Anyone who’s seen Frozen and who is part of the LGBTQ+ community understands why the idea that Elsa might be gay is so tantalizingly appealing.
There’s never been a queer Disney princess or even an overtly queer animated Disney character, after all, and since Elsa wasn’t immediately paired with a male love interest (and since “Let It Go” has a very coming-out-of-the-closet kind of feeling), it became almost inevitable that people began to speculate about her sexuality.
To the great disappointment of many, Elsa definitely won’t have a gay love interest (or any love interest at all, for that matter) in the sequel. Frozen II songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez confirmed this when she explained, “Like the first movie, Elsa is not just defined by a romantic interest. There’s so many movies that define a woman by her romantic interest. That’s not a story that we wanted to tell at this point in time. What we really wanted to tell was if you have these powers, how do you grow and change and find your place in the world and find answers that haven’t been found before?”
Still hasn’t stopped viewers of the Frozen II trailer from falling in love with our favorite ice queen. Speculation about Elsa’s queerness has thrown Twitter users into a frenzy, mostly because in the preview, we see Elsa with her hair down for the first time.
Though Disney was given an F rating for LGBTQ+ representation by GLAAD, there’s a long history of queer-coded Disney characters who have ignited speculation among the company’s many gay fans and their allies.
Because of this and Disney’s history of queer-baiting, having Elsa’s queerness explicitly highlighted and celebrated would certainly be a victory for the gay community, and it would definitely be vitally important to all the little kids struggling to figure out their sexuality while watching the film, as well as for their families (and really, for queer people of any and all ages).
It’s also possible that Elsa could be asexual or some variant of that. No matter what, Disney would be remiss to refrain from using their massive platform to create representation that honors LGBTQ+ people and their stories, which are too often kept buried within secret codes and silence.
As great as it would be for Disney to openly discuss Elsa’s sexuality, none of this is to say that she must have a romantic relationship. Getting to watch her come into her own independently is extremely powerful proof that we are never defined by love affairs, by our partners, or by our sexualities.
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