Tessa Thompson Is Proof Queer Women Are Superheroes

The way the LGBTQ+ community has been portrayed in popular culture has come a long, long way in recent years. Although there's still a lot of work to be done, so many creative queer folks have been making awesome and inclusive movies, music, TV shows, and more that better represents our lives and our stories, so in honor of Pride Month, we're taking the time to honor 25 of these inspiring people! This is the 2019 #PRIDE25!

Tessa Thompson is the queer queen the world needs, even though it’s unlikely we deserve her.

The actress was blunt in discussing her sexuality in an interview with Porter last summer: “I’m attracted to men and also to women. If I bring a woman home, [or] a man, [my family and I] don’t even have to have the discussion.” And when people subsequently labeled her as bisexual, she didn't hesitate to clarify that she “doesn’t think in those binaries.”

It’s that brazenly confident attitude that drew the LGBTQ community to her, both before and after she was publicly out (though Thompson also points out she never considered herself to be “in” the closet either).

And she’s been good to us. When a scene from Thor: Ragnarok that would have confirmed her character, Valkyrie, as bisexual was cut, she let us know, and insisted she would continue playing Valkyrie as queer regardless of what was displayed on screen.

She’s also been a champion of queer fandom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As soon as fans latched onto Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel as a potentially queer character and began shipping her with Valkyrie, Thompson did the opposite of what many actors do—she supported it. In fact, she went above and beyond with that support, sharing fan art, uplifting the queer fans, and playing up her interactions with Larson in a way that avoids queerbaiting, because you can tell she’s completely genuine at every step.

But Thompson has been a champion for more than just her LGBTQ fanbase. Her unabashed willingness to speak up about inequalities on every platform she has from Twitter to red carpets to press junkets as proven that she’s a champion for women, a champion for people of color, and a champion for anyone who sees something of themselves reflected in her. Because that’s just the kind of superhero Tessa Thompson is.

Tessa's latest film, Men in Black: International, is in theaters now!

And check out more of the 2019 #PRIDE25 honorees here!