In the Name of the Femme, A Queer Boy’s Voyage with Sailor Moon

[Feature Image Art by Odera Igbokwe] My earliest memories of queer boy classic Sailor Moon are of myself waking up much earlier than I needed to on a school day to catch the DiC dub — this was pre-Toonami — before heading off to school. Huddled close to hear the TV, this was a secret act, staying quiet so as not to wake my parents — I was not about to catch my mama’s wrath. Still, I sneaked and watched. It was something sweet that was all mine, the adventures of Usagi Tsukino and her fierce squad. I felt kinship with them, which wasn’t unfamiliar; though I didn’t have language for why I’d long felt attachments to the female characters in the media I consumed: Rogue, Storm, Chetara, Chun-Li. Even my younger brother, during bouts of Street Fighter Alpha 2, would hit me with the “Why do you always pick the girl character?” Sailor Moon followed me throughout elementary school and was especially important during the tail end of that time, the years kids hone their skills — observed from peers, parents, the world — for the social battleground that is adolescence, when we ceased being simply mean but could be cutting and cruel. If Blackness already marked me with a target, then effeminacy would double that. I learned foolish things like how it wasn’t cool anymore to express passion for things you were interested in. I learned more poisonous things. Don’t cock your hips like that. Rough-housing and pain is good for boys, though not expressing pain. Stop walking on the tips of your to…