Talk:Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone/@comment-38339091-20190513202544/@comment-38814394-20190519201227

LGBT has always been a thing throughout history; many cultures have had more than two genders through history, such as the Two Spirits of multiple Native American Indian tribes, and there are many accounts of gay relationships in ancient Greece and Rome - and that's just scratching the surface. The modern LGBT movement is mostly referenced as to having started in 1969 with the Stonewall riots, though there were definitely smaller movements before that. There were a few of shows for adults featuring LGBT characters prior to the 2000s, such as Will & Grace (1998), and many more that had an LGBT character appear in an episode or two, such as Married... with Children ("Dud Bowl" in 1994 and "Calander Girl" in 1996, both of which featured trans women) or Friends (Chandler's father was gay), though most media apperances of LGBT people up to the 2010s were often making fun of them or playing up stereotypes, rather than treating them like normal people. But you are correct in that gay characters in children's media mainly debuted in the 2010s, with any appearing earlier not allowed to explicitly be shown or said to be gay (like Mr. Simmons from Hey Arnold!)