Mickey mouse is gay

While Disney wasn't on board with portraying Alisha and Kiki's kiss, Pixar insisted. LGBTQ representation has been an important issue in the animation industry for decades, with companies such as Disney taking up the forefront a lot of the time with their sometimes iffy and generally insensitive footing when dealing with the matter. 

Although it isn’t much, to criticize the production issues when it comes to LGBTQ representation in animation and Disney movies specifically is not to ignore the LGBTQ or queer icon characters that we have come to know and love over the years.

She also falls in love with Amity, her enemy-turned-friend-turned-lover. Who knows? It was originally released in 2017, and ran until the middle of 2019, when it was cancelled due to Disney’s infamous 65-episode series limit. 

While the main character of the series is undoubtably the titular Andi Mack, a young girl with a strong heart and considerable intelligence, in this summary we’ll be talking about Cyrus Goodman – one of Andi’s best friends.

After all, the entire plot of the movie revolves around Merida’s discomfort at the traditional gender roles that her mother, Queen Elinor, wants her to play. And in 2023 he’s considering transitioning. She works for Dr. Drakken, and has come head to head with the show’s titular character Kim Possible upon many occasions while doing his bidding.

The character’s sassy, intimidating attitude and the mocking tension that she offers Kim is probably a large contributing factor towards her status as a gay icon, and while there is no concrete evidence that she is queer or otherwise, fan canon has certainly decided her fate a long time ago.

We’re considering it. This impression was so strong, in fact, that fans spent most of the time during the buildup to Frozen 2 insisting that Elsa be given the representation – and girlfriend – that they felt she deserved. 

While that clearly didn’t come to pass, and all of this might be up to opinion, it remains true that ‘Let it Go’ is an anthem for being yourself despite expectations and limitations, so we can all celebrate that at least!

#5) Cyrus Goodman from Andi Mack

Just like Good Luck Charlie – featured later on this list – Andi Mack is a Disney Channel live-action TV show.

In other cases, viewers have criticized the studio for coding its villains as being gay, conflating gayness with evil, or going so over the top as to be insultingly stereotypical, pigeonholing an entire community. The three girls love the boy band 4*TOWN more than anything, and their biggest dream is to go to their concert.

If there are two males, one dominates. After accidentally finding her way into the Demon Realm from the human world, Luz took to her new surroundings with great zeal, and quickly takes up training to be a witch despite the fact that she is human and thus possesses no natural magical abilities. 

The story of The Owl House is unbelievably dense and well-structured, and to dive deeper into it would require another list entirely, but it remains to be said that Luz’s status as an LGBTQ characters comes both from the fact that she directly identifies as a lesbian and from her reoccurring romance arc with fellow witch in training Amity Blight.

After getting off to a rocky, competitive start, the two have become incredibly close over the span of the series, eventually sharing their first kiss and promising to go on a proper date – though their attempts to do so are more often interrupted than not.

Elinor gives her best efforts at making the Princess into a ‘true, ladylike woman’, but Merida is simply too rebellious – constantly riding out alone and seeking her own adventures while turning aside male suitors and shunning all other expectations placed on her due to her gender. 

While there is a possibility that Merida may not identify as LGBTQ, it’s equally plausible that she merely rejects societal pressure to conform to a relationship she isn’t comfortable with.

This includes not letting the rival kingdom Fang get in her way, even when she is betrayed by Fang’s princess Namaari, who attempts to steal the mysterious Dragon Gem from under Raya’s father’s protective eye. We’ve spoken about the profit-based reasons for queer characters being chronically left out of movies and animation, and the nature of ‘queer-coding’ and the vilification of queer people before, but what about the social reasons, and the conservative nature of production companies?

Her gradually strengthening feelings for Kim over the length of the show – platonic or otherwise – didn’t do much to dispel this notion, either, and instead added more fuel to the fire that was the Kim Possible fandom’s admiration of her as a character and potential queer icon.

#9) Susan and Cheryl from Good Luck Charlie

Talking about the first steps taking toward inclusion is a common theme when fans and critics alike dissect gay characters in Disney films – and is also a strong theme in this list as a whole – but one step along the path to peace is often ignored when it comes to the animation company, and that step manifests itself deep amongst the episodes of Disney channel soap opera Good Luck Charlie. 

Although the pair are only seen in one episode, and despite the fact that their relationship as a couple is explored very little, Susan and Cheryl can very truthfully be held as the first queer couple ever featured in a Disney production.

The pair appeared in the second to last episode of the series, and facilitated a skit of where Bob – Charlie’s bumbling father – laments about how he would usually take the husband of a couple that visits the house upstairs to watch sports, and that he is now confused.

Fiction is an artform designed for fun, so let’s get out there and see what the top 10 LGBTQ Disney characters have to offer!

#1) Raya and Namaari from Raya and the Last Dragon

Raya and the Last Dragon was Disney’s 2021 attempt to reenter the fantasy genre, featuring a grand quest to save a segregated world from absolute doom, and a surprising amount of touching metaphors and moments to go with the movie’s vibrant setting.

The movie’s main character Raya is one of the few of her kind – presented to the story as powerful and independent, as well as not seeming particularly interested in romance as a whole, she takes the plot into her own hands and makes things work without much help from anyone else.

Despite this, and despite the fact that the show sees a limited broadcast due to the content of its story, it remains adored by fans.

While the amount of queer characters in The Owl House is far greater than just Luz alone, she is the main protagonist, and so it is fair that we focus on her for this mention.

Specter responds to her sense that Bronco is having difficulties bonding with his pseudo step-children by saying that she is having the same issues with her girlfriend’s children.

This one line from Specter planted her as both a milestone in Pixar’s history books and as an important step from Disney’s side as well, given that the Pixar’s owning collective is responsible for often trying to chicane Pixar away from having characters in their movies that could result in negative reactions from conservative groups, governments, and audiences.

#7) Luz Noceda from The Owl House

The Owl House is a burning beacon of minority representation as a whole – a status that has earned it more than it’s fair share of the already overbearing Disney content advisory treatment.

However, even before, there were several characters that were queer-coded or whose journey positively inspired many LGBTQ+ fans.

16 Luz Noceda and Amity Arrive To Be the Most Amazing Disney Couple

Sarah-Nicole Robles and Mae Whitman voice Luz and Amity in the Owl House

The Owl House is one of the best animated TV shows of recent years.