To those who don't understand why what Stranger Things did is so painful and so harmful to the queer community, or who lack the words to express it themselves:
They showed so much queer pain. From episode one, they were calling Will a f*g. Hopper thought he might've been hate crimed and that's why he went missing. In season 3 even Mike was homophobic toward him, and that was never truly addressed. The scene right after, where Will destroys Castle Byers, his safe spot, with the baseball bat his abusive dad gave him trying to make him man up, yelling fuck as he does? I know that feeling, that fear that I won't be loved, that I will never be accepted, that I will always be other. The pain that comes from that. Everyone queer does. It's like he's taking the bat to my heart, like I can feel the bruises all over my body. In season 4, when he all but confesses his love for Mike, just substituting himself for El, and cries after? I cry with him because I get it, I understand. And I'm mostly accepted by the people around me, the people I care about; I can't imagine how much more people who don't have that acceptance relate to it.
These scenes are cathartic to me. Or at least they were, when all signs pointed to a happy ending. But for all the queer pain they showed, they didn't show queer love. Queer joy. They could have told every queer kid that they're worth it, their stories are worth telling, their love is worth showing, their lives are worth living. That no matter how hard it is now, it will get better. That we can have those epic love stories. That we can defeat monsters, not in spite of who we are, but because of it. But all they gave us was a vague "he and Robin might end up in relationships." Nothing good ever confirmed for the queer characters. So now when I watch those scenes, all I see is never ending pain. And I can't imagine the scars that will leave on people who need that happy ending even more than I do -- especially when the finale is very easily read as romanticizing suicide to escape abuse.
They gave us hope, that suffering is not all there is, that queer people can be happy and joyous and loved and worthy and powerful, and then they ripped it all away and left us with nothing but the pain.
To every queer person reading this: They are wrong. We are all of those things they denied us and more. Don't give up, and don't lose hope.
