Disney has reportedly decided to shelve an episode of the children’s cartoon series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, apparently over its plot concerning a transgender high school athlete.
The Mouse House has decided not to air the episode entitled “Gatekeeper,” which features story praising a boy who identifies as a girl and who battles against opposition to his playing on a high school volleyball team.
Several creators who said they worked on the episode which was originally set to air early next year took to the left-wing social media outlet Bluesky to decry the shelving of the episode. At least two who said they worked on the episode spoke out, but both later deleted their posts, according to Gizmodo.
“One of the projects (episode) I worked on is getting shelved because of which party that won the recent election,” storyboard artist Derrick Malik Johnson wrote before deleting the message. “It breaks my heart knowing this impactful and amazing [episode] is now about to be consider a lost media episode.”
Another person who claimed to have worked on the episode took to a Reddit thread to bemoan the loss of the episode, writing (then deleting): “If you put attention [sic] to details about the character, you can figure out about what theme [the episode was based on] and why it was canned.”
Supporters and those behind the scenes tried to post bits of the episode on various platforms, but most were pulled down by Disney invoking copyright strikes, Gizmodo added.