Wonder Woman the LGBTQI+ Icon

Hey guys. Let's talk about how Wonder Woman has impacted you or the world as an LGBTQI+ icon.

As we all know Wonder Woman has always been a feminst icon, even though DC itself rarely wanted to go into the nitty gritty of what that meant. But one of the most surprising things to me that has happened over the years was discovering that a lot of gay men like Phil Jiminez himself felt inspired by the nature of the character. What is Diana's unique appeal to this experience of the world?

I wanted to dive into the positive and negative ways she has connected with you experience or of the people you know. This is mostly an appreciation thread but it's totally fine to also bring interesting critique into the thread.

Well I didn't know that polyamorous relationships were a thing until I began digging into the background behind Wonder Woman which was fascinating

[QUOTE=Fuzzy Mittens;5564281]Well I didn't know that polyamorous relationships were a thing until I began digging into the background behind Wonder Woman which was fascinating[/QUOTE]

I wish DC would give a polyamorous relationship a try with Diana. If there’s any route to go down that road with, it’s comics.

She's the most radical and subversive character underneath those supehero tropes and trappings. She comes from a lady utopia where she was born out of love, outside the influence of any man. Her upbringing is communal. Her society indelibly queer and sex-positive. She's the perpetual outsider. She's queer but is unafraid to show who she is and where she's from and combat man's bullshit with love and open arms if not a boot to the face. She's the product of two women and a man engaged in a polyamorous relationship, itself a radical counterpoint to the heteronormative "nuclear" family. Her arms are yonic and defensive: the lasso, her bracelets, and her tiara.

As a Latino gay man, there is just so much there. She faces the uphill battle of sexism and misogyny and queer erasure if not homophobia but she's still the most compassionate. Hippolyta so desiring of a child she sculpts her own from clay and begs the goddesses to give her life. It speaks to the power of a maternal narrative in fiction and how powerfully it resonates with women and queer people and PoC, many of us who were raised by communities of powerful women. These women were often the gateway to the "feminine" or the "other" and represent a power and strength that at the time I didn't understand. It was strength not borne of violence but through empathy and understanding. Surviving and persevering in the face of systemic oppression and societal norms and expectations. Maternal "warrior" women , many of which were not necessarily mothers, not so unlike Amazons themselves. These women could also "see" the queerness in their children and would be accepting far more often than the men.

I write all the above to contextualize her queer appeal. She's the panacea to the muscle men beating their philosophy and ideals into people. She espouses transformative justice and love. She's the queer mom/sister/best friend/aunt we see our queerness in who accepts the queerness of her audience, nay, emboldens us to love ourselves. The Amazons and their Paradise Island are like the ideal mix of our biological and found families loving and accepting us and the Island itself a safe space, neither of those things necessarily existing for many queer people in real life. The queer community understands the fear and violent reach of the patriarchy and empathize with the quasi-historical underpinnings of the Amazons. Again, even her birth is queer love wish fulfillment and an example of parthenogenesis.

I'm rambling but there's just so many reasons and I know I'm missing more but a lot of what she makes me feel and why she does that is hard to verbalize. Like, just reflecting on her importance to me makes me cry haha.

[QUOTE=Shimbo;5564546]She's the most radical and subversive character underneath those supehero tropes and trappings. She comes from a lady utopia where she was born out of love, outside the influence of any man. Her upbringing is communal. Her society indelibly queer and sex-positive. She's the perpetual outsider. She's queer but is unafraid to show who she is and where she's from and combat man's bullshit with love and open arms if not a boot to the face. She's the product of two women and a man engaged in a polyamorous relationship, itself a radical counterpoint to the heteronormative "nuclear" family. Her arms are yonic and defensive: the lasso, her bracelets, and her tiara.

As a Latino gay man, there is just so much there. She faces the uphill battle of sexism and misogyny and queer erasure if not homophobia but she's still the most compassionate. Hippolyta so desiring of a child she sculpts her own from clay and begs the goddesses to give her life. It speaks to the power of a maternal narrative in fiction and how powerfully it resonates with women and queer people and PoC, many of us who were raised by communities of powerful women. These women were often the gateway to the "feminine" or the "other" and represent a power and strength that at the time I didn't understand. It was strength not borne of violence but through empathy and understanding. Surviving and persevering in the face of systemic oppression and societal norms and expectations. Maternal "warrior" women , many of themselves not necessarily mothers themselves, not so unlike Amazons themselves. These women could also "see" the queerness in their children and would be accepting far more often than the men.

I write all the above to contextualize her queer appeal. She's the panacea to the muscle men beating their philosophy and ideals into people. She espouses transformative justice and love. She's the queer mom/sister/best friend/aunt we see our queerness in who accepts the queerness of her audience, nay, emboldens us to love ourselves. The Amazons and their Paradise Island are like the ideal mix of our biological and found families loving and accepting us and the Island itself a safe space, neither of those things necessarily existing for many queer people in real life. The queer community understands the fear and violent reach of the patriarchy and empathize with the quasi-historical underpinnings of the Amazons. Again, even her birth is queer love wish fulfillment and an example of parthenogenesis.

I'm rambling but there's just so many reasons and I know I'm missing more but a lot of what she makes me feel and why she does that is hard to verbalize. Like, just reflecting on her importance to me makes me cry haha.[/QUOTE]

This post is *everything*. Thank you so much for taking the time to articulate it, my little queer heart is so much warmer for it.

[QUOTE=Shimbo;5564546]She's the most radical and subversive character underneath those supehero tropes and trappings. She comes from a lady utopia where she was born out of love, outside the influence of any man. Her upbringing is communal. Her society indelibly queer and sex-positive. She's the perpetual outsider. She's queer but is unafraid to show who she is and where she's from and combat man's bullshit with love and open arms if not a boot to the face. She's the product of two women and a man engaged in a polyamorous relationship, itself a radical counterpoint to the heteronormative "nuclear" family. Her arms are yonic and defensive: the lasso, her bracelets, and her tiara.

As a Latino gay man, there is just so much there. She faces the uphill battle of sexism and misogyny and queer erasure if not homophobia but she's still the most compassionate. Hippolyta so desiring of a child she sculpts her own from clay and begs the goddesses to give her life. It speaks to the power of a maternal narrative in fiction and how powerfully it resonates with women and queer people and PoC, many of us who were raised by communities of powerful women. These women were often the gateway to the "feminine" or the "other" and represent a power and strength that at the time I didn't understand. It was strength not borne of violence but through empathy and understanding. Surviving and persevering in the face of systemic oppression and societal norms and expectations. Maternal "warrior" women , many of themselves not necessarily mothers themselves, not so unlike Amazons themselves. These women could also "see" the queerness in their children and would be accepting far more often than the men.

I write all the above to contextualize her queer appeal. She's the panacea to the muscle men beating their philosophy and ideals into people. She espouses transformative justice and love. She's the queer mom/sister/best friend/aunt we see our queerness in who accepts the queerness of her audience, nay, emboldens us to love ourselves. The Amazons and their Paradise Island are like the ideal mix of our biological and found families loving and accepting us and the Island itself a safe space, neither of those things necessarily existing for many queer people in real life. The queer community understands the fear and violent reach of the patriarchy and empathize with the quasi-historical underpinnings of the Amazons. Again, even her birth is queer love wish fulfillment and an example of parthenogenesis.

I'm rambling but there's just so many reasons and I know I'm missing more but a lot of what she makes me feel and why she does that is hard to verbalize. Like, just reflecting on her importance to me makes me cry haha.[/QUOTE]

Beautiful, thank you!

The only reason why I still read Wonder Woman at my adult age is because for me it has been a source of inspiration in my gay activism and, also, why not, in the feminist one.
In my childhood / adolescence I read everything from Batman, Superman, X-Men, Lobo !! ... And more, much more.
Now in my adulthood I can still connect so strongly with Her, obviously it depends a lot on who writes her, some better some worse, but it is always there, always latent in her own series, that love for others, that understanding of the other, embracing the diversity, she is a rebel in her own way, that's why I think she is not easy to write, that why she had a hardcore fanbase who expect a lot on how she should be represented.

I don't know. She'll be shacked up with Bruce and Clark a lot.

[QUOTE=Alpha;5563719]Hey guys. Let's talk about how Wonder Woman has impacted you or the world as an LGBTQI+ icon.

As we all know Wonder Woman has always been a feminst icon, even though DC itself rarely wanted to go into the nitty gritty of what that meant. But one of the most surprising things to me that has happened over the years was discovering that a lot of gay men like Phil Jiminez himself felt inspired by the nature of the character. What is Diana's unique appeal to this experience of the world? [/QUOTE]

I think because Wonder Woman's being from an island of women, being created by only her mother (and originally breathed life into by Aphrodite, Diana has two moms in a sense). There is a lot that people can relate with about Wonder Woman. Considering Marston's lifestyle that he included in Wonder Woman. Diana is very much an appeal for embracing one's sexuality. And so, for decades the world of superheroes was (and still is) very much heterosexual, she's been the shining light for the LGBTQ+, even when she's was staunchly heterosexual.

[QUOTE=Shimbo;5564546][B]She's the most radical and subversive character underneath those supehero tropes and trappings. She comes from a lady utopia where she was born out of love, outside the influence of any man. Her upbringing is communal. Her society indelibly queer and sex-positive. She's the perpetual outsider. She's queer but is unafraid to show who she is and where she's from and combat man's bullshit with love and open arms if not a boot to the face. She's the product of two women and a man engaged in a polyamorous relationship, itself a radical counterpoint to the heteronormative "nuclear" family. Her arms are yonic and defensive: the lasso, her bracelets, and her tiara.[/B]

As a Latino gay man, there is just so much there. She faces the uphill battle of sexism and misogyny and queer erasure if not homophobia but she's still the most compassionate. Hippolyta so desiring of a child she sculpts her own from clay and begs the goddesses to give her life. It speaks to the power of a maternal narrative in fiction and how powerfully it resonates with women and queer people and PoC, many of us who were raised by communities of powerful women. These women were often the gateway to the "feminine" or the "other" and represent a power and strength that at the time I didn't understand. It was strength not borne of violence but through empathy and understanding. Surviving and persevering in the face of systemic oppression and societal norms and expectations. Maternal "warrior" women , many of which were not necessarily mothers, not so unlike Amazons themselves. These women could also "see" the queerness in their children and would be accepting far more often than the men.

I write all the above to contextualize her queer appeal. She's the panacea to the muscle men beating their philosophy and ideals into people. She espouses transformative justice and love. She's the queer mom/sister/best friend/aunt we see our queerness in who accepts the queerness of her audience, nay, emboldens us to love ourselves. The Amazons and their Paradise Island are like the ideal mix of our biological and found families loving and accepting us and the Island itself a safe space, neither of those things necessarily existing for many queer people in real life. The queer community understands the fear and violent reach of the patriarchy and empathize with the quasi-historical underpinnings of the Amazons. Again, even her birth is queer love wish fulfillment and an example of parthenogenesis.

I'm rambling but there's just so many reasons and I know I'm missing more but a lot of what she makes me feel and why she does that is hard to verbalize. Like, just reflecting on her importance to me makes me cry haha.[/QUOTE]

An eloquent write-up of Diana's character, and frankly you encapsulated what makes her not just a great queer character, but what makes her Wonder Woman and why so many writers struggle with her. In particular, the passage I've taken the liberty of emphasizing with bold text-- it's so at odds with the fascination of making her an aggressive barbarian hero that conflicts with the core of her character. She works best as the living contradiction-- a woman who doesn't fit our understandings of the world, but exists thus proving that perhaps we have much left to learn.


All of that gets thrown in the dumpster and lit on fire when you turn her into Superman's second choice and willing participant in authoritarian rule. Or Conan-lite.

Shimbo said it.

I’ll add that first encountered her when I was 4-5 years old and mesmerized by her fabulousness. No other character can touch her in the layers to the character. It’s a shame so many creators don’t understand that, but that’s also literally why she was created and is needed in the first place.

DC not doing anything with Themyscira during Pride Month feels like a missed opportunity.

You got an island full of Women, who have created a utopian civilization, many of whom have been confirmed to engage in same-sex relationships way back when Perez was on the series, and you're not going to have a story about it?

[QUOTE=Robanker;5571546]An eloquent write-up of Diana's character, and frankly you encapsulated what makes her not just a great queer character, but what makes her Wonder Woman and why so many writers struggle with her. In particular, the passage I've taken the liberty of emphasizing with bold text-- it's so at odds with the fascination of making her an aggressive barbarian hero that conflicts with the core of her character. She works best as the living contradiction-- a woman who doesn't fit our understandings of the world, but exists thus proving that perhaps we have much left to learn.


All of that gets thrown in the dumpster and lit on fire when you turn her into Superman's second choice and willing participant in authoritarian rule. Or Conan-lite.[/QUOTE]

What the writers should do is have Wonder Woman face the contradictions, struggle with them, and overcome them.

[QUOTE=I'm a Fish;5572102]DC not doing anything with Themyscira during Pride Month feels like a missed opportunity.

You got an island full of Women, who have created a utopian civilization, many of whom have been confirmed to engage in same-sex relationships way back when Perez was on the series, and you're not going to have a story about it?[/QUOTE]

I still don't know what makes them think that many conservatives are reading Wonder Woman. There's nothing to lose, only to gain.

[QUOTE=I'm a Fish;5572102]DC not doing anything with Themyscira during Pride Month feels like a missed opportunity.

You got an island full of Women, who have created a utopian civilization, many of whom have been confirmed to engage in same-sex relationships way back when Perez was on the series, and you're not going to have a story about it?[/QUOTE]

What happens on Paradise Island [B]stays[/B] on Paradise Island. ;)

[QUOTE=Robanker;5572235]What happens on Paradise Island [B]stays[/B] on Paradise Island. ;)[/QUOTE]

I feel like this was said word for word on the Harley Quinn show when they had their bachelorette party on Paradise Island (Harley, Ivy, Catwoman, Hippolyta too i think)!

Paradise Island was Fire Island before Fire Island was even flaming!

I felt so nervous posting my long write up earlier in the thread but I'm grateful for the warm response. :)