How LGBTQ+ Creators Are Making Representation Happen On Their Own Terms

“Where do you draw the line on what to relate to?” Lachlan Watson asked. By this point, they were deep into a discussion with actor Ian Alexander, comedian Sydnee Washington, influencer Stephon Mendoza, and moderator John Paul Brammer, managing editor of The Trevor Project. Each person had come with each other to talk identity, representation, and Pride Month for MTV News’s Sound On panel, and spent two hours first up to each other about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences inside the LGBTQ+ community.


“Especially being non-binary — [and] I don't actually know if I put that label on myself that early, however I routinely knew that I never really related to either of the cisgenders — I'd relate to Legolas in Lord of the Rings because he was the gender-androgynous alien,” they mentioned, noting that in the absence of pure, incontestable representation, “you seek out the things that you want from that media.”


“Especially as soon as you're young, you don't have the language to really communicate what it is that you feel,” Mendoza added, noting that he’s right now teaching his parents the answers they couldn’t allocate any time while he was coming of age.


Those answers were critical to understanding his identity as a gender nonconforming person — one that was severely underrepresented in popular media. So, like Watson, he made the media work for him and noticed comfort in watching America’s Next Top Model’s Miss J and in Disney villains, whose negative energy, he believes, stemmed from the same sort of teasing, bullying, and ostracization that he experienced growing up. (For his part, Mendoza tries to manifest those experiences into positive energy.)


But where TV has largely failed to allocate complete, accurate portrayals all of the different layers of our identities, social media platforms have become lifelines for some members of the LGBTQ+ community, allocating comfort, knowledge, hope, and ultimately, pride. Alexander, as an example, turned to YouTubers like Ty Turner and Alex Bertie, who inspired his thinking, “Oh, that’s me. I can be trans, and be successful and happy.”


It was a critical realization: Before anyone can take pride in their identity, they have to find their identity. It was also the starting of a lasting relationship with social media that would become a primary source of community.


“Social media, once utilized flawlessly, is probably the greatest tool in the full world,” Alexander mentioned, thinking on the positive characteristic of the platforms. For years, members of the LGBTQ+ community have noticed and created safe spaces for themselves in the digital world, where they can explore their identities freely and without judgement, and dive into subcultures they might not directly have been exposed to in their hometowns. “You can connect with people across the world in seconds, and you could find out what's going on in other countries that's not being announced on the news,” he added.


The easy spread of news that matters to the LGBTQ+ community can be both heartening — it provides easy access to images from every Pride parade in the nation — or some days, really sad, as Alexander noted that Twitter is his primary source for learning about events surrounding the disproportionate violence against trans ladies of color and the struggle of being queer and undocumented.


While online communities often put the burden of spreading news onto its members,  there is also an added sense of control over the spread of statistics. “It's up to us to put that data out there,” Washington noted, before adding, "I'm thankful for Twitter for habitually enlightening us and habitually making sure hashtags are out there and then giving us the awareness to be like, 'Oh we can donate here, we can give to this cause, we can actually know their name, know their life.’”


“I realized the power of social media any time Whenever I realized that no one was going to speak for me and then I did not want anyone to speak for me,” Watson mentioned. If they posit it can be a long time before a non-binary producer has a strong voice in Hollywood, they can make use of their voice on social media now. “You can curate your own image and also you could mention what you hope to mention, you could speak to the kids in your DMs, you could tell them that it's okay to be who you are without relying on an institution that is stacked against us and has been forever,” Watson mentioned. “It's giving the voice to those who matter, who are doing something different, who are standing up for change.”


Through that solidarity and sense of shared existence, it becomes a little easier to trim the can’ts and won’ts that may be preventing us from becoming our truest selves and feeling pride in each segment of who we are. “When you're younger and attempting to figure things out, [it’s] self-hatred and despising yourself and wishing you can change things,” Alexander mentioned. “So, a big piece that method of becoming who you are and developing pride is just loving yourself and accepting yourself.”


Although Pride Month is way bigger than achieving individual pride. “It's a celebration of us being able to do what we're doing now in 2019,” Washington mentioned, with Mendoza applauding the visibility of “those 64-color crayon box people” who “see almost every spectrum that we can stay in, that we can be in.” And it’s about letting the world know that the LGBTQ+ community is a whole community.


It’s a sentiment Brammer holds close to his heart, recalling a time before he had come out as gay, once an aunt mentioned to him, “Oh, you know, there really are other gay people out there, and so they look out for each other.” By means of the years, he’s thought back on that moment, and it’s become his lodestar as he’s noticed his place inside the LGBTQ+ community.


“What I think pride means to me is group kind of a collective statement of we exist, we’re out here,” he mentioned. “Even if you’re not out however, even in case you don’t feel safe to come out, there really are people here who are in your corner. And thus even if you’re not at the parade, you could visualize that we’re out here, somewhere.”