn the tragic backstories of both strange companions and both of them come face to face with the past, showing that they do care for one another.