Magical Queer

In much the same way that people of African descent are made Closer to Earth with the Magical Negro, LGBT individuals (but most commonly gay men, except in gay male fiction, in which they are most commonly lesbians) are made Closer to Earth by being a Magical Queer.

The Magical Queer has all of the wisdom in the world because s/he is gay, and has been persecuted because of it. If male, he is most often a Camp Gay or a Drag Queen, and can thusly bring culture to his heterosexual brothers and sisters. The male Magical Gay tends to be an expert on heterosexual relationships, even though he's never been in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship with a woman, and even gay romance seems suspiciously absent from his life.

The Magical Queer, by virtue of his/her status as both Closer to Earth and too good for it, tends to succumb to Bury Your Gays, even if it is to teach the straight characters or audience an aesop about homosexuality.

This trope runs into the same problems as Magical Negro, and Manic Pixie Dream Girl, because it can come off as more patronizing than honoring. Also, it depends on the validity of certain stereotypes which can be considered offensive to both heterosexuals and homosexuals. However, on the bright side, it's arguably a less negative portrayal of homosexuals than certain other tropes.

If Morgan Freeman is the Magical Negro, then Harvey Fierstein is this trope.

See also Magical Native American (which is similar to the other various magical archetypes but tends to involve actual magic) and Gay Best Friend (which it often overlaps with).

Examples of Magical Queer include:

Anime and Manga

• "Beautiful Queen" Leeron in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, though it's not said outright that he's gay, it's heavily implied. He likes to help Yoko with her relationship problems while taunting the men. Not to mention after the Time Skip, he was singlehandedly responsible for starting his planet's industrial revolution.
• Kuranosuke of Kuragehime might qualify, even though he's straight. He's a Wholesome Crossdresser who decides to teach a bunch of female Otaku to face the world.
• Franz of Gankutsuou seems to have attained a sort of enlightenment through suffering from his unrequited love for his best friend, Albert. After his death, he becomes the indisputable moral compass of the show.
• Nuriko of Fushigi Yuugi fame fits, even though he's bi.

Comic Books

• Neatly averted in Scott Pilgrim, with Scott's gay roommate, Wallace Wells. While on one occasion he responsibly ushered Scott in a healthy romantic direction, he did so through a verbal threat, and apparently only out of a responsibility to Scott's wrongfully betrayed younger girlfriend. Wallace himself is a flirtatious, often drunk, Straight Gay and not beleaguered for his sexuality in the slightest (Scott once describes him as "boy crazy" and his response is "I'd take offense at that if it weren't so true"). Rather than being a magical pillar of emotional support and romantic advice for the flawed-but-lovable straight white lead, Wallace is just a guy.
  • Played straight in that at times Wallace is both mentor and information-guy to Scott.
  • The movie subverts "Magical Queer Pep Talk" moment — Wallace doesn't make the dramatic "Tell her you love her" speech, but instead the "Tell her you love her (and shack up with her)... because I just signed the apartment lease with my boyfriend and I need you to move out" speech.

Film

• Lola from Kinky Boots, who is in fact also a Magical Negro, making him/her a Twofer.
• Similarly, Hollywood (Meschach Taylor), from Mannequin (1987) and Mannequin: On The Move (1991) is the Magical Queer Negro in spades. He may even be the ur-example of the type.
• Drag Queens Noxeema, Vida, and Chi-Chi from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. They find themselves stranded in a midwestern hick town and proceed to glam it up.
  • It, actually, Double Subverts this trope because they are the main characters, not just supporters, but then again they do act as Blithe Spirits to whole town.

Vida: Sometimes it just takes a fairy.

• • Don't forget that Noxie is Black and Chi-Chi is Latino Latina making them Twofers
• Rupert Everett's character in My Best Friend's Wedding
• In Taking Woodstock (at least the Ang Lee film - I don't know how far film deviates from book), a friend of a friend of Tiber's shows up to be head of security, to bring Tiber's father out of himself, and to provide spiritual and moral guidance to Tiber himself. She is of course transgender.
• In William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio's sexuality is not made explicit, but he dresses up as a drag queen.
• Harvey Fierstein as Uncle Frank in Mrs. Doubtfire enables Robin Williams' entire charade.

Literature

• Literal and very self-aware version of this in the title story of the book Am I Blue, with a gay fairy godfather/guardian angel. Also played for tragedy, since the character ended up that way because he was killed in a gay bashing incident.
• The titular character of What Happened To Lani Garver. Subverted in that his sexual preference is never actually revealed, and is in fact probably asexual. He just looks androgynous and is therefore assumed to be gay.
  • Also, possibly trans-something or nonbinary, given his offhand comment that "I'm the one who has to live in a strange body and deal with it."
• The second of Jean Auel's Earth's Children novels had a one-shot character based on the example mentioned in Real Life below. In an odd twist, we never find out their gender.
  • Also, such are commonly referenced, and gay people are said to be almost always powerful shamans, able to draw on the powers of both men and women.
• Carlo in Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Poor, poor Carlo.
• Mercedes Lackey loves this trope. One of the key historical figures of her land of Valdemar is Vanyel, a literal Magical Queer in that he's both gay and a mage.
• Magnus Bane is this for Alec Lightwood in The Mortal Instruments. Literally, since he's also a warlock.
• Patrick does this job for Charlie in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. He is not the only character that guides Charlie, but is the first friend that Charlie does, mostly because Patrick doesnt judge him like all the other students, because, you know, everybody judges you when you are gay.

Live Action TV

• Arguably the whole idea behind Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
• Ally McBeal had a Very Special Episode guest-starring Wilson Cruz from My So-Called Life as an Attractive Bent Gender Magical Prostitute.
• Willow of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is both gay and magical, but not particularly a Magical Gay. Tara is a more, for lack of a better term, straight example.
• Kurt is shaping up to fill this role on Glee, particularly for Finn.
  • Also subverted. During his time playing this role for Rachel he was deliberately giving her bad advice to keep her and Finn apart because of his own crush.
  • Blaine for Kurt.
• Robin in Desperate Housewives, though she was revealed as gay for an episode and a half.
• Lampshaded in Modern Family, where Cam has an irresistible urge to help everyone around him.
• Marco del Rossi on Degrassi the Next Generation always knows about heterosexual relationships, even before having a true relationship. (He had a beard, who he later experiments with. Unfortunate Implications? Yes. True to life? Yes.) Marco is a bit of a hypocrite, since when his friend Spinner tries to fix him up with Dylan, he asks Marco what it's like to be gay. Over his six seasons on the show, he helps out Ashley and Craig, Ellie and Sean, Paige and Spinner, Paige and Alex (justified in that Alex is a girl), Ellie and Jesse...Magic abounds.
• Lampshaded in an episode of The Big Bang Theory in which Wolowitz is visited by the spirits of George Takei and Katee Sackhoff (playing themselves), offering him relationship advice. Takei's advice actually works, but not before he gets grief for it:

Takei: "A woman needs to be wooed." Sackhoff: "How would you know?" Takei: (indignantly) "I read!!!"

• The Buddy Cole character from The Kids in The Hall frequently satirizes this trope, sometimes employing what seems to be actual magic.
  • There's also a weird sketch called "Running Faggot," where the titular "faggot" runs from place to place in Davy Crockett attire, giving advice to people he encounters. As a bonus, he doesn't say or do anything "gay" at any point in the sketch.
• The January 11, 2012 episode, of The Colbert Report where Mitt Romney's winning the New Hampshire primary and Stephen's coming to the realization that he might just have to settle for him, parodies this, with Andy Cohen (host of a talk show on Bravo and the first openly gay talk show host) as the gay best friend who gives Stephen advice.

Mythology

• In Norse mythology, Mana was replenished through contact with ejaculate. Odin was a wizard. This means exactly what you think it does. So only Women and Bi/gay men could be sorcerers, however, Everyone Is Bi in viking culture.

New Media

• Parodied in an Onion news article about the President appointing a gay man to the office of National Homosexual, whose sole function is to give heterosexuals relationship advice. See Supportive Gay Friend here.
• Parodied in the internet video series Sassy Gay Friend, in which various tragic female characters from the works of Shakespeare are saved from their fates by a flamboyantly gay man who both insults them but builds their confidence in themselves all at once.
  • And after finishing with Shakespeare, he moved on to Charles Dickens characters, movie characters, The Giving Tree, and now Bible figures.

Radio

• Doug Danger (Gay man, gay journalist) from The Phil Hendrie Show is a parody of this. While very unstereotypical and rarely discussing gay issues, he feels he has great insight to the topic of the day because he is a gay man, gay journalist. In some of the more absurd bits, he attributes superhuman powers to being a gay man, gay journalist. All by having been out for three months.

Theater

• Angel of Rent

Video Games

• Not necessarily gay since they have No Biological Sex, but the Magypsies of Mother 3 can teach people how to use psychic powers. However, they take the appearance of middle-aged crossdressing men, but have the minds and speaking patterns of teenage girls. They even cover most of the gay stereotypes, such as Doria looking like a Leather Man and each Magypsy wears one color of the rainbow.
  • Except, of course, for Locria, the missing Magypsy, who had cast aside his/her heritage to become Fassad, one of Porky's servants.
• Soren, of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn is heavily implied to be in love with the main protagonist of both games, Ike. He is presented as the premier magic wielder of both games.

Webcomics

• Used literally in Sore Thumbs, where Flower gains certain magical powers simply from being gay (notably, being able to teleport on Oscar Night from party to party). He's too self-absorbed to really bother dispensing wisdom, though.
• Drezzer Wolf of The Suburban Jungle.

Western Animation

• Clarence from Code Monkeys.
  • Clarence is so magically queer he can actually fly and phase through locked doors.
• Big Gay Al from South Park.
  • Mr. Slave too. While he isn't much of a Camp Gay (besides his accent), he has consistently been one of the sanest and most insightful characters in the show in spite of being a complete degenerate. Since Chef's departure, the kids have consulted him on numerous occasions.
• Homer's secretary Karl (voiced by Harvey Fierstein) on The Simpsons.
• King of the Hill had a subversion; Peggy makes a distraught speech to her flamboyant hairdresser that takes it for granted that he's one of these. Then he turns out to be Happily Married to a woman, with no idea why Peggy would think otherwise.
  • Another episode involved a Drag Queen who helped Peggy work on her body issues (namely, feeling insecure about the less-than-feminine parts of her like her large feet).
• Subverted with Bobby Panache from Glenn Martin, DDS. He is a flamboyant stylist who seems to be gay, and several times its hinted at him being gay. Subverted at the end when his 'fiancée' Penny drives up in a corvette to pick him up, and Glenn makes a remark that says they knew he was straight all along.
  • However, a later episode seems to hint that she's The Beard.

Real Life

• In some Native American tribes, there was the tradition of the "two spirit," a queer-spectrum individual who was singled out to be a good shaman because they obviously had both a male and female spirit in the same body.
  • Winkte in Lakota.
  • There are and have been scads of societies where LGB and gender-variant or trans people have had particular magical or religious roles.
  • The Hijra of South Asia are a special caste comprised mostly of transgendered and gender-variant individuals, and are believed to be able to practice magic. They often make their livings by charging a fee to bestow blessings upon newborns...and are prone to cursing those who refuse to pay.
• Many times, your average LGBT person can become this just by coming out to a friend, acquaintance, coworker, family member, etc., or multiple of these, especially in the case of family members, who were previously intolerant towards LGBT people. Many times these people have heard of LGBT rights as a political issue and have opposed it, especially if, in the case that they're religious, the authorities of the religion they belong to vocally oppose LGBT rights. But then they find out that their friend, family member, etc. is queer or transgender, and this revelation is what it takes for them to have a change of heart. But it's in this case that Tropes Are Not Bad. This is the happier alternative compared to intolerant family members who, instead of having a change of heart, will disown, disinherit, or kick out of the house their queer or trans relative who comes out to them or else take them somewhere to be cured "for their own good."