An episode of the Disney animated show “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” focused on a transgender character will no longer air.
News broke this week that the episode, which leaked on YouTube, has been pulled from airing on Disney Channel in 2025 because of its LGBTQ storyline.
According to Polygon, the episode titled “The Gatekeeper” is about the transgender character Brooklyn, who is voiced by “Pose” star Indya Moore. Brooklyn is competing on the girl’s volleyball team and faces discrimination from the opposing team’s coach, Greer (voiced by Amy Sedaris).
Greer reportedly uses a magical key to lock Brooklyn and her teammates in the girl’s locker room. Brooklyn breaks down to her teammates and tells them, “I’m trans, my very existence breaks Greer’s rules.”
Brooklyn also wears pride-themed kneepads and has a “Trans is beautiful” sticker on her water bottle in the episode, according to Polygon.
Derrick Malik Johnson, a member of the show’s storyboard revisionist team, addressed the episode being pulled in a since-deleted post on the new social media microblogging app Bluesky.
“So guess I finally got hit with one of the projects (episode) I worked on is getting shelved because of which party that won the recent election,” he wrote. “It breaks my heart knowing this impactful and amazing is now about to be consider a lost media episode.”
Other animated artists spoke out on social media and similarly speculated that the episode was removed because Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Emmy Cicirega, a storyboard artist on “Gravity Falls,” wrote on X, “Disney should be ashamed of themselves for canning this episode. You don’t get to approve approve approve something and then destroy it at the last minute, shattering the crews hard work and hopes.”
Matt Braly, who created “Amphibia,” responded to Cicirega’s post and said, “If an episode got this far, it was approved multiple times by multiple divisions, only to suddenly be struck down at the last second? Total break down of process and spitting on your team’s careful/thoughtful work. S&P approved this ep. It was good to go.”
“The action being preemptive makes it so much worse to me,” Braly added in a second tweet. “The absolute cowardice and second guessing when actually this is when this content is needed most.”
However, a Disney source told Polygon that the show’s decision was made over a year ago and was not based on the outcome of the election.
“In this case, this decision was based on this specific episode, not because of the character being trans,” the insider claimed, adding that the episode is not “banned” but is being “held.”
The source also said that Disney is “really proud” of the show and that the company is “respectful of the role that parents play in the discussions they have with their children.”
The Post has reached out to Disney for comment.
“Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” is based on the Marvel Comics characters Lunella Lafayette and her dinosaur companion.
The show premiered in February 2023 and won five Children’s and Family Emmy Awards, but it was canceled after two seasons.
However, Disney still has several more episodes in the tank that are expected to air in 2025.
