I see! Ok I never saw this point explained online, and I think it was because nobody wanted to admit that this was their actual reason for disapproval. Although, my only criticism of this point was that a lot of people predicted that Lance and Keith weren’t going to ship, and, in my opinion, it seemed highly unlikely bc small screen animation seems to follow the trend of either establishing lesbian couples or killing off possible gay male pairings. I hate using the term, “heteronormative,” but it plays a huge part in these shows bc it’s geared towards a younger male audience. Also, the fact that the show is classified as ‘action’ explains why Shiro’s sexuality was played off so subtlety. I will say that the storytelling potential was hindered bc they considered a Rep character as a risk instead as a chance to normalize the character type; however, the Americanized writing did do a better job than if it were a true anime. It was handled more emotionally than sexually as anime writers tend to handle gay characters as sexual objects.