Disney has reportedly pulled a Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur episode for telling a trans-inclusive story

Though the remainder of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur’s last play is acceptable to deed the Disney Channel and Disney Plus some clip adjacent year, the workplace is reportedly keeping 1 occurrence from airing due to the fact that of its absorption connected a transgender character.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur has often touched connected ideas astir race, class, and issues similar gentrification arsenic it followed the adventures of genius 13-year-old Lunella Lafatette (Diamond White) and her favored dinosaur, Devil (Fred Tatasciore). But according to now-deleted social media posts from animators who worked connected “The Gatekeeper” — an occurrence astir Lunella and different members of her school’s volleyball squad being terrorized by a transphobic big — Disney has chosen to support the occurrence from officially debuting due to the fact that of its taxable matter.

“The Gatekeeper” spends overmuch of its runtime unpacking however nary 1 has an contented with squad skipper Brooklyn (Indya Moore) being trans but for Greer (Amy Sedaris), a coach/parent from a rival school. It isn’t until Greer overhears that Brooklyn utilized to play connected a boys’ shot squad that she tries to disqualify Lunella’s squad connected a technicality. Lunella, the different girls, and their ain big manager Hrbek (Tatasciore) tin spot (and explicitly say) that Greer is motivated by bigotry and an unfounded fearfulness that her squad volition lose. But alternatively than taking that feedback to heart, Greer traps Brooklyn and astir of the squad successful an flight room-like pouch magnitude that looks similar their locker room.

The occurrence (which The Verge has seen a leaked mentation of) features a mates of queer and trans pridefulness flags, arsenic good arsenic a prime needle driblet of Charli XCX’s “Unlock it (Lock It)” that’s fitting arsenic the kids find themselves having to find magical keys to escaped themselves. The episode’s messaging astir embracing and celebrating people’s identities isn’t subtle, but it is fundamentally uplifting and intelligibly meant to stress the value of respecting different people.

Reports of Disney pulling the occurrence comes a small implicit week aft Donald Trump’s heavy transphobic statesmanlike re-election campaign led him to triumph and a twelvemonth aft Disney CEO Bob Iger insisted that helium felt the studio’s task had go excessively message-focused. We’ve reached retired to Disney for remark astir whether it really plans to support “The Gatekeeper” from airing, and volition update if and erstwhile we perceive back.