LGBT Fanbase / Western Animation

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LGBT Fanbases in Western Animation.

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• Adventure Time:
  • Marceline/Bubblegum had quite a bit of fanart. But thanks to the "What Was Missing" episode and the Recap video, the pairing has garnered a huge following with lots of fanart. Natasha Allegri, the show's character designer, made suggestive art of the two as well. They even starred in a six issue comic book series together. "Sky Witch" then tease the two like "What Was Missing" did, only about a hundred times more. They have since been confirmed as canon, becoming an Official Couple in the finale and getting an episode dedicated to their relationship in the sequel mini-series Adventure Time: Distant Lands.
  • Transgender and genderqueer fans have gravitated towards BMO due to the character's gender ambiguity.
• Amphibia has quite a following amongst the LGBT community due to all of the chemistry and subtext Anne, Sasha, and Marcy have with each other, leading to various headcanons for the three. Other ships include Hop Pop/Grime and Yunan/Olivia, the latter of which grew after the season 2 finale and was revealed to be canon in "The Hardest Thing". Being Friendly Fandoms with The Owl House, which has very open queer rep, probably helps too.
• Arcane has a fairly large one given the obvious attraction between Caitlyn and Vi (and, to a lesser extent, the Ho Yay between Jayce and Viktor).
• Arthur gained one in 2019 after an episode which the characters' teacher Mr. Ratburn married another man, in what might be one of the first overt depictions of homosexuality in a children's cartoon.
• Batman: The Animated Series had Harley and Ivy as two very close 'best friends', confirmed by Word of Gay to be on-and-off. It's since become rare to talk of either without each other and they've gained a large LGBT fanbase.
• Baymax!:
  • In the third episode, Baymax goes on a Tampon Run for a girl going through her first period. One of the people who gives suggestions is a trans man whose shirt looks exactly like the transgender flag.
  • Episode 4 involves a gay man trying to talk to his crush.
• Biker Mice from Mars: Shirtless, muscular anthropomorphic mice who ride motorcycles and are fond of wrestling one another? Yes.
• Bob's Burgers has one due to its unassuming depictions of gender and sexuality, the fact that Bob is one of the only adult sitcom fathers to avert both Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child and Gay Panic, and the fact that several recurring characters are LGBT themselves. It's even heavily implied on more than one occasion that Bob himself is bisexual.
• Bojack Horseman is absolutely beloved in the asexual community for having not only one of the extremely rare examples of asexual representation, but actually trying to delve into asexual experiences and depict their lives and suffering with nuance and empathy, at a time when most asexual representation sadly still treats asexuality as merely an obstacle for allosexuals to overcome. Todd, alongside Archie's Jughead, is often considered an out-and-out asexual icon.
• Cleopatra in Space has this in spades due to the amount of Les Yay Cleo has with some of the female characters (mainly Akila, Callie, and Yosira). The episode "Pirates" which showed how, in addition to Zaid, she's also attracted to girls, helped out.
• Danny Phantom has a large LGBT+ following, especially given the running themes of keeping one's identity secret, having to hide from one's parents for safety's sake, and anxiety over being outed as... ghostly.
• Daria has run on LOGO. Granted, many fans tend to see Les Yay in Daria and Jane's relationship, but every major character is canonically straight. Daria's repeated struggles with everyone who kept trying to change her just for the convenience of easily grouping her together with the other kids resonated with many Gay fans.
• Detentionaire has attracted a pretty solid following of gay men due to the many attractive high school boys in the cast and plenty of Ho Yay scenes between them. Biffy Goldstein in particular is really popular with the western Bara crowd, and there's a huge amount of yaoi fanfiction out there featuring him being paired with Lee (although Lee/Camilio and Camilio/Holger are also popular with this audience).
• A very large percentage of the Drawn Together fandom is LGBT, mostly due to Everyone Is Bi and the surprisingly positive portrayal of the token gay character.
• Ever After High always had this due to the large amount of female characters combined with the Les Yay between them (especially Apple White towards Raven Queen). However, it really boomed after Darling Charming gave Apple White CPR. It wasn't confirmed to be romantic; however, fans noted its similarities to True Love's Kiss and pinned Darling as Apple's "prince charming".
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • The episode "The Boy Who Would Be Queen" has a following among trans people due to its genderbending, crossdressing, and gender role-related themes. Trixie's hidden tomboyishness has some fans pinning her as queer.
  • Timmy himself has a trans fanbase, due to a few reasons. First, the constant jokes about his parents wanting a daughter and comments about trying to raise him as such (pictures of him in dresses, his parents buying exclusively girl stuff before he was born) can be interpreted as him being born female and his parents respecting him being a trans boy, but being passive aggressive about how they're unhappy about it, and second, the matter of secret wishes. There are a few times Cosmo gets concerned about Wanda wanting Timmy to see the girl's side of things (he nearly panics when Wanda tries to turn him into a girl in one episode), so it's not hard to see it as Timmy making a secret wish that retroactively made him male, and that Cosmo is the one that granted it.
• Family Guy: According to Word of God, Jasper (Brian's gay cousin) was an attempt to invoke this trope. It failed, and he wound up being hated by LGBT fans and non-LGBT fans alike.
• Gargoyles: Goliath, Brooklyn and Broadway are all LGBT Fanbase favorites, and to a lesser extent even Hudson is featured. But Lexington, the only actual Word of Gay character, is too much of The Twink for the Bara Genre crowd.
• The Ghost and Molly McGee: As early as the 2020 sneak peek, the series gained a fanbase largely consisting of young LGBTQ+ people, carrying over from The Owl House. The Les Yay between Molly/Libby and Molly/Andrea, as well as canon LGBT characters like Mrs. Roop and Geoff, certainly help.
• Hazbin Hotel: The majority of the main cast being LGBT in some way, with Charlie and Vaggie being a gay couple between a bisexual and lesbian respectively, Angel Dust being a gay Crossdresser, Husk being pansexual, and Alastor being asexual, has attracted a good number of LGBT viewers.
• Some fans of Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats believe Hector and Wordsworth are a gay couple.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) gets this a lot. Considering Prince Adam is soft-spoken, likes to cook, and wears pink and lavender with furry underpants over his tights, and he transforms into a muscular barbarian capable of using 'fabulous secret powers' when he 'holds his sword aloft'. She-Ra: Princess of Power tends to attract a lot of this as well. Just look at Bow.
• Jem:
  • Jem has a large gay male fanbase. So much so that Out Magazine did an interview with Jem's voice actress about it. It's also popular with gay/bi women due the noticeable about of Les Yay. There even goes a story that Britta Philips, Jem's singing voice, was allowed into a gay club once (some fans from a convention took her), when she didn't have her ID, just because someone said she was Jem's singing voice.
  • Many fans also believe that Stormer is a lesbian, and Kimber is bi. This comes from the "The Bands Break-Up" episode being heavy on their Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. In the comic reboot, they're both lesbians.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • The Legend of Korra had a sizable one, evidenced by the popularity of Korrasami even early on, when the two characters didn't interact much. It has only grown since, especially when the Grand Finale and then subsequent Word of Gay confirmed the relationship.
  • Bolin's muscular physique and cute personality make gay men fond of him.
  • Many fans began pinning Kya as either lesbian or asexual rather quickly. As it turns out, she is lesbian.
• Looney Tunes: Bugs Bunny is beloved by both non-binary and genderfluid people and considered an icon due to his frequent crossdressing, as well as being a rare example of positive representation from his time period.
• The Loud House gets praise from the LGBT community for being the first Nickelodeon show to feature an official gay couple (Clyde's dads). Some fans also believed that Luna is LGBTQ until it was later proven true in "L Is for Love".
• Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart was growing quite a large one due to the close relationship between Mao Mao and Badgerclops, boosted by Badgerclops' general flamboyancy and various Ho Yay moments. Unfortunately it dropped off after show creator Parker made an infamous (now since deleted) awkwardly worded post on tumblr about how Mao Mao and Badgerclops were not in a relationship and were never intended to be in love, just friends, with some people dropping the show in protest^note The problems people had with the post vary, but usually it was either A, that people interpreted his post as an insensitive "The REAL problem with media today is the lack of male friendship, not homosexuality" message, B, people interpreted his post as a fun killing "You can waste time on this ship if you want to, but it's not happening" message, or C, suspicion of his motives on why he felt the need to make a post clarifying their relationship in the first place. Backlash was strong enough that this event caused Parker to leave Tumblr forever and move to Twitter. The LGBT fanbase never fully picked itself back up, but there is still a loyal LGBT fanbase remaining.
• Metalocalypse has a sizeable LGBT following due to perceived homoeroticism amongst Dethklok. The idea that Pickles is transgender and Murderface is an Armoured Closet Gay are particularly popular in the fandom. The LGBT fanbase of the show has not gone unnoticed from the creators, as it is referenced in the episode "Fanklok", where real fan art is showcased at a Dethklok convention. In addition to this, when creator Brendon Small was asked about his favorite Metalocalypse fan art in a Reddit AMA, he responded that "the homosexual stuff is amazing".
• Mission Hill is rather beloved for Gus and Wally, the same-sex couple who live in the building with the main characters, because of how positively and natural the two are portrayed together, for completely avoiding any Stereotype Gay tropes, and for how all the humor of their relationship comes from how mismatched they are: a loud boisterous cook and a quiet meek milquetoast projectionist. An entire episode was even dedicated to how they met, showing that Wally gave up a chance to film a movie starring Charlton Heston and Paul Newman just to be with his True Love, and the series was also one of the first shows on prime time to depict a gay male kiss. Among others, it won an award from GLAAD for this portrayal.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot has a significant transgender following due to them viewing Jenny's characterization and treatment from others as being symbolically similar to a trans person's plight. Rob Renzetti himself stated he was okay with people interpreting Jenny however they wish, and that he was happy that Jenny's struggles resonated with the trans community. There is also a significant general LGBTQ base in the fandom due to Jenny sometimes being very close to other girls (leading many fans to believe Jenny is bi or lesbian), the most prominent being Vega from the "Escape from Cluster Prime" special who is hugely popular in that part of the show's fanbase for her interactions with Jenny.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Friendship Is Magic is already known for its large adult male fanbase (Fan Nicknamed "bronies"). But there is a particular LGBT fanbase for Big Macintosh. Rule 34 of him is also abundant, including as a Beast Man and even humanize as a human male. Braeburn got similar treatment, with the meme Everyone's gay for Braeburn.
  • There is a small but fervent cluster of trans fans who headcanon certain ponies as trans. Rainbow Dash or Scootaloo as FTM, and Fluttershy or Rarity as MTF, are particularly popular.
  • LGBT women also enjoy shipping characters together, especially the background characters Lyra and Bonbon, which actually became canon with them marrying in the Series Finale. Said finale also portrays Rainbow Dash and Applejack together in a way that may be interpreted as them having married each other sometime between the penultimate episode and this one.
  • The My Little Pony: Equestria Girls spinoff movies are also noted for the absolutely huge amount of Les Yay between Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle (both the human and pony versions). In the first movie, Sunset's obsession and jealousy over pony-Twilight comes across as borderline Yandere, while by Camp Everfree Sunset and human-Twilight have a much stronger emotional bond and much, much greater concern for each others' well-being than they have for either of their alleged male romantic interests.
  • The Comic's Expanded Universe shows that Scootaloo has two aunts that act as her mothers. This was awesome enough news for the LGBT fanbase, so them making it into the main show canon absolutely rocked their world.
• The Owl House has gotten quite the following due to Luz's developing a friendship with Amity that is dripping with romantic undertones. The show's 16th episode, "Enchanting Grom Fright" outright confirms that Amity has romantic feelings for Luz, and Word of Gay has confirmed Luz's bisexuality. And the LGBT fanbase only grew larger when the second season premiered, especially when Luz returned Amity's affection, and by the time the two became an Official Couple in "Knock Knock Knockin' on Hooty's Door"' the LGBT fanbase screamed with total delight.
• Bluto from Popeye is adored by Bara Genre fans to the point where they consider him an icon for it.
• Rainbow Brite has a few gay fans, mainly because of the Improbably Female Cast and the whole theme of trying to prevent the colors of the world from going away, which can be interpreted differently.
• Ready Jet Go!: First off, Jet is an alien, so he's technically genderless but aligned to masculinity. He's also in touch with his feminine side, loves singing, dancing, and performing, and is an overdramatic Large Ham. He's affectionate with everyone his age, boys and girls alike (especially Sean). Due to the fact that Bortronians don't care about gender, it makes perfect sense that Jet is bi, which was headcanoned by fans for years before Word of Gay quietly confirmed it. Beep the rover was introduced as a male rover named Shep, but Jet finds out that she's really a girl, and the characters use her correct name and pronouns without fail for the rest of the series, which is obviously a metaphor for being MTF transgender. Also, the entire concept of Jet having to hide his alien identity and being in danger if he ever reveals it is quite familiar to closeted folks. As such, many of the show's older fans are LGBTQ+.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show has also garnered one due to the rampant homosexual overtones between the eponymous characters. The creator of the show, John Kricfalusi, even once said that he regularly got letters from gay couples who said their relationships were like that of Ren and Stimpy. Later aided by Word of Gay.
• Road Rovers: Exile and his "weird boy" Blitz. Hunter seemed oddly disinterested in the flirtatious Colleen, for some odd reason.
• Rocko's Modern Life Rachel Bighead became a huge favorite among LGBT fans after she was revealed to be Transgender in Static Cling.
• Samurai Jack: How can he not, when he spends half the show nearly naked (and one episode fully naked)?
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power might well have a fanbase that is majority LGBT, given the numerous examples of both explicit and implicit representation.
• Shezow's very concept of a crossdressing superhero has made it quite popular among LGBT people.
• The Simpsons has gained a substantial queer fanbase, because not only is there a lot of Ho Yay (especially between Burns and Smithers, Carl and Lenny, and Skinner and Chalmers), The Simpsons has been advocating for gay rights and featuring gay characters ever since Season 2, and the Season 7 episode "Homer’s Phobia" had a very clear-cut Gay Aesop during a time where that was very rare on television. In addition, the two most prominent gay characters on the show, Smithers and Patty, are regular people with traits outside of their sexuality and not over-the-top stereotypes, especially when you compare them to gay characters from later adult cartoons (such as Bruce and Jasper from Family Guy, Mr. Slave and Big Gay Al from South Park, and Xandir Wifflebottom from Drawn Together). In fact, some of the gay jokes on the show are so subdued that they are often mistaken for bona-fide Ship Tease by younger viewers.
• Solar Opposites:
  • Korvo and Terry gained such a Fanbase complete with loads of shippy fanart of them due to their massive Homoerotic Subtext between them along with the fact that they are basically same-sex dads towards their replicant children Yumulack and Jesse and were shown to share a bed. The Word of Gay confirmation on their relationship in an interview between the show’s creators and inverse magazine reinforces this.
  • Although not as popular as Korvo and Terry, The Duke (A.K.A Ringo) also gained a small Fanbase due to his implied aesexuality.
• South Park has one that overlaps with Periphery Demographic. It started to garner one in the mid-2000s due to the Ho Yay moments between Stan and Kyle, Cartman and Kyle, Cartman and Butters, etc., which lead to some Gotta Ship 'Em All between the recurring male child characters. The amount of such pairings increased upon the introduction of Reddit and Tumblr. It officially reached its peak when "Tweek x Craig"—an episode that mocks its LGBT Periphery Demographic by having Asian girls publish Yaoi art of Tweek and Craig—premiered in 2015, leading several fans to believe the Creek ship to be canon.
• SpongeBob SquarePants, with SpongeBob and Patrick being commonly seen as being a legitimate gay couple. It’s gotten to the point where extreme conservative religious figures occasionally condemned it as part of "the homosexual agenda".
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Gained one of these due to a popular fan-theory on Tumblr that Marco is a closeted trans girl.
• Steven Universe:
  • The series has one with the romance between the One-Gender Race Gems and canonical nonbinary characters (including Steven and Connie's fusion).
  • Garnet's component gems being confirmed as a couple has only fueled the blaze. Ruby and Sapphire's romantic relationship is not only said by the crew, but they're stated to be in love several times in the show itself, and they're Sickeningly Sweethearts with no subtlety whatsoever.
  • Pearl has an especially strong lesbian and bi following. She has canon romantic feelings for Rose Quartz, which get explored in several Tear Jerker episodes. She also tends to blush around the other Crystal Gems, instigates most of the subtext, and she's a developed, well-rounded and flawed (occasionally relatable) character.
• SWAT Kats:
  • Fans had no trouble picking up the Ho Yay between the two main characters, even with them both being clearly interested in the opposite sex. They were just too damn close, even for best friends who were also room-mates. And partners. And co-workers.
  • A lot of LGBT folk either have them being bi, or only pretending to be straight.
• Tangled: The Series has attracted a noticeable gay following, primarily focused on Cassandra and her relationship with Rapunzel. Cass's story of being forced into becoming a handmaiden for the princess when all she wants is to become a Royal Guard and succeed her father as Captain also resonates with many LGBT fans, both gay and trans. It helps that her voice actress and the animators who worked on her also see Cass as gay, and she has pointedly never shown any interest in men.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Especially Bebop and Rocksteady. And more controversially, the Turtles among themselves. This is also helped along with various incidents along the way that were borderline Ho Yay.
• Time Squad: Young LGBT fans have always been at the heart of the small fandom, often focusing their attention on Larry in particular due to his not so subtle mannerisms and the Odd Couple type of Ho Yay vibes between him and Buck Tuddrussel. Then there's the fan reactions to how blatantly the writers wrote American explorers Lewis and Clark as being in a gay relationship and how they just needed to rekindle their love for each other by the end of the episode.
• Total Drama has always had a large LGBT+ following due to the presence of several Ambiguously Gay characters with copious amounts of Ho Yay. This fandom would only grow at the reveal that an actual same sex relationship would appear in the reboot.
• The Venture Brothers:
  • For a Dark Humor show serving as a massive Genre Deconstruction (though not without affection) for "youth" Adventure Series, Two-Fisted Tales, and many Supervillain tropes, one would not expect it to have such a large LGBT+ periphery demographic. It helps that there are numerous Mr. Fanservice characters (like muscle-bulging One-Man Army Brock Samson), who seem to end up shirtless as often as they are wearing shirts (either via Clothing Damage or "to prey on [enemies] fear"), as well as numerous positively written gay characters including the highly competent Macho Camp Agent Peacock Shoreleave and Straight Gay Alchemist.
  • In-universe, The Rusty Venture Show is a '60s-era cartoon in the vein of Jonny Quest based on Rusty's adventures with his globe-trotting Science Hero father and associates. According to Shoreleave, it has a HUGE periphery demographic within the gay community, much to Rusty's annoyance. (Not so much due to that fanbase, but because the show is apparently exaggerated and he hasn't seen "dime one" in royalties.)
• Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa: More manly anthropomorphic characters, in the form of three Cowboys.