#milevens stop being homophobic weirdos challenge

[hawkins-batman]

Okay, so my usual content is Will Byers/Noah Schnapp centric, but I'm gonna take a minute to come to Mike Wheeler's defense, because a Mileven post I saw earlier REALLY reeked of homophobia and it bothered the fuck out of me.

Hi. I'm a gay dude. I had my first crush on a guy when I was 11ish. Maybe 12 - around the age of dear ol' Mike in Season 1. I didn't know WHY I found said boy pretty. I just knew that I couldn't stop looking at him and I did, in fact, find him pretty. I made this discovery about myself while living in a town of about 10,000 people in bumfuck Oklahoma. Not the best place to discover you were interested in the same sex.

Growing up in a VERY Christian conservative environment, I didn't realize what being "gay" was until I was 13 or 14 — about the time the preacher of the church my family made me go to just happened to mention that people who were gay were going to burn in Hell forever, which led me to VICIOUSLY suppress my sexuality all throughout high school. During that time, I had two girlfriends (they asked me out) because that's what I was told all men were supposed to do and because I was convinced doing so would get rid of these feelings I kept having towards other boys.

I realized at about the age of 17 that that wasn't happening. It wasn't going away, and went into a severe depressive episode, until, rather recently, when I moved away from home to attend school elsewhere, I did the work of deconstructing all the bad religion and politics my parents shoved down my throat, came out as gay, and have been living as an openly homosexual dude ever since.

So if you're a Mileven that's out there saying "Mike's not gay hahaha Will, you're not going to turn Mike gay, sorry gay boy hahaha" Fuck you. You were every person who made me feel like shit growing up and Mike Wheeler would hate you — whether he turns out to be gay narratively in Season 5 or not. And so would Eleven.

Yes, Mike Wheeler can still be gay. Or bi or pan, or whatever his character is written to be. He can still be gay and have dated Eleven. Dating a girl does not make you straight.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.