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RuPaul’s Drag Race has been around for years, gaining popularity steadily with each season. What is Drag Race? Think Project Runway meets America’s Next Top Model meets Paris is Burning. Simply, it’s a reality competition show to find America’s next drag superstar! For anyone unfamiliar with the art of drag, it’s basically men who take on a female persona in performance. Each season, twelve or so drag queens enter the race and face challenges and try not to be the queen eliminated that week by the fabulous RuPaul herself.
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By using pronouns that do not “fit” the appearance of the person we are referring to, it becomes normalized to think of pronouns as ambiguous. Viewers begin to understand that “Oh, Katya identifies as a man outside of drag, but is still comfortable with female pronouns.” Even though that sentence does not go through a viewer’s brain verbatim, it’s an understanding that develops as the pronouns are repeated and normalized throughout the course of the show.
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However, RuPaul’s Drag Race is not the only show on television at the moment that is changing the way we talk about gender. Adding to the layers of gender-expression is the introduction of non-binary identifying characters in the mainstream media. The Cartoon Network original show Steven Universe has exploded in popularity over the past year or so. The show, geared toward children (or is it?), follows the adventures of half-human, half-crystal gem boy Steven and his Crystal Gem guardians as they attempt to save the Earth from not-so-nice Gems (yes, it’s adorable!). All of the gems currently on the show identify as female except for Steven, and there have been confirmed canon threads of Gem relationships, meaning there are canon gay characters on the show. In recent episodes that aired over the summer (spoiler alert here, sorry guys) Steven learned that he could “fuse” just like full gems can. This means he can combine his form with another gem/being and become a whole new being. Steven and his best friend Connie fuse to form an ultimate warrior, adorably named Stevonnie. Stevonnie is canonically referred to by other characters as “they.” Steven also learned he could fuse with his rambunctious Gem companion known as Amethyst, and together they form Smokey Quartz, who also is referred to as “they.”
