In honor of pride month in June, Lego will be launching a set of mini figures set on a rainbow backdrop. All of the mini-figs are genderless except for one.
The Everyone is Awesome set has a backdrop that includes the normal rainbow pride flag, with additions of brown and black to represent people of color in the LGBTQ+ community, and the pale blue, white, and pink added to represent transgender people, the Daily Mail reports.
Maker of the figure set Matthew Ashton said that only one of the figures would have a gender, the purple beehive-sporting figure that he says represents "the fabulous drag queens out there." "Drag queen" is apparently now a gender.
Ashton, an executive producer for the 2014 Lego Movie and Vice President of Design at Lego, had initially created the set for his own desk. He told the Guardian that "other members of Lego's LGBTQ+ community came by to tell me they loved it. So I thought, 'maybe it's something we should share.'"
Ashton said that he struggled growing up as an LGBTQ+ kid. In a statement on the Lego website that "representation is so important. I grew up in the 80s and was obviously a gay kid. There was a lot of negativity back then around being gay; it was right in the middle of the AIDS crisis when I was a young teen and that was incredibly daunting and scary."
"Trying to be someone I wasn't was exhausting. I wish, as a kid, I had looked at the world and thought: 'This is going to be OK, there’s a place for me.' I wish I'd seen an inclusive statement that said 'everyone is awesome,'" he told the Guardian, adding that he was happy to be working for a company that was outspoken on LGBTQ+ issues.
"I wanted to create a model that symbolises inclusivity and celebrates everyone, no matter how they identify or who they love," said Ashton.
Some Twitter users questioned the set, with one user saying out that pink and blue models enforce "gender stereotypes," with the blue figure resembling a short haired boy and the pink figure resembling a long haired girl.
.@LEGO_Group have joined the gender stereotype bandwagon
— Ms H (@Ms_H_Survivor) May 20, 2021
The one where girls like pink & must have long hair. And boys like blue & must have short hair....but apparently no specific gender has been assigned...?? pic.twitter.com/bXHkAZclgE
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