You know, looking back on it, the history of queer representation in Magic the Gathering is kind of wild.
1995: Ordando, a relatively minor side character in the novel Shattered Chains, is a woman with two wives making her Magic's first ever queer character. (And first poly character!)
1998: The novel Planeswalker is released, which features the character Xantcha. While she probably wasn't written as such as purpose, Xantcha's story and character arc is 100% a trans narrative and she's considered by many to be Magic's first trans character. While the card Sleeper Agent from the set Urza's Saga (also released in 1998) is sort of intended to represent her and she had a Vanguard card, she doesn't get a proper legendary creature card until Commander 2018 (20 years after her debut!) She's Magic's oldest queer character to eventually get a legendary card.
2001: Magfire is introduced in the story Jedit, where she aggressively flirts with Adira Strongheart. 8 years into Magic's lifespan and it's mostly thanks to novel authors inserting random minor sapphic women and a probably unintentional trans fem storyline that we have any queer representation in Magic.
2007: Chandra Nalaar is introduced as one of the first five characters to get a Planeswalker card in the set Lorwyn. While it's questionable if she was intended to be pansexual from the beginning, it does make her retroactively the first queer character to make her debut on a Magic card.
2009, 2012: Similar to Chandra, the characters of Nissa and Ral Zarek are introduced as characters before their sexualities are revealed. Nissa debuts in the Duels of the Planeswalkers game from 2009 before getting a card in Zendikar, and Ral is introduced in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 before getting a card in Dragon's Maze.
2013: Ashiok debuts in the set Theros. Ashiok is initially introduced with an annoying gimmick of being "so mysterious" that their gender and even pronouns are unknown and they're exclusively referred to as Ashiok in place of pronouns. They're also a slightly androgynous humanoid with a cloud of nightmare magic for a face. Not exactly great nonbinary representation, and not really initially really pushed too strongly as such. They would eventually be given they/them pronouns and acknowledged as a nonbinary character.
2014: As part of their early attempts at doing web fiction, WotC releases the story Emonberry Red, a riff on the Greek myth of Pyramus and Thisbe set on Theros. The main couple featured in the story is a pair of gay boys named Pavios and Thanasis. This is Magic's first story directly supervised by WotC to deliberately include queer characters.
2015: During the set Fate Reforged, Magic introduces the character of Alesha alongside a story, The Truth of Names, starring her and revealing her to be a transgender woman. She's arguably the first queer Magic character to debut on a card as an explicitly queer character, and Magic's first intentional trans character.
Also 2105: We get Magic Origins and Battle for Zendikar, which kick off the formation of the Gatewatch and the beginning of the proper Bolas Arc of the story. This includes the beginning of Chandra and Nissa intentionally being written as queer, as they have a slow burn romance that builds up over the course of this arc.
2016: Kaladesh is our next real attempt at adding more queer representation. Oviya Pashiri is introduced as a lesbian widower and has a small role in the story. The aetherborn are introduced as an entire species that's genderless and uses they/them pronouns. WotC kind of tries to present them as being a nonbinary species, but it has mixed reactions from the fandom over whether that counts. In a bit of accidental queer representation, the aetherborn Yahenni (who gets a card in 2017) is written as being aromantic and WotC never draws attention to it because they didn't seem to realize. We also see the first appearance of Saheeli Rai, although like most the other queer planeswalkers her sexuality isn't defined when she's first introduced.
Also 2016: The 2016 Commander precons are released and one of the decks is led by the card Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, which depicts a pair of gay kings who ruled Meletis in the distant past. We also get the first appearance of Halana and Alena in the Shadows over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon story, who are confirmed to be a lesbian couple by the author. They wouldn't get cards until 2020 with Commander Legends.
2017-2018: A much slower time period. Hallar is introduced as the first kind of proper nonbinary character in Dominaria. As previously mentioned, Xantcha finally gets a legendary creature card. We also get the first appearances of three different planeswalkers who would be revealed to be queer later: Huatli in 2017's Ixalan and the Kenrith twins Rowan and Will in 2018's Battlebond. Huatli and Saheeli Rai have a minor interaction at the end of the Rivals of Ixalan story that creates a very popular ship in the fandom between the two (this will be important later.)
2019: A rollercoaster of a year. Tomik is introduced in The Gathering Storm (and gets a card in War of the Spark) as Ral Zarek's boyfriend, confirming Ral as gay. Chandra and Nissa's years of subtext finally payoff with a big damn kiss at the end of War of the Spark: Ravnica. At this point in time we have 12 characters who have appeared on cards and are confirmed queer. If we analyze these early attempts, we do see WotC has been playing it safe. Alesha and the gay kings are historical characters from the distant past and therefore irrelevant to the modern stories, Xantcha is a classic novel character so she's equally irrelevant to the modern story and WotC doesn't really acknowledge her as trans yet, Yahenni was arguably unintentional in a similar fashion to Xantcha, Ashiok is...Ashiok, Hallar is barely a character with no role in the story, and Oviya is a widower and very minor in the long run. Ral and Tomik plus Chandra and Nissa are the boldest WotC has been with their queer rep so far with explicit relationships from major characters.
Also 2019: The lowest point in the history of queer representation in Magic. War of the Spark: Forsaken releases and breaks up Chandra and Nissa and makes a clumsy (and likely Hasbro mandated) attempt to claim Chandra isn't actually pansexual. This receives massive backlash from the fandom, to the point that it actually causes us to receive an apology from WotC that states that Chandra is pansexual.
Still 2019: In the shadow of all this controversy, the ebook for Throne of Eldraine releases and quietly confirms the Kenrith twins as being bisexual. A lot of people don't actually read this ebook, and years later when Will appears on a Pride playmat it causes people to go "Wait, since when was Will queer?"
2020: We're still in the shadow of the Forsaken controversy and WotC's small attempts at queer representation feel very downplayed. Hal and Alena get cards in Commander Legends as does the nonbinary character Alharu. Theros Beyond Death sees the addition of Haktos, an Achilles expy. His sexuality is revealed in the D&D sourcebook Mythic Odysseys of Theros which also mentions his lover Perynes (aka his Patroclus expy.) Two of the side stories for Zendikar Rising also casually include minor nonbinary characters who use they/them pronouns.
2021: Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of Forsaken, this is the big revival of Magic's attempts to be queer. In the lead up to the Kaldheim story, WotC releases a statement that in order to better commit to having queer representation, they're just going to stop releasing the story in certain countries...and then from Kaldheim onward WotC really doubles down on introducing queer characters. Kaldheim sees the introduction of Niko Aris, our first proper nonbinary planeswalker. We also get a handful of story characters who are just casually queer. This includes Orhaft Stoneback who is Magic's first character to use neopronouns (xe/xer.) The stories for Strixhaven, Midnight Hunt, and Crimson Vow will also just casually pepper random queer characters throughout (casual they/them pronouns honestly start becoming a regular feature in the Magic story.) As far as cards go we get Nassari, Rootha and Felisa introduced in Strixhaven/Commander 2020, and we get Vadrik and Adeline in Midnight Hunt. Also shout out to Crimson Vow giving Hal and Alena a new card that depicts the two of them together called Halana and Alena, Partners. I'm also not going to typically bother with Universes Beyond stuff in this timeline, but I feel a need to acknowledge how the Stranger Things Secret Lair gives us our first queer character on a UB card (Will Byers.)
2022: The big news of course is the Pride Across the Multiverse Secret Lair. In addition to being an explicit Pride themed batch of Magic cards, it gives us two major relationship upgrades. The card Savor the Moment depicts Ral and Tomik's wedding. The card Heartbeat of Spring and a special bonus story released alongside the announcement of this Secret Lair makes Dinobot, the popular ship of Saheeli Rai and Huatli, canon. We also see Chandra and Nissa in the art of the card Collective Voyage participating in a Pride parade, yet another confirmation that they are still queer despite Forsaken. There's also the version of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death from this drop that has Magic's first depiction of a trans man in the art as someone Alesha is extending her hand to.
Also 2022: In terms of regular sets we're firmly in the territory of minor story only queer characters being unremarkable. Kamigawa Neon Dynasty gives us Heiko Yamazaki; New Capenna and Commander 2022 give us Errant, Parnesse, Rocco and Tivit; and Brothers' War of all sets gives us Myrel. Dominaria United is weirdly lacking in any queer characters at all (the only Magic lore set to not include at least one queer character, old or new, as a legendary card since Kaldheim), but to compensate there's Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate which is the queerest set in Magic, with a whopping 18 canonically queer characters. Sure, it's not Magic lore but it's still worth acknowledging.
2023: As we move into the big finale of the Phyrexian arc, we get some sets that don't introduce any new queer characters but do feature plenty of old queer characters, Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine (and MOM: Aftermath...and Lost Caverns of Ixalan from after this arc as well.) However, in the story department WotC finally rights a great wrong by finally undoing Forsaken's worst plot point and having Chandra and Nissa become a couple again. We also do get a few new queer characters in Wilds of Eldraine with Talion, Yenna, and Syr Armont plus the Alchemy set attached to this set give us our first digital exclusive card for Magic lore queer characters, Syr Joshua and Syr Saxon.
2024: The queer representation train just doesn't stop, with three of the four sets this year introducing at least one new queer character. Delney from Murders at Karlov Manor, Yuma from Thunder Junction (technically the Commander decks), and three characters from Bloomburrow/Bloomburrow Commander: Baylen, Zinnia, and Oregano of the Odd Acorn Gang.
2025: As we finally catch up to this year, we see we're still in a very good place for queer representation. Aetherdrift takes a break from new characters on cards (although has a few story only characters) but then Tarkir Dragonstorm and Edge of Eternities come back with a vengeance with three and four new characters respectively. Felothar, Eshki, and Ureni for Tarkir and Sami, Mm'menon, Xu-Ifit, and Vv'viza for the Edge. The Edge also sees the second ever use of neopronouns in a Magic story, although it's in the context of some bug people that I'm not 100% certain have normal binary sexes in the first place.
With Edge of Eternities being the last Magic lore set of 2025, the count of queer Magic lore characters that have appeared on a card is 49 characters (spread across 47 cards because Kynaios and Tiro, and Syr Joshua and Syr Saxon double up) with an additional 30 story only characters. If we mark Alesha as kind of the starting point of them putting queer characters on cards, that means we've gotten just shy of 50 in 10 years of Magic. Just imagine how many more we might get in the next 10 years.
stormborns
origamiaround
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
kianamaiart
jacobvanloon
2087
