10 TV Characters Who Were Everyone’s Gay Awakening

Like a slumbering dragon, or maybe just a really sleep-deprived hamster, queerness can spend quite a long time in hibernation before finally jolting awake. That awakening process doesn’t happen all at once; sometimes it takes a bit of well-timed queer media to really rub the crusties off a sleeper’s peepers and get them to open their eyes for good. Like a triple espresso shot, these characters woke up internal queerness sleeping within generations of TV viewers. No two gay awakenings are the same. Some require an alt baddie bisexual, or a musclebound anti-hero, or maybe a genderqueer agent of chaos. Whatever your young, queer heart desired, odds are one of these characters fit the description, and now, here you are.

Watching Tuxedo Mask, illuminated by starlight, toss a long-stemmed rose into the flesh of a Sailor Moon villain is forever seared into my memory. Perhaps more than any other character on this list, this black-tie hero certainly knew how to make an entrance. The object of affection for countless teens, including Sailor Moon herself, Tuxedo Mask was everything that could make a gay heart go a-flutter. He’s handsome, he’s mysterious, and with an elegant wardrobe like that, he’s certainly a gentleman of taste and means. Little did Usagi Tsukino know that Tuxedo Mask was actually her classmate, Mamoru Chiba, who transforms into his top hat-wearing alter ego whenever Sailor Moon is in danger. He has no memories of his transformations; they’re motivated by a subconscious desire to protect the one he loves. What young queer person wouldn’t want to have a magical amnesiac in formalwear as a secret admirer?

Raven

While the cast of Teen Titans is full of honorable mentions (Starfire, Robin, and Terra, to name a few), no character quite captured the hearts of queer viewers as completely as Raven. The blueprint for a generation of alt femmes, Raven’s gothic style and cool-headed attitude made her the ultimate dark fashion icon. Personally, I think that many queer awakenings begin with a viewer wanting to be a certain character before the realization that they actually want that character as well. Raven, with her charismatic nonchalance, her witchy aesthetic, and her mysterious magical power, made her a character that fans wanted to emulate. That being said, while some queer viewers took a minute to parse out their feelings for this Teen Titan, others were smitten from the first moment she said “azarath metrion zinthos.”

Prince Zuko

Prince Zuko is the stuff that messy gay awakenings are made of. The villain-turned-hero of Avatar: The Last Airbender, this banished royal is the poster child of teenage strife, an outcast with whom many queer viewers can relate. Estranged from his family and exiled from his community, he’s sent traipsing around the world in pursuit of something that will grant him acceptance, even if it doesn’t align with the person he actually is. Sounds a lot like compulsory heterosexuality to me. There are queer parallels to be drawn to Zuko’s character arc about abandoning expectations and embracing one’s own internal desires. His struggle to find self-acceptance mirrors the feelings of many queer fans, and this shared experience allowed viewers to form an emotional attachment to the prince of the Fire Nation. His tenacity and bad boy attitude made him crushable at the beginning of the series, but his emotional maturity and willingness to admit wrongdoing made him fall-in-loveable by the show’s end. His long and beautiful “I’m a good guy now” hair certainly helped too.

Team Rocket

The incompetent villains of Pokémon were heroes for a generation, two queer-coded baddies that desperately deserved a redemption arc. Jessie and James stood in open defiance of the law and gender roles — Jessie a dominant, ready-to-rumble woman and James a soft-speaking, rose-toting fella unafraid to be feminine. Fierce, flamboyant, and unintentionally funny as hell, Jessie and James would be a hit at any Bushwick function, but are sadly stuck in Pokémon‘s heteronormative Kanto region. These two unrealized gays desperately need an awakening of their own, and while they’re still woefully unaware of their inner selves while stuck toiling away for Giovanni, at least they and their cute little Team Rocket crop tops were able to awaken the budding queer feelings in countless fans.

Shego

Kim Possible is full of belligerent sapphic tension. Kim and her cheerleader rival Bonnie Rockwater have enough enemies-to-lovers potential to fill an entire AO3 server’s worth of fanfiction. But while Bonnie is a good starter enemy, her story pales in comparison to the raw, gay awakening power of Kim’s rivalry with Shego. An alt baddie without peer, Shego was a dominant woman in an era where many female characters operated under traditional gender expectations. And while she ended up with Dracken at the end of the series, it was her fiery exchanges with Kim that supplied the show’s real romantic heat. She’s beautiful. She’s angry. She’s green. What more could you want?

Him

In the early 2000s, Him was an anomaly. Never before had there been a character on a kids’ TV show who operated in such wild defiance of gender roles. A drag demon who crawled out of some gloriously gay underworld, Him was a delightful agent of chaos with one hell of an aesthetic. The thigh highs, the crab claws, the full face of makeup with facial hair to boot, he was a genderqueer trendsetter in an era of gender conformity. While Him is certainly a crushable character, perhaps his most enduring contribution to the gay awakening of the masses was his presentation of an alternative gender expression. Him told fans, “Yes, you can be an infernal chimera of masculinity and femininity, and you will look fantastic doing it.”

Marceline and Bubblegum

Marceline and Bubblegum made history by sharing the first same-sex kiss on a mainstream kids’ cartoon, but their gay awakening journey happened in parallel to many queer viewers. Marceline and Bubblegum’s relationship was only hinted at for the majority of Adventure Time‘s run, their budding sapphic feeling for each other subtly displayed in shared t-shirts and blushing-cheeked arguments. Like most gay awakenings, Marceline and Bubblegum’s began slowly at first, and then all at once with a passionate first kiss. As a duo, they’re a sapphic dream team. Individually, they awoke plenty of gay feelings in their own right. Whose inner queerness wouldn’t be stirred by a hot pink scientist and a chaotic vampire rockstar?

The Mystery Gang

The cast of Scooby-Doo is full of quintessential queer awakening characters. Velma is perhaps the most high-profile gay icon, with her non-traditional style and genderqueer vibe. Daphne was also a sapphic awakening for many, a poster girl for high femmes and those who love them. And Fred, his ascot, and his muscly arms? A canon event for plenty of gay men. As for Shaggy, what bisexual doesn’t love a goofy, lanky guy? As for Scooby, he might be a dog, but his all-consuming yearning is more than a bit queer-coded, even if it’s just for food. Honorable mention: even though they weren’t from the original TV show, the Hex Girls were a brain chemistry-changing moment for a generation.

Jorgen von Strangle

Big muscles, tight clothes, and a love for dishing out discipline? Jorgen von Strangle is the ultimate top. Along with the well-proportioned Jaundissimo, Fairly Odd Parents had no shortage of buff hunks, but Jorgen was easily the buffest and the hunkiest. With his love for ordering people around only surpassed by his love for flexing, he and his biceps stole the show every time. The moment when he was officially canonized as a daddy came in the episode when he was dating the Tooth Fairy. Remember his sleeveless white tuxedo jacket and matching grizzled white beard in that episode? Yeah, it was a canon event for me too.

Someone in the Masters of the Universe franchise

Though Mattel may not have intended it, the Masters of the Universe franchise has been responsible for queer awakenings across multiple generations. Like all sword and planet fantasy, the queer-coding is really more of a queer-screaming-it-out-loud. The skimpy and strappy clothes. The rippling muscles. The warrior alliances, rife with gay undertones. The bitter rivalries, full of even gayer undertones. In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Skeletor and He-Man’s entire relationship hinged on them constantly slamming their burly, half-naked bodies into one another. It wasn’t enemies-to-lovers; it may as well have been enemies-as-lovers. And while the 1985 She-Ra cartoon was full of sapphic undertones, the reboot series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power turned them into overtones. Princess Bubblegum and Marceline may have shared the first onscreen kiss in kids’ TV, but Adora and Catra’s love story was central to the entire narrative, ending in a lip-lock that literally saved the world. Whether you’re into muscle daddies, evil bisexuals, high-femme heroines, or oddly sexy skeleton guys, odds are Masters of the Universe awoke something in you.

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