Disney embraces ‘queer agenda’ in new LGBT friendly look

Disney is facing a popular backlash after leaked videos of internal meetings revealed plans to make half its characters identify as a racial minority or ‘LGBT’.

Disneyland has set up a ‘tracker’ to ensure it was creating enough ‘gender nonconforming’ and ‘canonical trans characters’.

Entertainment giant Disney is facing a popular backlash after leaked videos of internal meetings revealed plans to make half of its characters identify as a racial minority or ‘LGBT’ by the end of the year as part of a comprehensive new “queer agenda”.

The company, which owns the rights to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, has dumped “ladies and gentlemen” as a greeting to avoid offending transgender children and set up a “tracker” to ensure it was creating enough “gender nonconforming” and “canonical trans characters”.

“I‘m here as the mother of two queer children, actually, one transgender child and one pansexual child, and also as a leader,” declared Karey Burke, president of Disney’s general entertainment content, to a recent “town hall” virtual meeting of Disney staff, extolling a push for greater LGBTIQ representation.

In another of the videos, leaked to American investigative journalist Christopher Rufo, senior television producer Latoya Raveneau revealed her “not-at-all-secret gay agenda”.

“I was just, wherever I could, adding queerness,” she said. “No one would stop me, and no one was trying to stop me.”

Disney’s Diversity and Inclusion Manager Vivian Ware meanwhile explained the rationale for dumping the traditional “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” greeting.

“We don‘t want to just assume because someone might be, in our interpretation, may be presenting as female, but they may not want to be called ‘princess,” she said.

A third video showed production co-ordinator Allen March saying Disney’s “tracker” would monitor the number of “gender nonconforming characters,” ”canonical trans characters,” and ”canonical bisexual characters.”

Florida Governor. Ron DeSantis speaks to reporters. Picture: Getty Images.

The revelations, potentially leaked as reprisal against Disney, come amid a vicious debate across the US over a new law in Republican-controlled Florida, which outlawed discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity at schools with students between kindergarten and year three.

Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by opponents and denounced by the Biden administration as “hateful and harmful”, it also bolstered parents’ rights to sue a school if they didn’t comply.

Signed into law on Monday by Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis after weeks of debate in the state parliament, some of Disney’s staff walked off the job last week in protest, demanding Disney support the “LGBTQIA+ community by stopping construction and investment in the state of Florida until hateful legislation is repealed”.

Disneyland plans to make half of its characters identify as a racial minority or ‘LGBT’

Initially reluctant to become involved, chief executive Bob Chapek earlier this week condemned the law, urging courts to strike it down, prompting a war of words with the state’s governor – widely seen as a contender for the Republican nomination or president in 2024 – who highlighted Disney’s record of business in China.

“This state is governed by the interests of the people of the state of Florida. It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives,” he said in a statement.

Polls suggest most Americans, including a majority of Democrats, support the law.

Comedian Amy Schumer and other celebrities chanted “gay, gay gay” after giving a speech at the Oscars on Sunday, overshadowed by Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock, to show their disapproval of the law, perhaps the most controversial state law in a generation.

US actress Regina Hall, left , US actress and comedian Amy Schumer and US actress and comedian Wanda Sykes on stage at the Oscars. Picture: AFP.

Disney, whose share price has dropped about 23 per cent over the past 12 months, hasn’t yet responded formally to the leaked videos, which add to an increasingly bitter national debate between Democrats and Republicans about parents’ rights over curriculum in government schools.

School districts in Florida, Tennessee and other Republican-controlled jurisdictions last year sought to remove books about race, sex and gender, from school reading lists and school libraries, prompting accusations of ‘book banning’ by Democrats.

Florida parent January Littlejohn, whose 13-year-old daughter was put in a school gender transition program without her knowledge, spoke out against the gender identity programs in November, fuelling support for what became known as the Parental Rights in Education Bill.

“They told me my daughter had to give consent by law for me and my husband to be notified [of the] transgender on nonconforming student support plan that was signed by our daughter,” she said.

The plan changed her daughter’s name and pronouns, bathroom preferences, and gave her the option to bunk with boys on school field trips in keeping with the policy of Leon County Schools, a district that includes 32,000 students in the Tallahassee region of Florida, Ms Littlejohn said.