A few weeks ago, it was announced that Marvel would be canceling Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur after only two seasons, and I wrote an op-ed about why the show deserved better.
To add insult to injury, Disney has pulled an upcoming episode of Moon Girl from airing on Disney Channel due to the fact that it focuses on Brooklyn, a trans female athlete and a classmate of protagonist Lunella Lafayette. According to Polygon, artists who worked on the show said the episode had been shelved due to “which party had won the election.”
For those unfamiliar with the series, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur was adapted from the Marvel Comics series of the same name. The animated series focused on 13-year-old Lunella Lafayette, a genius Black girl living in New York who accidentally opens a portal, unleashing a gigantic red tyrannosaur. Lunella decides to become the superhero Moon Girl and team up with the giant dino, naming him Devil Dinosaur. Together they fight a colorful array of supervillains and keep their neighborhood safe.
The character Brooklyn appeared as early as the series’ first episode, “Moon Girl Landing,” but wasn’t referred to by name until episode six, “The Beyonder.” Brooklyn was already subtly shown to be trans in “Moon Girl Landing” when she drinks from a water bottle with a trans heart sticker. It also is important to note that Brooklyn is voiced by trans actor Indya Moore and that Brooklyn isn’t the only non-cis character on the show. There is also Tai, a nonbinary person and another volleyball player on the team. They are voiced by nonbinary actor Ian Alexander.
Up until now, Brooklyn had made several appearances on Moon Girl as a supporting character, most notably in the episode “Good Night, Moon Girl,” where Lunella attends a slumber party at Brooklyn’s apartment with the rest of the volleyball team. The episode introduces Brooklyn properly as the kind captain of the team as well as the older sister to a younger brother, TJ. However, the episode “The Gatekeeper” allows Brooklyn to shine fully.
Not long into the episode — which had been uploaded to YouTube but since blocked by Disney — Brooklyn talks about when she used to play soccer on the boys team at another school. She is overheard by Coach Greer, the coach of an opposing volleyball team, who tries to have Brooklyn disqualified. Things get especially chaotic when Greer uses a magical key to lock the entire volleyball team in the girls locker room, turning it into an escape-room style game. To get out, Brooklyn and the other players must find the key.
Even before the election, trans athletes were being hounded in high school and college. According to NBC, a lawsuit was filed this week against the head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team and other SJSU staff because the team has a trans athlete. Earlier this year, a federal court ruled in favor of Becky Pepper Jackson, a 13-year-old trans athlete affected by state House Bill 3293, which bans trans girls from participating on girls’ school sports teams. Them.us reported that the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal initially sued the state on Becky’s behalf in 2021.
For a trans Latina character like Brooklyn to have her story told in an authentic way and for her classmates to support her sets an example of how everyone should treat their trans peers. One of the most moving scenes is when Lunella tells Brooklyn she doesn’t have to carry the team and deal with the bigoted opposing coach by herself. As a result, they all work together to literally break Coach Greer’s game in a fabulous video-game inspired scene. It culminates in Brooklyn and the team landing the final blow on a giant pixelated version of Coach Greer with a volleyball that is colored like the trans pride flag.
Brooklyn may be just a fictional character, but “The Gatekeeper” demonstrates that her backstory and personality are rooted in real-life events. It is a shame that Disney decided to be cowardly and not only cancel an animated series with a Black female protagonist, but also not air an episode that would have resonated with trans folks of all ages.
As a Black genderqueer person, this episode made me love Brooklyn even more and further appreciate the positive impact that trans people have had on me. Here’s to you, Brooklyn. You and other trans folks deserve so much better.
Latonya Pennington is a freelance contributor whose comics criticism can be found at Women Write About Comics, Comic Book Herald, Newsarama and Shelfdust, among others.
