The Afol community

Lego is making…lesbian and gay and bi and trans dolls? But how do you do that with Lego dolls? Or any dolls? That’s like saying Lego is making liberal dolls and conservative dolls, or Jewish dolls and Christian dolls, or vegan dolls and keto dolls.

Everyone Is Awesome: Lego to launch first LGBTQ+ set

Can’t you just see little Sophie and Aidan staging a war between the fabulous trans dolls and the monstrous gender critical dolls?

The Everyone Is Awesome Lego set

Can you pick out which ones are lesbian and which are gay and which are trans? Are there any non-binary dolls? How about queer? Can you tell?

In the “spraying room” at Lego HQ, tiny figurines are layered with bright, glossy paint before being placed on a rainbow-esque arch. The result, a waterfall of colour with 11 brand new minifigures striding purposefully towards an imagined brighter future, is the Danish toymaker’s inaugural LGBTQIA+ set, titled Everyone Is Awesome.

The colours of the stripes were chosen to reflect the original rainbow flag, along with pale blue, white and pink representing the trans community, and black and brown to acknowledge the diversity of skin tones and backgrounds within the LGBTQIA+ community.

What about class? Why aren’t there colors to acknowledge the diversity of money and power? What about religion, politics, occupation, nationality?

In all but one case no specific gender has been assigned to the figures…

How do you “assign” a “gender” to a tiny plastic figure?

The exception is the one with the weird cone on its head, which is supposed to be a tribute to drag queens. So drag queens are grey? I predict ructions.

“Growing up as an LGBTQ+ kid – being told what I should play with, how I should walk, how I should talk, what I should wear – the message I always got was that somehow I was ‘wrong’,” he said.

That’s sad and bad and needs to change, but in the meantime, he didn’t “grow up as an LGBTQ+ kid” – he grew up as a gay kid.

The set goes on sale on 1 June, the start of Pride month, but a few Afols (adult fans of Lego) and Gayfols have been given a preview.

“This set means a lot,” said Flynn DeMarco, a member of the LGBTQIA+ Afol community and a contestant on the television show Lego Masters US.

Oh that community. That’s a lot of membering for one person.

Updating to add: Sorry, they’re not dolls but Minifigures. I’m not Lego-literate. I was going to strikethrough “dolls” and swap in “Minifigures” but there are way too many, it would make the post look like measles, so just correct it in your head.

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