Something for the comic book buffs: With characters like out lesbian Batwoman and the openly gay Green Lantern, DC Comics have shown themselves to be friends to the friends of Dorothy. Now with Batgirl #19, in which the superhero's roommate Alysia Yeoh comes out to her as transgender, the company has expanded its inclusion of LGBT characters.
"Look, we have a problem most media don’t have, which is that almost all the tentpoles we build our industry upon were created over a half century ago… at a time where the characters were almost without exception white, cisgendered, straight, on and on. It’s fine — it’s great that people love those characters. But if we only build around them, then we look like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show for all eternity,” Batgirl writer Gail Simone said.
Simone, who said she wanted her characters to reflect the diversity she saw among comic book aficionados, says Alysia will be more than just a token character. Alysia "will be a character, not a public service announcement. Being trans is just part of her story. If someone loved her before, and doesn't love her after, well — that's a shame, but we can't let that kind of thinking keep comics in the 1950s forever."
Read Alysia's coming out below.
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