#my first queer

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My First Queer: Carmilla

D.E.B.S. and Imagine Me and You could have both qualified as ‘My First Queer’. That also applies to all the movies I watched were the queer character dies when I was first actively started seeking out queer media. If we want to get really technical Will & Grace could count as ‘My First Queer’ because, yes, as a kid I would flip to Will & Grace when the mid-day reruns were on. But even now I can't quite say drew me to that show so strongly when, looking back, I know so much of the stuff happening flew right over my head (including the fact that Will is gay, which I somehow didn't pick up on until later). But the first queer series that truly mattered to me was Carmilla. It still stands as one of my favorite pieces of media, in all its campy, quirky glory.

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My First Queer: 19th Century Girls

This article is part of the My First Queer series, a site-wide series of articles written by some of our non-straight Fandomentals contributors. Each will contain their thoughts on their first experiences with queer media and what it meant to them. Enjoy!

Growing up I didn’t watch much television.  And by that, I mean I didn’t watch any TV outside of a couple episodes here or there of Gossip Girl and Gilmore Girls in high school.  All of my media consumption growing up consisted of books.  So. Many. Books.  Every Sunday after church, my mom would take my sisters and me to the library or Barnes & Noble (my holy place) to pick out books that she would approve of.  So yeah, sheltered childhood.

It took me some time to realize that “My First Queer” wasn’t Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as I’d expected it to be, but rather two sets of books, both set in the 19th century, Little Women and the Gemma Doyle Trilogy.

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[thefandomentals]

My First Queer: Victorious

This article is part of the My First Queer series, a site-wide series of articles written by some of our non-straight Fandomentals contributors. Each will contain their thoughts on their first experiences with queer media and what it meant to them. Enjoy!

Hey everybody! Today I’d like to talk about a show that is very near and dear to my heart. One that I still love and rewatch to this day. And that is…the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious.

…Yes, really.

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[thefandomentals]

My First Queer: Evil Queens

Looking back at the other My First Queer articles, I have to say my experience is going to be rather different – but then again, each of those was different, too, and the experience is varied. Still, mine differs in the way that it is much more focused on attraction, instead of the more generalized realizations of queerness or powerful stories of love.

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[thefandomentals]

My First Queer: 90s Fantasy Novels

Oh look, Gretchen is going to be writing about books, big surprise! Like Kristen before me in this series, I didn’t watch a lot of TV growing up. Books were my escape, especially fantasy books. As conservative evangelical Christians, my parents were all about making sure our little child brains were as free from the ‘corrupting influences of the world’ as possible, hence why I watched so little TV and why it took me so long to figure out I was queer. Fortunately for me, my parents trusted my instincts with books. Granted, I was a compliant child who didn’t go out of my way to find anything subversive. If the cover art wasn’t scandalous and the dust jacket seemed free of ‘questionable content’, I could read it.

With literally hundreds of books passing through my hands over the first decade and a half of my life, if I still remember a scene from a book I read only once and decades ago, it meant something to me. Sometime last year, I reflected on these handful of books seared into my soul. Once you look at them, it’s pretty telling why these are the stories I remember.

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My First Queer: Adventure Time and The Legend of Korra

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that two animated television shows would be the first exposure a child---or, as it was in my case, a teenager---gets to queer representation. Kids’ cartoons aren’t there just yet when it comes to a wide array of out and proud queer relationships. This has a long history and many reasons, but I’m today I’m going to talk about that. No, today I’m focusing on how it is changing and how two shows in particular proved to be milestones from both a cultural and a personal perspective: Adventure Time and The Legend of Korra.

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