Born This Way
Though some people consider the circumstances of her inclusion in the 2023 video game Hogwarts: Legacy to be controversial (which of course I understand), I personally am a hugely devoted fan of Sirona Ryan, the cool-as-a-cucumber transgender Ravenclaw owner of The Three Broomsticks pub in Hogsmeade in the Steampunk-era Wizarding World who has no problem telling off a bully like Victor Rookwood.
What are Sirona's pronouns in the game?
A. she/her
B. he/him
C. they/them
D. something else
A. she/her! Sirona is canonically the first transgender character in the Wizarding World universe, voiced by transgender actress Rebecca Root.
Katy Perry's 2008 pop track "I Kissed a Girl" has been setting of lightbulbs ever since. True or False: Proud lesbian pop star Hayley Kiyoko, whose pop song "Girls Like Girls" was turned into a book that is now being made into a movie, didn't realize girls liking girls was a thing until she heard Katy Perry's song.
False - Hayley says she knew she liked girls ever since she was 6, but it was Katy Perry's song that inspired her to become a pop musician and inspire others to live their truths out loud!
The picture book Heather Has Two Mommies (penned by Leslea Newman & illustrated by Diana Souza) made waves in the late 80s and early 90s. True or False: Heather was the first picture book about LGBTQ+ characters to be published.
False. The picture book When Megan Went Away was published 10 years earlier and is credited with being the first picture book ever to portray LGBTQ+ characters. It got a lot less attention than Heather, in part because it was published by a small press.
What does no contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race want to hear?
"Sashay away!" (that means they've been eliminated)
What's the name of the British model and activist who advocates for the asexual community and looks amazing in purple?
A. Yasmin Finney
B. Yasmin Benoit
C. Yasmina Fadoula
B. Yasmin Benoit! Yasmin Finney is the amazing transgender baddie who plays Elle Argent in Heartstopper; Yasmina Fadoula is the bisexual athlete in Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous and Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, whose relationship with Sammy Gutierrez marks the first on-screen queer relationship in the Jurassic Park franchise.
In bi-con Lady Gaga and lesbian rapper Doechii's collaboration for The Devil Wears Prada 2, paying homage to the great RuPaul's 1992 song "Supermodel (You Better Work)," the chorus goes like this:
Monday through Sunday, I can turn this dance floor into a ________
Runway!
A. Boy
B. Girl
C. Youth
D. Any of the above
D! The word is παῖδος (paidos), which is grammatically masculine but gender-neutral and is used to refer to a young person. So basically Sappho could be talking about a girl, a boy, or a nonbinary baddie and we have no idea.
True or False: The original Pride Flag design included the colors pink and turquoise, which were later removed because they ran out of pink and turquoise fabric.
True! The flag was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 with 8 colors, but those two were dropped within a year.
Sally Ride was the first American woman to go to space (and was once my sister's Halloween costume!). True or False: Sally Ride also holds the title of first acknowledged LGBTQ+ person to go to space.
True! Dr. Ride was in a relationship with her partner Tam O'Shaughnessy for 27 years, which was not revealed until her death in 2012.
Which of the following musical artists do not identify as bi/pan?
A. Lady Gaga
B. Halsey
C. Charli XCX
D. Billie Eilish
E. Janelle Monae
F. Conan Gray
G. Renee Rapp
H. Chappell Roan
C (Charli), D (Billie), F (Conan), G (Renee), and H (Chappell). Charli is straight (having come out in a viral video responding to a Q&A question saying she gave off bi vibes), Billie and Conan are unlabeled but have said that they like boys & girls, Renee and Chappell are both lesbians.
Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe focuses on the romantic relationship between two women, Idgie and Ruth. True or False: While the book relies mainly on subtext to indicate that Ruth and Idgie are more-than-friends, the 1991 movie makes it much more obvious.
False. The movie makes their relationship less obviously romantic than it was in the book (where they lived together, ran a business together, and raised kids together), which seems like a step back in terms of LGBTQ+ representation.
What might the acronym LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA+ stand for?
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer/Questioning, Curious, Asexual/Aromantic/Agender, Pansexual, Gender-Nonconforming, Gender-Fluid, Non-Binary, Androgynous, and everything else <3
Nick and Charlie are Truham Grammar School's "it" couple in the webcomic and Netflix show Heartstopper. True or False: While the characters Charlie and Nick identify as gay and bi respectively, their actual orientations are reversed in real life - Charlie's actor Joe Locke identifies as bi and Nick's actor Kit Connor identifies as gay.
False! Joe Locke is gay and Kit Connor is bi - so, basically they're just like their characters! Disappointingly they don't appear to be dating IRL, at least as far as we know... ;)
Conan Gray is the kid-YouTuber-turned-pop-phenomenon who once, in his teens, posted a vlog called "girly boy paints his nails" and now owns a record imprint called GirlyBoy, Inc. so that he can own his own master recordings and avoid that whole Taylor's Version fiasco (we love you, TayTay, and you handled it so well!)
True or False: Conan Gray's 2018 song "Crush Culture" speaks to his experience as an asexual person.
False, as far as I know. Conan Gray hasn't labeled his orientation. However, "crush culture makes me wanna spill my guts out" is essentially a universal sentiment among thoughtful high school students - and the song was used in the background of a scene in Heartstopper where the aromantic asexual character Isaac has a lightbulb moment about his identity.
William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets in his lifetime. True or False: Perhaps the most famous Shakespearean sonnet, beginning with the line "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", is spoken by a man and addressed to a man.
True! Sonnet 18 is one of the first 126 sonnets, all of which are understood to be addressed to the so-called Fair Youth. There are actually only 28 so-called Dark Lady sonnets (spoken by a man and addressed to a woman) in the Shakespearean canon!
In Homer's epic poem The Iliad, a prequel to The Odyssey about the Trojan War, the demigod soldier Achilles is overcome with grief when he loses his best friend Patroclus. True or False: While scholars have been debating the nature of Patrochilles for generations, the term achillean is used by some people in the LGBTQ+ community to refer to a romantic relationship between men-aligned people.
True! Achillean is seen as the MLM equivalent of sapphic, which refers to romance between women-aligned people as an homage to - you guessed it - Sappho.
True or False: Assigned female at birth, Jemima Wilkinson was born to Quaker parents in 1700s New England. After nearly dying of a fever, they woke up and announced that Jemima was dead; they had been reborn as a genderless spirit. For the rest of their life, they dressed in an androgynous style and ended up leading their own religious group.
True! There's a ton of historical documentation about the Publick Universal Friend and the principles the Friend stood for (free will and the abolition of slavery among them). (Note: During life, The Friend asked to be referred to with a full name rather than pronouns; I just wasn't sure how to do that without spoiling the answer and making it seem too specific to possibly be false!)
The songs in iconic Disney renaissance movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were all composed by Alan Menken, who still writes Disney music to this day - but the lyrics were written by someone else. True or False: In addition to being a composer-lyricist duo, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman were romantic partners until Ashman's death in 1991.
False. Alan Menken has been married to his wife, Janis Roswick, since 1972; however, he and Howard Ashman were platonic besties and a musical power-duo! Howard Ashman was openly gay and channeled aspects of his life experience into the lyrics of songs like "Part of Your World."
Oscar Wilde (an author who had relationships with both men and women throughout his life and whose brilliant writing gives off sassy-gay-friend vibes) is known for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde also wrote an 1889 short story with a similar title, The Portrait of Mr. W.H., which was expanded into a novella and published posthumously in 1921. What was the premise of the story? (Hint: It has to do with Shakespeare.)
It's about a bunch of guys trying to figure out who the "Fair Youth" from Shakespeare's sonnets is; their idea is that it's an actor named Willie Hughes, who played lots of Shakespeare's female characters on stage. (Anyone who's subscribed to Kate Pitt's "Shakespeare News" Substack will find this speculation oddly familiar... the debate's been going on longer than it hasn't!)
What does the term "enby" usually mean?
It's a phonetic spelling of the acronym NB, which stands for nonbinary.