Please note that I am trying to get better at not viewing social media after a certain point in the evening. If I doomscroll late at night and see something that gets me mad, then I’m going to go to bed angry, and my parents always told me never to go to bed angry. Well, as I’m writing this first block of the post, it’s about 11:00 PM the day before posting, and I’ve just seen something on social media which has made me angry. So I’m going to try to find some stupid videos of cats pretending they can talk like humans, go to bed less angry, and come back tomorrow morning to finish this post. Pretend like some time has passed before you read below this paragraph. Okay?
Okay. It is now the next morning. I slept for about four good hours so my brain feels raw. Here’s what got me mad last night: Disney has blocked Pixar from including a storyline about a transgender character in their upcoming Disney+ series Win or Lose. And thanks to the good people of Lost Media Busters and the Internet Archive, we have a prerender clip of what it could have looked like (which I will embed here, and hopefully the cretins at Disney’s copyright department won’t strike it):
The subtitles go kind of fast, so here’s a quick summary: The storyline centers around Kai, a trans girl (played by trans actress Chanel Stewart) on her school’s sports team working through her dysphoria. In the clip, Kai’s with her softball team at a field to play a championship game. She’s looking between the men’s and women’s bathroom, checking herself in her phone, when her friend jumps up behind her. The two of them go into the women’s, and Kai looks in the mirror while washing up, a little more sure of herself. Kai’s friend leaves, and Kai goes to help a young girl with a broken arm turn on the faucet. This is when her dysphoria slams down. Her face becomes distorted. Her voice cracks. We see her watch herself transform into disconnecting puzzle pieces with jagged edges, before finally twisting and contorting into a giant featureless blue “male” figure. The young girl looks up, not in fear or confusion, but worry.
Kai bolts from the bathroom and finds a dark spot to hide. While collecting her bearings, her dad calls. While at first the call sounds supportive, with Kai’s dad saying he wants to come watch the big game, Kai’s dad calls her his “son” and uses her deadname. It doesn’t sound like this is intentional, but it still causes Kai to start to break down again. After the call, Kai’s coach finds her and offers her words of reassurance, saying “I don’t know what kind of pitches you’re being thrown, but if you ever need to talk, the whole team will be here for you.”
Anyway, that’s a lot of exposition. But the scene hit me – to quote Tumblr circa 2012 – right in the feels. If you know a transgender person, you know they have dealt with these emotions and microaggressions every day. The struggle with identity is real, and whether it gets fueled from external forces or self-doubt, it never gets easier. But the little fragments of humanity – such as the one the coach extends to Kai – help in whatever way they can.
So why would Disney block this story from coming out? Well, take a wild guess.
Every facet of American society has begun to capitulate against transgender people in order to fall in line with the ultra-conservative nexus. This is not the first time Disney has blocked a storyline with a transgender character this year, by the way: The company put an episode of the show Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur on hold as well. For Moon Girl, they claimed it was not due to the trans storyline while in the same breath stating they were “respectful of the role that parents play in the discussions they have with their children.” For Win or Lose, they just said the latter part, basically confirming they were removing anything trans-related in the episode and the character as a whole.
Chanel Stewart will still voice Kai in the show as of now, but Disney has essentially used executive meddling to make Kai a cisgender female. This was Stewart’s lived experience, as it was with any transgender Disney fan. Instead of welcoming those experiences and stories and showing that a better and more accepting world is possible even through the struggles, Disney has chosen to exacerbate the pain, appease the pearl clutching right-wingers, and essentially say that trans people and their stories don’t matter. Pair that with the constant fearmongering coming out from right-wing media – and more often center-right media nowadays – about trans people, and those little fragments of humanity start to get smaller and smaller.
It’s all because Disney fears pushback from the tribe of Thiel, Musk, and Trump, and would rather kowtow to them and the conservative base to help their bottom line. And Comcast, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery would do the same thing. They simply don’t want to deal with the vitriol that would heap upon them, so instead they dispense what they see as the easy target. It is an insult to not just trans folks, but to the intelligence of American society. “We here at MEGACORP have removed content because it might make our evil overlords upset. We respect your right to talk with your kids about such content, but instead of showing you that content, we’re going to tell you what to think about it instead.”
Well, screw ’em all. Trans stories, characters, and talent will survive with or without Disney’s money. It would be nice for a major media conglomerate to use some of their hoarded wealth to help usher in a progressive and understanding society. But they have all decided to kneel before the might of bigotry, rolling backwards towards a time when it wasn’t just trans people who were tucked out of sight of the straight white and wealthy masses. Trans people – just like every other marginalized group throughout history – have had to fight tooth and nail to make themselves not just heard, but seen as human.
(Meanwhile JD Vance rides the high from Hillbilly Elegy all the way to the Vice Presidency. Meanwhile JK Rowling makes millions off a Harry Potter remake while cursing trans folks in the same breath. Meanwhile FOX News runs feature after feature of folks sounding right-wing dogwhistles about trans people while other media outlets shy away from featuring trans folks on their shows to tell their stories. God forbid the bigwigs at Disney appear to look like Marxist communist leftist hippies who want to teach all your kids to become trans and love China. /s)
Yet despite the blockading of these stories all throughout time, they have survived. Sure, they’ve had to find other routes for distribution: Indie releases, alternative online platforms, and so on. None of these avenues have provided much in the way of funding or receive a massive audience, and often these adjectives – “indie”, “alternative”, “hipster” – attempt to remove the dignity of these stories by distancing them from “the mainstream.” But the point is that these stories still exist, and they must continue to exist. How many stories survived the Third Reich, or Gaza, or an even darker America?
I don’t think this is overreacting, by the way. “It’s just a cartoon, Will. You wouldn’t even have watched the show anyway, so what does it matter?” What matters is that there are kids out there who legitimately struggle every day with their identity, and some of them do identify as trans, and some of them could have benefited from seeing their story in a major way. Good representation matters. When those with the power to distribute stories far and wide remove that representation, they make explicit the vision of the world they want rather than what the world could be.
This is a lot of unorganized venting. Disney should not have capitulated to the right wing’s cries, but at the end of the day, they are corporate stooges who would crush humanity beneath their heel if it meant more cold hard cash. Despite the supposed strength of the invisible hand of capitalism, that is not sustainable. Even when the corporations are shuttered and the economy tanks, the stories that matter most – especially those of trans folks – will live on. As it has been stated and will be stated ad infinitum on this website: Trans folks deserve the world, and anyone who disagrees with that statement stands on the wrong side of history.
Okay. I am still mad but at least now my head is clear. If I had tried to write this post last night after first getting mad, it would not have gone well. I will, however, be setting myself reminders to turn my phone off after 10:00 pm in order to avoid any more situations of pre-bedtime anger. (I cannot guarantee that will help.)