Let’s talk about Shep, baby! – ‘Steven Universe: Future’

Can we talk about Steven Universe: Future for a second? One thing the series has always excelled at is representing people of many different backgrounds and normalizing them. The show has featured queer relationships, mental health issues, and so much more, but in this episode, they’ve taken a huge step in television — they introduced their first non-binary character.

“Little Graduation” Picking up where the made-for-TV movie left off, Steven Universe: Future showcases the daily life of now 16-year-old Steven Universe and his growth through adolescence. In the universe (pun intended) of Steven, love is love. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you love someone then you love them with everything you got. Many times, but not always, that love has been regulated to the Crystal Gems, alien beings composed of different types of gems that project a humanoid-ish body. That means if you really wanted to be a jerk, one could argue that, “Well these are alien beings with seemingly one gender. It’s not a real lesbian relationship.” Naw fam, that wedding between Ruby and Sapphire was LGBTQ+ FANTASTIC. Not ashamed to admit it had my grown-ass crying because you really felt the love between them and that’s when SU is at it’s best. But the show made another huge step recently, their first human, I repeat, HUMAN non-binary character.

In episode nine, “Little Graduation,” Steven is dealing with the world and his friends changing and growing without him. He discovers that a couple he always r…