What I’ve noticed lately is how much diversity is in current TV shows. And I’m not just talking ethnic and racial diversity. LGBTQ+ diversity is on the rise, specifically among transgender actors.

Has anyone watched the new show Kaos? It’s a weird take on Greek Mythology. I just finished watching it with my family and we loved it. Sure, we started watching for Jeff Goldblum, but I found many delightful surprises along the way. First of all I noticed ethnic and racial diversity. Some of the ethnicities represented are: Irish, Pakistani, Indo-Fujian, Iranian, New Zealand, British, Cameroon and many more. I nearly forgot about disability representation on the show. Mat Fraser, who plays Daedalus was born with phocomelia, a congenital physical impairment affecting his upper limbs. The best part about the diversity is it is totally normalized in the show. Who cares that Jeff Goldblum’s son (played by Nabhaan Rizwan who is amazing) is Pakistani? And that the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are American, Irish, and a kiwi actor of Maori descent. (Cliff Curtis who plays Poseidon and is also in Fear the Walking dead is great.)

Kaos has not one, not two, not three, but four nonbinary/transgender actors. Misia Butler plays Caeneus who was born as an amazon woman. In their culture, amazon men are forced to leave the tribe when they come of age. Caeneus ended up leaving his tribe to transition. The fates are played by three transgender actors Susie Eddie Izzard, Sam Buttery, and Che.

Misia Butler came on my radar even before I saw him in Kaos. He appears as Stanley , a cis man, in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Talk about totally normalizing gender roles!

I also watched the show Wayward this summer. Another great watch! Wayward was created by and stars nonbinary actor Mae Martin. They play police officer Alex Demsey, and although the character in the show is transgender, the show isn’t about being transgender. It’s a thriller set in a small town with a mysterious school for rehabilitating troubled teens.

Why is it important to have diversity on TV, not only ethnic and racial, but LGBTQ+?

Representation matters! The more we see it, the more normalized it becomes: Biracial relationships, homosexual relationships, people with disabilities, transgender and nonbinary people. I have a family member who is transgender and I’ve seen her struggle to find her identity. Wouldn’t it have been easier for her to have someone who looked like her on TV while she was growing up?

If you’re looking for a new show to watch, check out A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Kaos, or Wayward. Three great shows with diverse casts. And I’d love to hear more LGTBQ+ casts in current TV shows to add to my watch list.

Winding and paved in parts

The bike path weaves through the valley.

Go south and it’s gravelly and flat.

I ride to Boston Store,

And sit outside in a rocking chair

Eating ice cream with strangers

Go north and the path is hilly

With views of Downtown Cleveland

Until I cross the river into the flats.

An old bridge that rises for passing boats.

While I wait. One foot

Perched on the ground

Drinking from my water bottle

Continue on through the narrow roads

To a new path on the lake

I stop to eat a PB & J

And dip my toes in the water.

Then farther still

To Edgewater Beach.

Where I park my bike

Under the Willow tree.

And remember walking the rocks

With my husband, before he was

My husband. We stopped under

The tree for a kiss.

Calling it our tree.

The moment comes and goes

And I turn away

Anxious to get home

Yearning to share my joy

With someone. A solo rider,

With stories to tell.

And people to listen.

Secondhand joy is bittersweet.

My husband and I have been together for four years. He’s always known how much I love biking, but he’s never gone on a bike ride with me. For four years! Really! I wrote this poem during my MFA summer residency at Ashland University and sent it to my husband. He loved it and within two days, he had the old bike that had been sitting in the garage ready to ride. We took our first ride a week later. I look forward to many more solo adventures and more with the love of my life too.

My husband likes horror movies and I don’t. It’s as simple as taste, right? Except I used to watch horror movies as a kid. Looking back I’m not sure if I enjoyed watching these movies–Nightmare on Elm Street, Stephen King’s It, The Shining, The Ring–or if I watched them because that’s what was on TV.

I remember seeing Stephen King’s It at around ten years old and thinking that there was a real possibility that a clown voice would come out of the bathtub drain and maybe a balloon or two along with it. The movie terrified me, but I found myself loving it. I love those movies even now, though it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one. Is it the nostalgia of being a child and having the scariest thing be a fear of creepy clowns in the drains?

Let’s talk about my husband for a minute. He’s around my age and got into scary movies in his twenties and thirties. He watched Nickelodeon as a kid and movies like Twister not Jaws–though both are realish, I’d argue that Jaws is much more terrifying. Anyway, as a young adult he watched all the scary movies of the time, especially liking the possession ones. Oh, I forgot all about watching the Exorcist and Poltergeist in my childhood. That’s a whole new level of scary.

My husband doesn’t like TV, but he likes movies, so we decided as a part of marital compromise to switch off picking movies to watch in the evenings after the kids go to bed. Our kids are teens so they go to bed late, which means it takes us somewhere between three to four days to finish a movie. I picked new movies that I haven’t seen: Sinners, The Life of Chuck, and Hamnet. My husband picked scary movies that he’d seen a million times: The Witch and Paranormal Activity. We watched Paranormal Activity before bed and I watched the nighttime scenes with my hands over my eyes to shield the scariest moments so I could sleep at night. I know my imagination is such that I think there’s a real possibility that a ghost would come into my room at night and… I’m not sure what. But something scary.

So maybe it’s a question of imagination. Is my imagination stronger than my husbands in that I believe what I see in movies is really possible? I believe in ghosts and he doesn’t. We both think aliens could be real, but I’m much more likely to think they would come for a visit, rather than the scientific possibility of aliens as a bacteria life form. When I watched The Walking Dead, I thought I might encounter a zombie when taking the dogs out to pee at night. Imagination could be a factor in how much we enjoy being scared.

Let’s talk about nostalgia. My husband likes the nostalgia of scary movies, perhaps because he watched horror during his invincible twenties and early thirties. Horror could be an escape as a young adult navigating the terrors of being an adult. Cooking and cleaning and heaven, forbid, laundry and grocery shopping.

Love of horror could be a time thing. Or escape.

I’d like to argue that I feel like real life is scary enough without watching movies that intentionally plant ideas in my mind or give me a jump scare. I’m liable to jump scare if I drop a bottle of water. I don’t need to go looking for more reasons to be terrified.

Or is it a question of trauma? I’d like to say that people who love horror have led sheltered lives where they have the luxury of intentionally looking for their next scare instead of dreading terrible things happening in their real lives. I don’t have an answer for that. I’ve experienced trauma, but so has my husband and yet the difference exists.

Why do some people love horror? Imagination, nostalgia, or trauma can all contribute, but in the end I think it comes down to personal taste.

The monster under the bed makes them feel alive. The thought of that murderer with the chain saw hiding in the haunted house gives them delightful chills. For some.

And for the rest of us, we shield our eyes to the creepy smiles that haunt our dreams. We walk around the storm drain on the street, just in case.

My first wedding anniversary came and went while we were on a family vacation. My husband and I shared a smooch or two and the obligatory “Happy Anniversary” and then it was over. We’re both in our forties and have been married for one year. The celebration, or lack of celebration got me thinking about marriage in general.

Maybe we’ve got it figured out already. By meeting later in life, we both knew what we wanted out of a partner. When we decided to get married, it wasn’t a big pronouncement. It was a series of conversations about our futures, hopes, and goals. Practical, not romantic. Sure, he did the proposal and we had a ring. But getting married would have felt the same without all that. We knew what it takes other couples decades to figure out: It’s not the big moments. It’s the little things all added up that turn into big things.

Our wedding was small. We celebrated in my dad’s backyard with friends and family. I bought my dress on Amazon. But it turned out to be perfect. When I look back at our relationship, I think of our first dance in the grass to Elton John while I wore his sunglasses and he looked at me like I’m the most important person he’s ever seen. It’s the look I fell in love with when we first met. I’d never been able to see love in someone’s eyes before. My husband has way of looking at me with eyebrows raised, eyes twinkling, and a shy smile on his face. There’s no other way to describe it but LOVE.

So if I could choose between a big wedding in a hall with two hundred people and jewelry on every anniversary or a single smooch and a heartfelt “I love you,” I’d choose the latter every time. It’s only been our first anniversary, but all the little moments will pile up each year and soon it will amount to so much more than the three layer cake and the diamond tennis bracelet.

And if you’re one of those couples that celebrates every milestone with big moments, that’s wonderful. Just remember that the little things count even more. It’s the day to day that make a relationship stronger.

Happy one year anniversary, August 2, 2026!