“Wendy Kirsten,” she says.

In the second season, Miranda makes an offhand comment that she used to be a “major lesbian” in the fourth grade. So it was fun to take a breather. Now, she’s super out of practice. She is a person with her own foibles and insecurities, and we get to see that she’s not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination. Plural!! I think that Steve was able to diffuse Miranda in a particular way, but Joy is able to diffuse her with a lighter touch and in a more sophisticated manner.”

What comes next for Joy and Miranda?

As she told the British publication Attitudein 2020, “To say ‘queer’ means, ‘I’m over there, I don’t have to go into the nuances of my sexuality with you.’” This has not stopped reporters and political opponents throughout the years from referring to her as a “lesbian,” no ambiguity, end of story.

(Even Charlotte “You’re Having Non-Binary Sex??” York-Goldenblatt is being more careful with terminology.)

But ultimately, as Cynthia has tried to communicate to the press for years, pinning someone down to a single, inflexible term sort of misses the point. And also, in a way, she has.

“[Miranda] realizes now she wants to be ...

However, some viewers always suspected that the character was not straight, with one recently writing on Twitter: “I kind of wish Miranda would have started off as gay in the beginning of the series. But she is wonderful in a very different way than Steve. Even media critics today writing about AJLT have been throwing the L-word around, despite the fact that Miranda’s new love interest is non-binary, not a woman.

She’s such a good match for Miranda, and her jolly, snarky British humor to Miranda’s… well, you know, Miranda’s kind of didactic. 

The scene that really calls this to mind for me is the one after Miranda makes a blunder on live TV — and she feels as if the world is ending, and Dolly’s character Joy is able to gently deflate that. 

It’s so great, right?

I always felt like she was queer.”

But others lammed the reboot for making Miranda queer, claiming it felt untrue to the original series. So I guess if I had to pick one, I would just say, it’s just more disastrous dating stories. 

Did you as a credited executive producer add elements of your own experience as a queer woman? 

The writers may choose to add elements of all of our experiences.

What did it feel like to play? 

It’s a wonderful throwback — but dating a different gender of person. The two made a brief and disastrous move to Los Angeles together, before returning to New York and calling it quits on their romance. Eager for a promotion, she agrees to be set up on a date with a woman named Syd, but pulls away from a kiss, claiming she’s “definitely straight.”

Meanwhile, in an episode from the second season, Miranda claims she was a “major lesbian” in the fourth grade and kissed a female classmate.

She de-catastrophizes where Miranda catastrophizes. In some cultural landscapes, queerness is seen as a sinful lifestyle choice, like drinking or gambling, which is why it’s powerful in that context to attest that no, in fact, we were “born this way.” For some of us, sexual orientation isn’t so much a static state of being as it is a position in space.