Cassie Sandsmark, gender-nonconformity, and internalized homophobia
Okay, I realize this is a bit of a hot-button topic right now, especially in my mutuals circle, so I'm just gonna start this off with a disclaimer that this is just one reading of Cassie's character. There are many, many different lenses you can take on Cassie's runs and you're not a bad person if you interpret or headcanon her differently
However, with that being said, there absolutely exists enough evidence to contribute to a legitimate reading of Cassie not only being queer, but specifically being queer and closeted, and I'm about to tell you why, because I'm passionate about this and I love citing sources to an unhealthy degree
[Young Justice (1998) #17]
Now, over the last couple years, I've seen a couple different takes on why it'd be out-of-character for Cassie to struggle with internalized homophobia. A lot of this discussion centers around the first claim I'll be addressing today: that Cassie is simply too confident and secure to ever feel the need to hide a part of herself just to please other people
However, it was specifically the recent discussion on this topic that was what brought all this to the forefront of my brain again, so in addition to that, I'll also be discussing two additional key points: (a) that Cassie's mother is supportive/isn't depicted as homophobic or conservative, so there's no real reason for Cassie to be closeted, and (b) that Cassie grew up surrounded by role models who are openly queer, so she has no reason to be repressed or ashamed of her own queerness
I'm going to be discussing all three of these popular misconceptions in order, so bear with me
1. Cassie is too confident and secure to ever hide parts of herself to please other people
This is the most popular argument when it comes to Cassie -- I see it most commonly used both with respect to the way she dresses and with respect to her sexuality itself. Because a lot of Cassie's queer-coding stems from the way she presented at the beginning of her tenure -- and because gender nonconformity itself remains such an integral staple of queer culture -- I'm going to be using her style transformation as an indicator as to how she might relate to other outside societal pressures (like, for example, homophobia)
The reason I bring this up, of course, is because in-canon, Cassie has explicitly been depicted as caving to societal pressures when it comes to the way she dresses
Okay, I know some of you might disagree with that interpretation of events, so let's back up real quick. Now, when it comes to Cassie's gradual feminization with respect to her design, a lot of folks attribute this to the fact that her changing outfits are used as a visual measure of her growth as a character -- with new outfits serving as visual 'landmarks' to mark her journey from the impulsive, reckless kid she starts out as to the confident, respected leader she ends up growing into
And, on a storytelling level, people claiming this are, objectively, correct. Using costume changes as a visual depiction of character growth is a classic staple of comics -- another good example of this phenomenon would be the way Nightwing's costumes slowly decreased in zaniness as more and more things he cared about got stripped away from him
However, with that being said, to pretend that providing a visual indicator of Cassie's arc is the sole motivation behind her costume changes is, at best, ahistorical. In reality, there were a fair number of outside pressures for Cassie to become "prettier" on a real world basis -- both from other writers and from the fanbase at the time. Cassie's creator John Byrne reportedly said this about the phenomenon at a FANEXPO in 2018:
[source]
Likewise, it's not just speculation to say that these views on Cassie's "ugliness" -- i.e. her gender nonconformity -- were echoed and repeated in-universe as well, oftentimes to Cassie's face.
[Wonder Woman (1987) #153]
Keep in mind that in the first two panels, these girls are Cassie's friends -- girls she sits with at lunch, girls she likes and who, presumably, like her at least a little bit. Likewise, in the rightmost panel, the speaker talking about how much she wants to "do something about that hair" is Cissie King-Jones -- also known as Arrowette, arguably one of Cassie's closest friends on Young Justice at the time. If this is what people who like Cassie are saying, it is not very difficult to imagine the kinds of things people who don't care about hurting her feelings -- i.e. the media, the public, you name it -- might feel comfortable saying.
And all this clearly takes a toll on Cassie, making her feel insecure about her appearance to the point where she begins to think there must be something wrong with her.
[Wonder Woman (1987) #153]
Note the language she uses here. She's not just saying she looks ugly. She says she looks like a "little boy." It's not just the fact that she's "ordinary" -- as Byrne put it -- it's specifically that she isn't performing femininity correctly, an accusation that echoes those commonly leveled at queer women. One could also argue that the way she thinks about "having a boyfriend" also indicates she's treating it more as a status symbol than as a genuine desire to be with a specific boy in particular -- the fact that she can't get one means something is wrong with her, so in order to perform womanhood "correctly", obviously she needs to get a boy's attention
Now, in Wonder Woman #153, the issue these panels are from, Cassie ends up calling Cissie to give her a makeover in order to get Superboy's attention. However, once she's actually face-to-face with him in her new look, she realizes it just makes her feel like a kid playing dress-up and (after she scores a quick kiss in an alley from the boy in question) she ends up going home to change, finishing the issue with a helpful moral spelled-out for the reader
However, it's important to note that this change in behavior occurs right after Lisa (the girl who flagged Cassie down and invited her to sit with her in class) actually witnessed Cassie kissing Superboy in an alley and recognized her, since by that point Cassie had removed part of her disguise. Knowing this, we can surmise these girls doubtless would have grilled her about this event as soon as they got the chance, thus reinforcing the societal belief that fitting in and being respected requires validation from men.
Similarly, despite what the moral at the end of Wonder Woman #153 might like you to believe, insecurities like Cassie's aren't the sort that disappear overnight, mainly because criticisms like the ones she's experiencing here are the type that tend to stick around. And we know that people thinking of Cassie's superhero persona as "less than" at the beginning of her tenure isn't a one-off thing too:
[Teen Titans (2003) #25]
"People" implies that this wasn't just a few kids at her school bad-mouthing Wonder Girl, but rather a pervasive and reasonably common belief held amongst the public. And linking this public perception of Cassie's competence to her gender-nonconformity isn't even a stretch, as she talks about her younger self's looks (and how bad she believes they were) quite literally in the panel directly before this one:
It might just be me, but this is not the interior monologue of a person who's confident in herself and refuses to let other people's opinions dictate her personal choices and expression. These are the words of someone who's been told again and again since she was fourteen years old that she is a pretender and a fake, who's had enough people tell her she was ugly that she internalized it and changed her style accordingly
The above analysis -- that she's caving to outside pressures -- is even supported visually in the text itself. In Wonder Woman #153 (the makeover issue), Cassie leaves off the plot by saying she doesn't need "lipstick and hot pants" to like herself. However, clearly, this wasn't entirely the case, as by her next appearance in-costume (quite literally four issues later), she's switched her costume to a new outfit that mimics certain aspects of her "makeover" to an uncanny degree
[Wonder Woman (1987) #153, Wonder Woman (1987) #157]
Sure, she ditches the short skirt and abandons the wig, but the crop top and pigtails are clearly inspired by how Cissie ended up styling her. There's also a fair chance the rectangular necklace Cissie styled her with is the same GIRL necklace she ended up incorporating into her costume later on
[Zoomed in screenshots from Cassie's makeover look in Wonder Woman (1987) #153 and her costume in Young Justice (1998) #23]
Likewise, it's important to note that the makeover aspects that don't make the transfer are all things other people have critiqued in the past -- she mentions at one point in Wonder Woman #153 that her mother Helena would "hate this skirt with a passion" and enough people have commented on the wig by that point that she may have felt similarly insecure about its inclusion
To me, all of this in conjunction -- the subtle, ever-present put-downs from her peers and the public, the self hatred when discussing her past self, the costume details cherry-picked from a makeover that made people act kinder to her -- are clear indicators that Cassie's not just changing her look for the hell of it.
If we're assuming her friends grilled her on her kissing Superboy in the alley (which, I think, is fairly safe to assume, considering they saw her kissing a superhero in an alley and then immediately pulled her aside when they next saw her), it's undeniable that Cassie would begin to connect the dots between receiving male validation and having a higher "girl status" amongst her peers. From there, it wouldn't be difficult to work backwards to figure out which of the tips and tricks from Cissie's makeover she wanted to incorporate into her new look -- something which, it seems, is exactly what she did
Whether or not you subscribe to the idea that Cassie is specifically lesbian-coded rather than bi- or queer-coded, her style-changing journey remains important to the conversation. Considering so much of Cassie's queer-coding, at least in my eyes, comes not only from her relationship with Cissie but also from her GNC-ness in her earlier runs, watching as she shies away from that GNC-ness due to both positive and negative outside pressures (male validation, persistent denigrating comments about her looks) very much seems to code her as retreating deeper into the closet with respect to her own gender nonconformity, and thus, by extension, her own queerness
(2) Cassie's mother is supportive and is not depicted as homophobic or conservative, so there's no real reason for Cassie to be closeted
Now, I will be the first to say that, as far as DC parents go, Helena Sandsmark is one of the better ones. However, this is not to say she's perfect
Throughout John Byrne's run, one of Helena's more consistent traits is that she (1) can be a bit single-minded when it comes to the narrative she subscribes to and (2) is constantly worried about and scolding Cassie due to Cassie's own ill-advised decisions
[Wonder Woman (1987) #105]
The above panel is the very first time we meet Helena or Cassie, and we quickly see that not only does Helena scold Cassie (in this case, not entirely undeservedly), she does so often enough that it's a fairly common beat in their relationship
Likewise, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Helena would chew Cassie out over her appearance due to her own worry. Take a look at this panel from Cassie's mini-solo:
[Wonder Girl (2011) #1 - Ignore the fact that the artist seemed to miss the memo here and Cassie's physique in no way resembles that of a linebacker]
Now, on a surface level, this is largely due to a major theme in this issue being that Helena disapproves of Cassie hero-ing. On that level, Helena's comment could be read as an attempt to both cover for Cassie being more muscular than average while still expressing her own disapproval over her lifestyle choices
However, I want to look specifically at the way Helena does this. Because there really isn't a need to cover for Cassie here or "explain away" her being buffer than the average woman; Cassie doesn't do anything obviously superhuman, she doesn't lift a car or have a bit of costume peek out from inside her bag -- she simply exists and happens to be buff. And yet Helena manages to turn a fairly innocent comment into a dig about how "masculine" her daughter's build is.
Now, obviously, I don't think Helena's intent here was to make Cassie insecure about her appearance. She's being passive aggressive about a natural side-effect of hero-ing because she wants her daughter to be safe, a desire that's pretty normal for any parent to have. However, the fact that, in Helena's mind, "being built like a linebacker" is automatically a negative trait does reveal some subconscious bias as to how she believes women should look and act
[some good-old-fashioned breast size shaming from Cassie, courtesy of Wonder Woman (1987) #153]
Kids are sponges when it comes to biases and worldviews, even unconscious ones, and considering that Cassie debuted in the mid-90s, it is not unreasonable to assume she may have absorbed some subconscious views not only from her peers and the media, but also from her mother.
Do I think that Helena is homophobic or that she'd reject Cassie if she ever came out as queer? No. In fact, I actually think she'd be pretty supportive. However, I do think there's a good chance that her picking on Cassie's appearance wasn't a one-off comment. Likewise, considering her life had already been upheaved in a pretty major way by one of Cassie's life choices (cough, cough, costumed super-heroing without a secret identity), there's a reasonable chance Cassie might try to abstain from rocking the boat any further
However, I recognize all the above is speculation, so I'll leave off with a final comment from someone privileged enough to have been born with pretty supportive parents: the fear of parental rejection runs deep -- even for those whose parents aren't conservative. As countless supposedly "tolerant" parents have said before, "it's different when it's your kid." For this reason, I'd say that there's a good chance that even if Cassie knew intellectually that her mother would probably be fine with it, there'd still always be that hint of fear that she'd be the exception
(3) Cassie has role models who are openly queer, so she has no reason to be repressed or ashamed of her own queerness
Befriending queer people and having healthy queer relationships modeled for you certainly helps when it comes to preventing or alleviating internalized homophobia. However, it's important to note that internalized homophobia is first and foremost the result of societal pressures, and I've already demonstrated that Cassie experiences those in spades
Now, it could also be pointed out that neither Diana nor Artemis were confirmed as queer until the mid 2010s-ish, and Cassie was first introduced as a character in 1996; however, I do think the read that Cassie would've had exposure to queer people through the Amazons is a valid one. If I'm remembering correctly, when it comes to Post-Crisis continuity, George Perez confirmed as far back as 1990 that taking female lovers is not only acceptable, but practically the norm:
[Wonder Woman (1987) #38]
Due to this, it's fair to say that Diana and the rest of the Amazons almost certainly wouldn't experience internalized homophobia or feel the need to be closeted. They've been surrounded by healthy modeling of queer relationships for thousands of years (or, in Diana's case, her entire childhood), but more importantly, on a societal level on Themyscira, queer relationships are simply the only relationships available -- all of which creates an environment where it simply wouldn't make any logical sense to develop a sense of shame around one's own queerness
However, it's important to note that unlike the rest of the Amazons, Cassie grew up as a normal human girl (and let me just reiterate this again) in the 90s, a time that wasn't exactly known for its tolerance towards gay people. She didn't grow up with queerness being expected -- she grew up with queer people being at best, the butt of the joke, and at worst, socially and professionally ostracized. For context, Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997, two years after Cassie was introduced, and people were so outraged they started calling in bomb threats to the set she was filming on at the time.
This means that, unlike the rest of the Amazons, Cassie really only encountered Amazon culture and their norms surrounding queerness later in life, by which point she was already in her mid-teens. In this sense, at least, it's not just likely but certain that she'd carry any unconscious biases from Man's World with her as she started her own journey in integrating with their culture
Now, like I said at the beginning of this essay, reading Cassie through the lens of not just queerness but also specifically closeted queerness is not the only valid interpretation of her character. There are many who'd prefer to read moments like the ones I talked about above as being examples of basic, garden variety misogyny and who'd prefer to read her character as, if not straight, then openly and joyfully queer, just as the rest of the Amazons are.
Nonetheless, it's undeniable that Cassie's initial gender nonconformity paints moments like these with an undeniable shade of queerness -- the hatred faced by gender nonconforming women and the hatred faced by queer women are, at the end of the day, two sides of the same coin. Whether or not it's your personal headcanon, whether or not Cassie presents herself as confident in other areas of her life, the specific details surrounding her conformity in presentation demonstrate a high chance that she might attempt to conform sexually as well
Anyway. That's my time. Peace out, respect your closeted butch friends, and remember that sometimes weird little girls contain multitudes
[baby Cassie screenshot credited to @daily-cassie-sandsmark]
