I sit down after a long evening of work, preparing to unwind as I usually do: cuddled under the blankets of my bed with a TV show I love. This evening I’ve chosen to re-watch an episode of Steven Universe, a cartoon children’s show I enjoyed the first time I watched it but have recently gotten more into due to it recently having come out of hiatus. The episode I’ve chosen to re-watch, titled Alone Together, suddenly hit me in a way that it hadn’t before, and that I definitely was not expecting.
For the uninformed: Steven Universe is a show about a young boy who is half human and half gem. “Gem” is the term for the alien race of people who are powered by a gemstone on parts of their bodies and have the ability to shape-shift as well as other super-human powers. The collection of gems in the show, calling themselves the Crystal Gems, are a team of gems who have chosen to protect the planet earth.
A common theme of the show is around the act of gems “fusing.” Fusion is, simply put, the act of two gems coming together to form one powerful gem for a certain amount of time in order to become stronger and more productive in battle. In the episode Alone Together, Steven learns to fuse, but not with another gem: with another human.
The fusion was not the concept that struck me so hard, not was it the fact that Steven fused with another human being (something typically unheard of for gems, who are typically only able to fuse with other gems). What struck me about this act was that Steven, who identifies as male, fused with his best friend Connie, who identifies as female.
When I saw this character, who in their fused state goes by the name Stevonnie, I had to pause the episode so that I could wrap my head around what I was seeing. The last time I’d seen this episode was over a year ago, long before I had discovered the fact that I was non-binary. Seeing this episode again, through the lenses of my new identity as someone who doesn’t quite fit in with either the male or female categories of gender, caused me to feel something I had never felt while experiencing any story before. For the first time in my life, I saw a character that was totally and undeniably free of all definitions of sexuality and gender at the same time. For the first time I felt the overwhelming urge to cry, over a children’s show no less, because I felt utterly and completely seen in a way I’d never experienced before.
During the episode, Stevonnie ran around town in utter euphoria looking to all the rest of the world as any other young adult, all the while doing so freely and proudly as an unambiguously and fully intentionally non-binary person whose sexuality cannot be simply defined as heterosexual. Stevonnie was, for all the world to see, a literal combination of a young heterosexual boy and a young heterosexual girl. While other shows have always shied away from LGBTQ content and left things relating to the topic vague due to pressure from the networks, there was absolutely no way in the world to deny the fact that Stevonnie is neither male or female, and that Stevonnie likes both boys and girls. After all, Stevonnie contains the identities of the characters of both Steven and Connie at once. The consciousness of the two characters are contained in a fifty-fifty split within the same fused character. Stevonnie is equal parts Steven, a boy who likes girls, and Connie, a girl who likes boys.
And that’s exactly what children, along with the rest of the world, will understand while watching the show: that Stevonnie cannot by any means be put into the category of male or female, of heterosexual or gay. One of the writers of the show, Matt Burnett, even confirmed on twitter that Stevonnie uses they/them pronouns. Children and adults alike who watch this show will be made to open their eyes to a world in which you can be neither boy or girl, neither heterosexual or homosexual, and be completely happy and comfortable with yourself.
And this isn’t just something other LGBT people such as myself will be seeing, but something children will be seeing. Not only will LGBT people see themselves represented through a free-spirited, kind hearted character, but children will be able to see that they don’t have to identify as female or male, as straight or homosexual, and be just fine the way they are. Through Steven Universe, the whole world can learn the most important lesson about identify that there is to learn: identities are valid, none of them are black and white.
