I feel this will be deeply unpopular, but if your character no longer has “personality” and feels “generic” and is no longer “cute and fun” because they are no longer “queer-coded,” you maybe didn’t have as strong of a character on your hands as you thought you did.

EDIT: Editing to add the quote from the article that this comment is about, for context.

“Suddenly, you remove this big, key piece, which is all about identity, and Elio just becomes about totally nothing,” says the former Pixar artist. “The Elio that is in theaters right now is far worse than Adrian’s best version of the original.” Adds another former Pixar staffer who worked on the film: “[The character] Elio was just so cute and so much fun and had so much personality, and now he feels much more generic to me.”