At Comic Book Herald, Charlotte Fiero writes about Gwen Stacy, Miles Morales, intersectionality, and the trans subtext in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). “Yes, I am disappointed that the movie doesn’t go as far as outright saying that Gwen is trans; and I refuse to accept the narrative that we should let go of trying to hold huge media corporations accountable for chickening out of real representation just because ‘it’s never going to happen, so why even bother.’ There should be real representation in blockbuster movies; and while we should absolutely be looking at the independent art that is actually created by under-represented people from marginalized communities, it’s obvious that seeing the same representation from incredibly popular stories such as Spider-Man would go a long way to pushing the limits of what can be done. While the movie does contain queer themes, it’s frustrating to see ourselves be left out of our own stories in this way.

But even so, I can’t help but want to celebrate how much of myself I saw reflected back through Gwen Stacy, and how much I’ve seen queer people be able to see themselves in Across the Spider-Verse.”

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