Disney scraps episode over transgender plotline
Disney has reportedly shelved an episode of the animated children’s show “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” because it contains a transgender plotline.
Posts on the social media platform Bluesky appeared to show Disney staff members who worked on the show bemoaning the decision, Breitbart reported Wednesday.
“One of the projects (episode) I worked on is getting shelved because of which party that won the recent election,” wrote Derrick Malik Johnson, a storyboard artist on “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” in a since-deleted post. “It breaks my heart knowing this impactful and amazing [episode] is now about to be consider [sic] a lost media episode.”
The episode featured Brooklyn, a transgender teen volleyball player who claims to be a girl. Brooklyn has Pride flag kneepads and a trans sticker on his water bottle. When he visits the high school of the main character Luna Lafayette, he tries to join the girls’ team but is stopped by an evil trans-hating coach who uses a magical key to lock him up.
“If you put attention [sic] to details about the character, you can figure out about what theme [the episode was based on] and why it was canned,” a user claiming to have worked on the show wrote on Reddit.
A Disney source reportedly confirmed to Polygon that the episode was cut from the 2025 schedule but denied it was related to this month’s election results. The source said the decision was made over a year ago to be “respectful of the role that parents play in the discussions they have with their children.”
‘It was good to go’
Social media comments from other Disney employees, however, suggest the decision to pull the episode was made more recently.
“Disney should be ashamed of themselves for canning this episode,” wrote Emmy Cicirega, a storyboard artist on several Disney shows. “You don’t get to approve approve approve something and then destroy it at the last minute, shattering the crews [sic] hard work and hopes.”
Matt Braly, creator and executive producer of the Disney series “Amphibia,” responded to Ciciriega’s post saying the episode had already been approved by the company’s Standards and Practices Department (S&P), which reviews content for compliance with ethical, moral, and legal standards.
“If an episode got this far, it was approved multiple times by multiple divisions, only to suddenly be struck down at the last second? Total break down of process and spitting on your team’s careful/thoughtful work. S&P approved this ep. It was good to go,” he said, adding in a second post: “The action being preemptive makes it so much worse to me. The absolute cowardice and second guessing when actually this is when this content is needed most.”
A megacorporation with a ‘not-so-secret gay agenda’
The decision is considered surprising for a corporation that in 2022 boasted about its efforts to make children open to homosexuality. In a video posted by journalist Christopher Rufo in March 2022, Disney Television Animation Executive Producer Latoya Raveneau admitted to a “not-so-secret gay agenda” for children’s programming and “adding queerness” wherever she could.
“In my little pocket of Proud Family Disney TVA, the showrunners were super welcoming . . . to my not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” Raveneau said in a staff meeting. “Maybe it was that way in the past, but I guess something must have happened . . . and then like all that momentum that I felt, that sense of ‘I don’t have to be afraid to have these two characters kiss in the background.’ I was just, wherever I could, adding queerness . . . No one would stop me, and no one was trying to stop me.”
Disney has donated millions to “LGBTQ+” causes and ignited a feud with the State of Florida over a bill that prohibits teachers from discussing their sexual preferences with school children.
