The new animated feature from Netflix treats its protagonist's identity matter-of-factly but with care — which is exactly how it ought to be.

Here's a few snippets from the article...

As a straight parent, I’m grateful to see more queer representation on children’s programming. I've seen for myself how early heteronormative conditioning starts for young children; it's often before they have any awareness of their own identity and usually before they are born. My husband and I were saddened — but not surprised — to receive well-meaning gifts of baby clothing that read “Ahoy ladies!” and “Ladies’ man” when our own child was born, items that projected onto him an orientation that was entirely presumptuous and contradictory to our parenting philosophy.

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Representation of all kinds matter — from canonical queer representation to positive representation of Black people, Indigenous people and all people of color. When kids can’t see people like themselves in books or on the screen, it is easy for them to feel invisible. Over time, feeling invisible in the world might lead them to feel like they don’t matter when they do or like there is something wrong with them when there isn't.

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Accurate representation helps people feel less alone, especially people from marginalized communities. Helping LGBTQ children feel seen enough to talk to someone, to seek help, is vital when you consider that The Trevor Project’s 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that 39 percent of LGBTQ respondents seriously considered attempting suicide in the prior 12 months, a percentage that rises to more than half for transgender and nonbinary youth specifically.

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While my 7-year-old giggled and guffawed through the entire movie, at no point did he even particularly take note of Katie’s initial coded — as she puts it — “weirdness,” or later confirmed queerness. He was simply enthralled with this cool teenage protagonist who loves rainbows and drawing, just like he does.

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I'll share those snippets for now, click on the link to read the rest.

Also...The character never mentions her sexual orientation AT ALL. She does wear a rainbow pin on her hoodie and at the end there's a very brief mention of "Are you and Jade official?" And that's it.

That's what the entire article is about ...one mention of being in an official relationship with a woman...and wearing a rainbow pin is "queer-coded" and weirdness is supposedly "queer-coded" too.

Anyways, what are your thoughts on the article and the movie?

Ah actually, just wanted to note the article says that Elsa from Disney's Frozen is an LGBTQ icon for singing songs that are supposedly coming out anthems...and article author said Disney's Raya from the Last Dragons is also an alphabet soup icon. It also mentions other shows like Arthur, Legend of Korra, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and Steven Universe.