I think ill always have a soft spot for sailor moon… i didnt even know women could love other women, i thought only men could be gay, and i thought that if women loved other women they must be mosters who werent even human… but sailor moon just had this couple in it so casually, you wouldnt even know it was so radical for two women to love each other and have so many supportive female friends who never made snide comments or acted afraid of them or saw them as beasts… they werent othered, they werent fetishized, they werent given an unhealthy relationship… and even when the english dub tried to swoop in with that homophobia and make them “cousins” people still knew they were lesbians. They were allowed to just exist as who they were on a childrens TV show.
I know it was radical. I know whoever made sailor neptune and sailor uranus gay must have had to fight so damn hard to get that in the show. I know how rare it was for there to be lesbians depicted in a healthy way on TV, especially TV for kids. But it looked so effortless. It looked so normal. It looked so natural. And nobody ever mentioned anything to make me think it wasnt. And i needed that, growing up. I didnt know it. I was so far from knowing how badly i needed that. But it was such an important step in my discovery that being a lesbian didnt make me evil or bad or unlovable and it didnt mean i had to be lonely or outcast or othered. It could be like that, at least in theory. That show planted a seed in my head that needed so much time to grow, so much, but a seed that was absolutely crucial to my development as a person and as a lesbian
And i tear up, thinking about it, sometimes. I cried a little writing this post. And then i remember that today we have korra and asami and princess bubblegum and marceline and im just… so happy that we have kept moving? And have given other young girls, young girls who dont even know that they can like other girls, an example of how women can love women and it doesnt have to be dirty, or gross, or for the male gaze. And i just…
I dunno. Things can feel so bleak sometimes. They really can. But we are making progress. We are moving forward. We are getting better. And that gives me so much hope for the future.