Culture

Jane the Virgin just brought in a bisexual character and fans are excited

Nov 14 2017
Written by Jess Glass

(Photo: The CW)

Telenovela sitcom Jane the Virgin is making waves for its casual inclusion of a bisexual character.

In the recent episode, entitled ‘Jane the Heteronormative,’ Jane discovers that her new partner Adam has dated men in the past.

Jane, played by Gina Rodriguez, spends a lot of the episode coming to terms with Adam’s sexuality.

Rodriguez recently said that she is ‘more bisexual’ than the character she plays, saying that she loves people for their hearts.

Gina Rodriguez (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Jane the Virgin Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman spoke to Variety about including a bisexual character: “I feel like you see a lot of bisexual women on TV because men think it’s sexy when women make out.

“We felt like we hadn’t had a romantic hero who’s also bisexual.”

She continued: “[Jane] had to confront what that meant and ask questions — and feel safe enough to ask questions because sometimes you feel like your questions are silly and you should know better, but ask them!”

Adam is played by former Teen Wolf star Tyler Posey, who made headlines last year for pretending to come out as gay on Snapchat.

(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Fans of the show took to Twitter to express their excitement at the bisexual representation.

(Photo: @ronimerrell /Twitter)

One fan said: “Adam is a canon bisexual latino in Jane the Virgin ugh I love him with my whole ass heart.”

(Photo: @Just_Eva /Twitter)

Another fan echoed this by saying: “Jane the Virgin winning again with bisexual male representation! So awesome.”

Some reactions took a more surprised tone, with one person saying: “Wait Jane the Virgin has an actual bisexual character who is explicitly bisexual????”

This surprise is to be expected as there have been many (though nowhere near enough) gay and lesbian characters on the screen in recent years, but few shows have bisexual characters.

Fewer shows still take the step of saying the word ‘bisexual’ though there are some pretty notable exceptions.

(Photo: @mylillysingh / Twitter)

Some fans resorted to memes and reaction photos to express their response to the news of the bisexual character.

(Photo: @beckhaleesi / Twitter)

Another fan said: “We love bisexual icon Adam from Jane the Virgin.”

Many people have said that bisexual representation and visibility is one of the most important struggles that the LGBT+ community faces in the 21st century.

(Photo: @scullysivan / Twitter)

Another fan had a particularly expressive reaction: “!!! Adam on Jane The Virgin is bisexual !!! !!! I repeat !!! !!! Adam is bisexual !!! They even said the word !!! (Well Jane did, he used the whole “I dont do labels” thing but still !!! A canonically bi character !!! and Jane is okay with it !!! And I literally screamed!!!”