Back in the 90s and early 00s there was still this stupid stigma that putting LGBT+ characters in something would instantly bump the age rating, so even if a writer intended for a character to be gay, bisexual, or trans the ratings board and censors wouldn't allow it. To give a legit example, back when Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom was still airing the majority of episodes were TV-PG, but in the episode where she came out as a lesbian that one had the age rating bumped to TV-14 simply because of that. James Gunn also wrote Velma as a lesbian in the 2002 live action movie but WB made him remove this element from the script because they wanted the movie to be PG instead of PG-13.

Nowadays that dumb restriction is no longer an issue so writers are able to include LGBT+ characters without censors being pricks about it, and it also helps show younger audiences "there's nothing wrong with being gay, bi, or trans, these people just want acceptance like any other average person."

Meanwhile, in 90's Japan