The Most Relatable Coming Out Story

For those of you who are not familiar with, or have not yet watched the TV show, Supergirl please beware that there are spoilers ahead of the events that unfold in the second season of the show. Okay so in case you don't already know Alex Danvers, adopted sister of Supergirl aka Kara Danvers and fan favorite of the show, turns out to be a lesbian in the second season. Even though most fans guessed that it would be Alex when it was revealed that a character would be coming out this season, no one could have anticipated the impact the story would have on the hundreds of the shows LGBT+ fans, myself included. In the beginning of the season, Alex Danvers meets Maggie Sawyer, a lesbian cop. As they work together to solve crimes happening throughout the city, these two badass women who both carry firearms for a living, will become good friends. Over the course of the next few episodes, Alex admits to Maggie that the reason she was never comfortable being intimate with men was because she may actually a lesbian. In the next episode we see Alex come out to her little sister, Kara, in a way that I have been waiting to see since I was still in the closet. It's not only what the character says, but actress Chyler Leigh's incredible portrayal of how her character feels that makes the scene so real and relatable to so many. Alex's struggle to get the words out, trying to explain the complexities of what she feels, the deep breathes she takes between every answer to Kara's questions, eliminating the possibility that she only feels this way because she hasn't found the right guy (a criticism many lesbians and bisexual women often face upon coming out), her admitting to the fact that she may have felt this way before, but didn't understand what it was that she was feeling, and how it began to consume her life to the point where she couldn't sleep because of it, the way she shoved down her feelings about this before. These are the reasons that so many people, gay or not, gravitated towards this show. What I also loved, apart from the reasons listed above, is the fact that Alex is almost thirty, whereas most characters on TV shows are seen coming out much earlier on in their life, showing that it doesn't matter how young or old you are, you are always figuring yourself out and discovering new parts of yourself that you didn't even know were there.