One of THOSE 2011 - The showrunners of Prime tentatively introduce the first gay coded transformer in the history of the franchise. A franchise that had been no homoing it up for years by piling all romance and close relationships with the vast male cast onto the shoulders of a handful of femme bots. Knock Out was all about subtext.  He was vain, appreciative of other bots appearances and he had a close relationship with his partner in crime that was left undefined. ‘one of THOSE’  was the closest the show could get to the subject (Starscream was 100% talking about his alt mode and not sending the older members of the audience secret messages, for reals it was just about him being an icky race car. Knock Out should be ashamed that he’s not a plane like everyone else.)
2016 - Sentinel, the evil trump hitler of the moment reminds everybody that not so long ago, ‘associates, colleagues and peers’ was about as far as transformers interpersonal relationships went. His goal was to cleanse cybertron of all its ‘new’ distasteful practices, but there’s just no going back. All the Amica & Conjux, one sided romances, the crushes, the bitter exes, the little ‘I love you’s that no one would have believed was possible are out in the open and entangled in the main storylines of the IDW comics. It’s safe to say that Sentinel got tossed down a bottomless hole for his backward notions. The gay is not going away.
