Mentor in Queerness

"But if you want a role model, sure! I'm queer. I'm here."

— Shego, I'm Scared Too

So, you're newly out of the closet. Likely in your late teens or early twenties, the world can be a confusing place for a young queer person (especially in pre-New Millennium works). How do you find a date? How do you transition? Where can you meet people similar to you?

Here is where this trope comes in.

The protagonist will meet an older character. Out, proud, and confident, they will help the lead with their troubles and be a shoulder to cry on if things go sour along the story. They also inspire the protagonist and show that not all queer people end up miserable and/or dead.

A large number of Coming Out Stories have this type of character. They're almost never a Love Interest (and oftentimes they are in a relationship already). Instead, they're more of an older sibling figure and a confidant to the main character. If they're in a relationship then they and their partner might act as a Beta Couple to the lead.

Compare to Cool Big Sis and Big Brother Mentor for more general examples. Lover and Beloved is a usually gay male trope where the lover is also the character's mentor.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Bloom Into You, Sayaka, who realized her liking girls was not just a phase after meeting with Touko, seeks advice from Miyako, a lesbian café owner who's in a relationship with Sayaka's own teacher Ms. Hakozaki. It's partly thanks to her conversations with her that she eventually finds the courage to confess her feelings to Touko.
• In given Uenoyama has a heart-to-heart with his college-aged bandmate Akihiko, during which it comes out that he's crushing on their newest bandmate, Mafuyu. Uenoyama gets uncharacteristically vulnerable, asking Akihiko if he thinks there's something wrong with him. Akihiko calmly reassures him that he's fine, going as far to reveal that he's been with men himself, turning it around and pointing out that Uenoyama won't say there's something wrong with him.
• Love Me For Who I Am has Satori Iwaoka, the owner of Café Question. Satori's only sibling is Tetsu, but she often acts like a Cool Big Sis to the whole staff of the café, and as a Transgender woman she's often able to empathize with their issues and offer advice and support. In particular, when Mogumo's presence in the first volume leads to a rift between the staff over their standard "I'm a guy dressed as a girl" introduction, she encourages all of them to share their point of view on the issue to come to a compromise. This eventually resolves in Mogumo being able to stay in the café without compromising their identity and helps Mei realize she was a closeted trans girl.
• In My Brother's Husband, Mike Flanagan, a gay Canadian visiting Japan to meet the family of his dead Japanese husband, ends up mentoring Kazuya, the gay teenage elder brother of a school friend of his niece Kana.
• Our Dreams at Dusk focuses on an LGBT-friendly drop-in center where people of several age groups regularly converge, and several dynamics like this form naturally between the characters. Tasuku, the protagonist, is particularly drawn to Haruko after seeing her with her wife, Saki. In turn, Haruko recognizes Tasuku is in the closet and looking for community, and she helps bring him into the fold and later becomes the first person he comes out to.
  • Meanwhile, Tasuku wants to become a figure like this to Misora, a younger patron, after remembering how alone he felt when he was younger and frightened by the realization he was gay.
  • While it's hinted that Misora would like to have a relationship like this with Tasuku, Tasuku realizes that the person Misora truly looks up to is "Someone," glowing upon receiving praise from her and admitting his admiration of her mystique and aloofness. Unfortunately, the qualities he admires so much mean that Someone isn't actually that good of a mentor figure, and when Misora reaches out to her after the events of Chapter 9, he's left even more hurt when she is unable to offer him any comfort or advice.
• Shonen Note: Boy Soprano, Yuhki Kamatani's pre-Dreams work, has Minoru Aoi, a former soprano who becomes a sort of mentor for the choir as a whole. Minoru is initially introduced as Yutaka's big brother, but one day Mito runs into them wearing a skirt. Upon being questioned about it, Minoru displays a casual, almost fluid relationship to gender. Mito, likewise, is initially introduced as a girl but is uncomfortable with "feminine" things and longs for a deeper voice, hinting him to possibly be a closeted transgender boy. Mito forms a sort of Intergenerational Friendship with Minoru and later is inspired by them to try dressing in a way more comfortable to him.
• Hana in Tokyo Godfathers was taken in by the owner of a drag queen club when she was younger. Around halfway through the movie Hana goes to "Mother" for help and she's overjoyed to see her again, taking her, Miyuki, and the baby in for the night without question.
• Wandering Son has Yuki Yoshida, a trans woman Takatsuki meets while out as a boy for the first time. She's the Cool Big Sis for Takatsuki, Nitori, and to a degree Makoto later on.

Comic Books

• In Avengers Academy, Julie Power serves as a mentor to the newly-out Striker, though she is continually frustrated that Striker keeps using his sexuality to draw headlines.
• In The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, the older Kya serves as this towards Korra (the title character) and her girlfriend Asami.
• Dykes to Watch Out For: Samia and a somewhat reluctant Ginger find themselves doing this for Ginger's neo-conservative student Cynthia.

Fan Works

• BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant: May Marigold is this for Mai Natsume. Unlike May, Mai hasn't come out as trans due to fear of rejection, with the Happy Huntress giving her advice as best she can on how to proceed.
• Being unashamedly bisexual/pansexual, Minako is this to the rest of the Senshi in But You Won't Have to Do It Alone. She admits that she can't relate to her friend's gayngst well, being that she never had any issue with her sexuality, but she's always there to be a shoulder for sympathy or advice.
• Long-time gay Miss Alice Band is this to new Assassins' Guild graduate Jocasta Wiggs in Discworld fics by A.A. Pessimal. in fact, there is a possibility Alice acts as a mentor and a discreet help to young Assassin students who have reason to suspect boys will not feature more than incidentally in their lives. (She was, however, professional enough as a teacher to wait till after Jocasta had graduated. She knows where the line is and not to cross it.)
• In Denounce the Evils, Harley has been living as a woman for a while now. James asks her for advice about his gender questioning.
• Moving is a one-shot fic for The Children's Hour film where Karen, drifting aimlessly after her best friend Martha's Gayngst-Induced Suicide, ends up rooming with a woman. The woman is a trans lesbian who takes Karen in and helps her come to the realization of her own bisexuality.
• Implied in the Land of Oz one-shot The Road Built in Hope. Dorothy stays with a lesbian couple in San Francisco for a while. Dorothy is a bit young for romance, but her affections for Ozma are likely to develop as she ages.
• In A Song of Grumbling & Cotton Candy, Pizzazz calls her groupie Clash and her girlfriend Blaze upon drunkenly asking Jem out on a date. Clash actually cheated on Blaze with Pizzazz once, but Pizzazz is still in heavy denial over being lesbian and has no clue how dating women works.
• Warriors Rewrite: Firepaw is trans, as is Redtail. As a result, Redtail offers to be there for advice for the younger cat.

Films — Live-Action

• Bottoms: It's implied that PJ and Josie's shared childhood babysitter Rhodes, whom they describe as a "gay Yoda", is part of the reason they're both out-and-proud in high school.
• In But I'm a Cheerleader, which takes place in a gay conversion camp, Lloyd and Larry are an older gay couple who met at the camp. They help sneak the characters out of the camp and into the local gay bar and generally introduce the kids to what life is like as an out person. When Dolph and Megan are thrown out of the camp, they even take them in until they can live on their own.

Literature

• Two of Annie's teachers reluctantly play this role in Annie on My Mind. They're closeted and in a Secret Relationship. After both they and Annie are Forced Out of the Closet, Annie begins opening up to them about her relationship with Liza. In Annie's case, she uses them as a basis on how she doesn't want her life to be. Annie doesn't want to stay closeted forever.
• I Am J:
  • After running away from home for a few days, seventeen-year-old trans boy J meets Marcia. She's a trans woman who visits the motel looking for runaway teens to give them advice. Marcia recommends that J visit a shelter for LGBT teens. She's a bit character who only appears in that one scene, but she has a major impact on J's Coming-Out Story.
  • Chanelle, who goes to J's high school, is a twenty-year-old trying to graduate (with the cut-off age being twenty-one). Chanelle is a trans woman herself, and she acts as J's older sister-esque friend who helps him where his cisgender Childhood Friend Melissa cannot.
  • J meets Zak, an older trans guy, at a support group for transmasculine people. He helps inspire J and is his sole male friend.
• Just Juliet: Scott offers to serve as this for Lena, helping her discern her sexual orientation and answer questions which she has to the best of his ability. She's very grateful for it.
• These Words Are True and Faithful: Because of the age difference between Sam and Ernie, Ernie mentors Sam, primarily in the BDSM scene, but also in gay life in general:
  “What do you mean, why? You really are new at this, aren’t you?”
  “So enlighten me.”
  “You see, gay guys aren’t supposed to be young and hot like you are and also educated professionals like you are, and if you are, you broke one of the gay commandments, so everybody has to put you in what they think’s your place.”
• In the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, after his first boyfriend dies Vanyel nearly kills himself repeatedly. His aunt brings him to her friends the Tayledras, allowing him to meet Moondance, an adoptive Tayledras who was cast out by his community after being discovered with a man and has come to terms with himself living in the Tayledras' Non-Heteronormative Society. The things Moondance tells him help Van, though not before he has a very teenaged fit of angst and claims Moondance's experiences were nothing like as bad as his.
• Lord John And The Succubus: Over dinner, one soldier jokingly accuses two younger soldiers of sneaking off to have sex together. The camp dissolves into laughter, but one of the soldiers reacts with extreme fury. Realizing that the boy is reacting out of fear that he's been discovered, Lord John, a career soldier who lives in the closet, quietly advises the boy to laugh at the joke before the others realize that the boy is not taking it as jest.
  Lord John: Laugh. It was a joke. If you act like this, they will know. For god's sake, laugh!
• Loveless, which is about its protagonist, Georgia, finding out that she is both asexual and aromantic, has a couple such situations:
  • Sunil starts out being assigned as Georgia's "college parent". The fact that he's also asexual and is Platonic Life-Partners with an aromantic woman allows Georgia to get some proper information about both her orientations before she she fully realizes that they apply to her. Once the latter has happened, Sunil helps her navigate them.
  • Georgia and the older Ellis end up having a mutual version going on. Ellis gives Georgia an idea of what's waiting for her in the next fifteen years of her life, while Georgia is the one to inform Ellis that what they are has a name and there are other people like them out there.

Live-Action TV

• Age-inverted in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Middle-aged Daryl only realizes he's bisexual when he realizes he's attracted to the much younger White Josh, who has been out since he was twelve. Despite being younger, White Josh serves as Daryl's mentor thanks to his much more profound experience with being gay.
• Dracula (2013): Lady Jayne realizes Lucy wants Mina due to how she's looked at her, reassuring her that it's perfectly natural and encouraging her to act on her feelings, revealing she's bisexual herself, having been lovers with several women before. She's really manipulating Lucy, however, to drive Mina and Jonathan apart.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia subverts this for laughs when Mac visits his formerly-closeted Black Sheep Uncle Donald. Charlie states the obvious that Donald is offering the support and affection Mac never got from his parents^note To drive it home he's played by Gregory Scott Cummins, who also plays Mac's homophobic dad, but Mac is completely apathetic and just wants to get some family heirlooms and leave.
• Love, Victor: Simon, who had gone through his own coming out journey in the original movie, serves as a mentor to closeted Victor, giving him advice through messages on Instagram. In the episode "Boy's Trip," Victor takes a trip to New York to visit Simon, and Bram and the rest of his & Simon's friend group fill the role of supporting Victor.
• In Pose, Blanca finds herself pressed into service as Damon's queer mentor because he is so virginal that he barely even knows how to kiss someone properly.
• Subverted on Schitt's Creek. Jocelyn enlists the Camp Gay David in talking to a gay student who isn't fitting in. The boy rebuffs his advances because he has no interest in fitting in their conservative small town.
• Sense8: Trans lesbian Nomi helps her gay clustermate Lito come to terms with their identities and sexualities at multiple times throughout the show.
• Star Trek: Discovery: In the third season and onwards, middle-aged gay male couple Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber end up as surrogate queer parents to the teenage non-binary character Adira Tal.
• Supergirl: Maggie serves as this for Alex when she comes out, with this role and the related fact that they're in very different positions in life being reasons that Maggie gives for initially turning down Alex despite being attracted to her.
• Marc on Ugly Betty sometimes served as a mentor to Justin, who was in the Transparent Closet until Season 4.
• Mildly age-inverted on Will & Grace. Jack is younger than Will but was out before Will and even realized that Will was gay before Will did.

Theatre

• In Tennessee Williams's Vieux Carre, the Nightingale serves as this to the Writer, a stand-in for Williams. (The play is heavily autobiographical.)

Video Games

• In A Normal Lost Phone the main character Sam seeks community in an online forum called Be You and finds guidance and comfort in several of the older members, including Harry, a trans man who lives in her city.

Webcomics

• Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: Kate Kane (a lesbian) gives her cousin's adopted son Tim Drake (who is bisexual) advice on pursuing and dating someone of the same sex in the "Better and Brighter" two-parter.
• Rain:
  • Given how he's a therapist, Vincent (a trans man) is this to Rain (a trans women). He often gives plenty of great insight when it comes to gender and orientation due to his experience.
  • Jessica is this to Rain as well. She gives Rain a lot of good advice and when Rain feels rather lost or sad. Most notably when they're in the waiting room.
• Transcendent has Olive, a trans girl, and Joe, a young trans boy she meets on a field trip. Her coming-out story is what inspires him to be his true self, and his mother personally thanks Olive for helping him come to terms with himself.
• Remy's diary in Tiger, Tiger details his relationship with Arno, the stoic, older owner of a tavern where gay men regularly convene. At first it seems like the two only had a one-night stand but it's revealed that Remy saw Arno several times, with Arno becoming a confidant that the still-closeted Remy frequently voiced his troubles to, such as his increasing infatuation with Jamis. Arno is also the one who introduces the idea of Maldoror as a sort of patron god to people "rejected by the world" (the implication being that this includes gay people) as a way to comfort Remy.
  Arno: But if the world will not have us, at least we have each other. You are so afraid of what the world will think of your true self, but if the world will not accept you the way you are, because you don't love the way they want you to love, in my opinion, that world isn't worthy of you.

Web Original

• In the Whateley Universe, all the openly LGBTQ+ kids are placed into Poe Cottage, and have been for decades. (The Unfortunate Implications of this are discussed.) During new student orientation, they're given a student guide dependent upon their sexual orientation and/or gender - for trans kids, in the first generation, that's Beltane. Averted elsewhere, though: those who aren't open about their orientation to the staff get placed in other cottages, which adds to some major issues for folks like Sahar and Tansy.

Web Video

• The only queer player character on the D&D Actual Play webshow Critical Role who ever really had an angsty coming-out storyline was Taryon, late in campaign 1. When he came out to the Vox Machina group during a drunken evening at a bar, the gang immediately took on a bit of a mentor role towards him, if only by convincing him that he's perfectly justified in hating his homophobic and emotionally abusive father and doesn't owe the man respect in return. (There isn't really anything like a separate queer subculture to introduce him to, since this fantasy setting is largely free of homophobia as a social norm and there are several other queer characters who are very obviously out without suffering repercussions.)^note  (Which makes sense if you consider that the goddess of law/civilization and the goddess of nature are in a romantic relationship with each other. So calling same-gender attraction "unnatural" or creating laws to persecute queer people would be blasphemous in most countries. Taryon's father's issues with his son's homosexuality were probably the result of toxic masculinity expectations and a narcissistic desire to raise his son as a mini-me copy of himself.) Especially Vax'ildan (in-character, because he's the most obviously queer character in the Vox Machina group, while his player Liam hadn't really come out to the audience yet) and Percy (semi-in-character, because Percy was played as mostly straight, but his player Taliesin was already making his bisexuality quite obvious^note  (mainly through his purple mohawk/undercut; he publically came out a couple of months after this episode) and he probably has the most contact with the LGTBQ+ community in real life, so he was the first to realize where Sam was going with this improv scene and started feeding him leading questions to help^note  (However, while Sam most likely identifies as straight despite his joke-flirting with and deep affection for his BFF Liam, he does have an older sister who has been out as a lesbian ever since he was a child, and a younger sister who played a queer teenager with a much-written-about coming-out storyline on a daytime soap, back when this was still very unusual in the mainstream media - so it's not like Sam didn't know what he was doing with his gay character's storyline.)) immediately offered their moral support and told Taryon not to base his identity on queer-erasing media. (In this case, biographies of famous adventurers he was trying to emulate, thinking that he needs to become a ladies' man because he had never read about a male hero who's attracted to older men.)
  Grog: So, the one romance you had before, did it go well?
  Taryon: No, it did not.
  Percy/Taliesin: Oh my God. No. Wait. No! Did you... Did your father find out about...?
  Taryon: My father did find out.
  Percy/Taliesin: Oh my God... [empathetic flush and face-palm]
  Keyleth + Pike: What? What did I miss? What happened to her?
  Percy: [to the barmaid] More liquor, more liquor!
  Vex'ahlia + Keyleth: Wait, what? What happened?
  Percy: No, we're sitting down for parental issues. Welcome to Vox Machina!
  Vax'ildan: This is part of the initiation process, Tary. We all went through this. Tell us everything.
  Taryon: You guys are friends, right?
  Vax'ildan + Percy: Yeah!
  Grog: No. ...Yes.
  Taryon: My father, as I told you, has threatened to give the entire legacy of his estate to my sister because he doesn't feel that I'm ready to take the reigns. I'm not strong enough and I'm not vicious enough. But it's more than that. He caught me with a tutor once.
  Vax'ildan: What was... her(?)... name?
  Taryon: His name. It's embarrassing. His name was Lawrence.
  Percy/Taliesin: [sighs and pats Sam on the shoulder] Good name.
  Taryon: Larry. Larry and Tary.
  Vax'ildan/Liam: That's adorable.
  Percy: That's so adorabe! I'm so sorry.

Western Animation

• Big Mouth: Cool and confident Maiden Aunt Amber fills this role for Elijah. She's the one who teaches him about asexuality, assures him that not wanting sex doesn't mean there's anything wrong with him, and serves as an example for him of an ace person living a happy and fulfilled life without sex.
• Craig of the Creek: J.P.'s sister's girlfriend Kat helps Kelsey come to terms with her feelings for Stacks after Kelsey starts writing a story where their avatars fire and ice are a lesbian couple. Kat tells Kelsey it's okay if the gay characters are based on Kelsey and her friend and that she "shouldn't hide any beautiful part" of herself.
• Professor Caraway, a trans man in High Guardian Spice, helps Snapdragon in their struggles to navigate their gender identity.

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