Kids today. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: They're so lucky to have so much positive, affirming representation. The latest is Arthur's Mr. Ratburn, who boogie-oogie-oogie'd his way down the aisle in his own same-sex wedding earlier this week.

I was a little too old to get into Arnold—I was more of the Hey Arnold! era—so I missed out on any openly queer characters in my youth. Though, looking back, there was plenty of gay filtering into my developing brain.

The late-80s and early-90s were full of great cartoons that played coyly with gender roles and snuck in a few characters who would be flying their own rainbow flags if they were still being drawn today. Tune in, kids, we're going on a magic journey back in cartoon time.

Miss Frizzle — The Magic School Bus

Valerie Felicity Frizzle is that lesbian aunt who let you play around in her closet, gave you your first joint, taught you everything you never knew you needed to know about composting, and knew you were gay before you did. Also, she was originally voiced by iconic lez Lily Tomlin, while her sister, Fiona Felicity Frizzle in the Magic School Bus reboot, is voiced by fellow dykcon Kate McKinnon. Still, with Miss Frizzle being the freest of thinkers, I can’t help but feel she would eschew any and all labels regarding her sexual orientation and gender identity. She would say she’s fluid then turn into a fountain right before your very eyes while Arnold wets his pants in the corner. Because Arnold is the fucking worst.

Charlotte Pickles, Betty and Howard DeVille, and Jonathan — Rugrats

One of the first bad bitches I ever knew, Charlotte Pickles was the high-pony wearing, cell phone talking, dealmaking diva I needed as a kid. Sure she was married to that nobody Drew, but he gives off sperm donor vibes more than soul mate. Even though Charlotte slayed a skirt-suit, mama wore the real pants in that family. Honesatly, Phil and Lil’s feminist mom Betty DeVille seemed more her type.

Now this is a lipstick and chapstick lesbian couple you can really get behind:

And if Betty was "the biggest dyke in town" Howard, her husband—seen above sitting like a proper homosexual—was a gay twink, according to this totally plausible theory:

Oh and Charlotte’s assistant, Jonathan: 100 percent gay. Here he is coming out of the closet:

Bad tan job, bad dye job, with a flair for fashion? I saw her at The Abby the other night.

Carmen Sandiego — Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

Carmen Sandiego was the biggest stunt queen of my childhood, always stealing priceless artifacts (or entire landmarks) while looking snatch doing it. She’s basically Elektra Abundance from Pose.

Meanwhile, there's an idea for a reboot: Elektra Abundance as Carmen Sandiego. Elektra just goes around the world snatching people's wigs. You're welcome, Hollywood.

Considering that we don’t know anything about Carmen, haven’t seen more than half of her face, and she insists on the same silhouette day in and day out—including a linebacker shoulder I'm still obsessed with—I wouldn’t bet against Carmen Sandiego being a drag queen: The Mother of the House of Sandiego.

Get into it.

Harold — Hey Arnold!

The classic closet-case bully, Harold is every messy fag you've ever met. To wit:

immature, naive, cowardly, dumb, insecure, and usually kind of obnoxious, but becomes caring and more innocent after the first season (though he denies it in public). Harold can be considered the bully of the group, even though his bark is usually worse than his bite. Despite his frequent posturing, he is also a bit of a crybaby and is easily frightened and/or upset and frequently cries for his mommy...Harold can be somewhat of a backstabber.

I rest my case. He probably has 35K Instagram followers by now.

Pepper Ann Pearson, Lydia Pearson, and Milo Kamalani — Pepper Ann

Pepper Ann was perhaps the most overtly queer cartoon of my youth. Maybe it was that husky, 10-pack-a-day voice or the soft butch vibes she was constantly serving, but Pepper Ann always dinged my adolescent gaydar. Meanwhile, her bestie, an unproblematic Milo, was a sensitive artist and noted drama queen who rejected traditional notions of masculinity. Pepper Ann’s mom, Lydia, however, might be the queerest of them all. A divorcee and staunch feminist (which was really just code for lesbian back in the '90s) who works at a fashion boutique (It’s You!), Lydia was one stirrup-pant away from tossing Pepper Ann's little sister Moose (who may have been gender nonconforming) onto the back of her chopper and Bikes on Dykes’ing her way to Lilith Fair. There, she'd no doubt find a guide in her hippie sister Janie.

Lion-O, Tygra, and Panthro — Thundercats

The whole conceit behind Lion-O was that he was a kid who aged prematurely during the Thundercats journey through space so now he’s a hunky grown-ass lion with the mind of a child—basically a WeHo himbo who dresses like one.

That cuff's a little much, don't you think, sis? Meanwhile, Tygra was that low-key hottie who's really smart but is also secretly into BDSM.

Whip it!

Then there was Panthro, who was giving me serious Folsom leather daddy vibes.

God, no wonder I'm gay.

He-Man and Skeletor — He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Prince Adam wasn't even trying to hide anything, and the internet picked up on it ages ago. Fandom Files' David Chlopeki lays it out pretty neatly, calling He-Man "the gayest show ever":

"As the intro to the show, they say, 'Fabulous secret powers were revealed to him the day he held aloft his magic sword.' These are not regular superpowers. These are not powers from the ancients. These are fabulous secret powers. Heterosexuals, they don't have fabulous secret powers. So he gets fabulous secret powers the day he draws out his sword, wink, wink."

And Prince Adam was out here living his best life:

"Prince Adam is a very gay guy. He is wearing spandex, lavender spandex, and pink spandex, and white spandex," he notes. "That look, a blond pageboy haircut. There's never been a gayer character! Name one!"

Real talk: It takes a powerful homosexual to pull off a pageboy. And naturally the gays love an alter ego, with He-Man being the butch total top Adam wishes he were. But even calling himself He-Man is the equivalent of "masc for masc"—methinks he doth protest too much.

As for Skeletor, there are no bones in her closet.

Chlopeki, however, has a really interesting interpretation of He-Man's and Skeletor's respective appearances:

"You had extreme facial wasting, where you just had a skull. So it's very interesting to imagine that like, here you have Skeletor, who is this buff guy who's frustrated by the world, in a frustrating situation, his face is a skull, and then you have all these gay guys who are dying and their faces are wasting away, but they're all on steroids, so they're like buff. So they have this deformed person [Skeletor], and then you have these perfect guys, which is He-Man."

That's a lot deeper than my childish mind ever thought to go—then or now.

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune — Sailor Moon

According to Sailor Moon canon, Uranus and Neptune were actually lovers but their relationship was sanitized for the American version, in which they were cousins. But some versions kept their flirting in tact, leading fans to think that their relationship was not only sapphic but incestuous. It's the television version of your mom telling you the two women living together next door and raising their kids together and wearing matching gardening clogs were "just friends."

Heffer — Rocko’s Modern Life

I usually consider every quirky best friend in '90s cartoons to be queer and one of my faves is Heffer Wolfe from one of the strangest shows to ever make it on television, Rocko's Modern Life. Like, here's a wallaby navigating the pitfalls of young adulthood—why the fuck not? Heffer was also quite strange: raised by wolves who fattened him up then fell in love with him and raised him as their own. There's even this morbid tidbit:

The mark which Heffer believed to be a "birthmark" on his butt is actually the plotting lines showing where the wolves were going to divide him.

Heffer is also quick to correct anyone who mis-species him: he is not a cow, but a steer. Steer rhymes with queer. Heffer is queer because Rocko's life is—what? Modern, goddammit.