Willow Rosenberg’s Coming Out Story Still Makes My Lesbian Heart Soar
Willow and Buffy in “Doppelgangland,” (1999)
At age 14 — a portrait of a young teenager who still had several years before she would call herself a lesbian — I sat down with my older sister to dive into seven long seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although my sister gave up after a season, I never looked back after the first episode.
Today, eight years and several rewatches later, I still feel my baby gay self coming back to life with every scene. I ask myself: was it Faith who made me gay, as I vividly remember my high school self subconsciously pining after her leather pants and subtextual relationship with Buffy? Was it the metaphor of Buffy’s role as the slayer which alluded to a queer, and ostracized, identity? Or was it the relationship between Willow and Tara, one of primetime television’s first semi-successful lesbian romances? It could be a delicious combo of all three; yet, it’s something in the way they portray Willow’s queerness with such nuance for the early 2000s that gives me goosebumps like no other plot.
There’s no doubt that the character’s queerness would have been treated differently today, or even ten years ago. There would have been more explicitly queer content (a kiss shared between her and Tara wasn’t shown until a full season after they began dating); writers would have used more concrete terms for her sexual identity (she only called herself “gay” in one episode of season five). Or, her identity would be portrayed as even more fluid in today’s climate where queer identity politics are not necessarily invested in boxing yourself into one sexual category. Regardless, her story impacted me and millions of other queer kids and adults — no matter which way you interpret it.
For those who are not familiar with the show’s queer plotline or who need some refreshing, here’s Willow’s TLDR: she spends the first three seasons supposedly only into men, where she has little luck in the dating department due to her childhood crush on Xander, but soon begins to date Oz, a stoic, charmingly sardonic guitar-player — and werewolf. They have a loving relationship through several seasons, but things go awry in season four when Oz’s animalistic desires outweigh his love for Willow and he has an affair with another werewolf, leaving Willow heartbroken. She meets Tara soon after when their eyes meet at a Wicca group — a friendship stemming from a mutual interest in magic that quickly transitions into a budding romance.
Although her storyline seems quite simple — she was “straight” with Oz and immediately came out as gay with her relationship with Tara — Willow is a character of complexity, both identity-wise and not. I didn’t start to pick up on this until a few watches in and a long journey of figuring out my own lesbian identity. I used to see Willow’s romance with Oz as entirely pointless because I knew that she ended up with a woman prior to beginning the show — Oz was just a stepping stone to her inevitable lesbianism. But, after understanding my own experiences with queerness, observing friends’ and peers’ coming out stories, and watching the show (over and over again) I knew her story to be more complicated.
Some say that her story is an explicit example of bi-erasure, that Willow Rosenberg must be bisexual due to her relationships with both men and women, and that the show’s choice to not recognize that (with her fitting line of “gay now”) is the network’s inability to include a lead, bisexual woman. These are valid points — several bisexual watchers have seen themselves in her, noting how confusing it can be to have feelings for women after having a successful relationship with a man. Seeing a character like Willow identify as bisexual can highlight shared experiences, empowering them rather than adding to the confusion that is the journey of one’s sexuality. And, it’s evident that media has a serious problem with bi-erasure, thanks to the overall lack of bisexual characters and heavy dose of queerbaiting.
With this in mind, Buffy could have chosen to make Willow an affirmed bisexual, adding to the small list of bisexual characters and giving much needed representation for queer Buffy fans who don’t necessarily see themselves as lesbian or gay. But she is incredibly valuable to queer people who don’t identify as bisexual — lesbians, gay women, queer folks of all genders — thanks to the nuance in which she is portrayed (especially for a 2000s primetime television show).
As a lesbian who obsessed over Buffy for four years before even realizing her gay tendencies, I see Willow’s character arc as one of my favorite representations of queerness — and not simply because she was one of the first lesbians in media or because she had a cute, ship-worthy relationship with a woman. But rather, it’s the series’ decision to incorporate a complex coming-out storyline that didn’t necessarily match mine, but verified the wide range of experiences that lesbians can go through.
Willow and Tara in “New Moon Rising,” (2000)
I’m currently on my eighth rewatch of the show, virtually watching with my lesbian best friend, and only a few days ago we came across the infamous season four episode titled “New Moon Rising” — the one where her relationship with Tara, and subsequent queerness, become “official.” This is the moment where many bisexual fans argue that she must be bisexual, but it’s also the one where I see her lesbianism rise — at least in my eyes — due to the complicated nature of her coming out sequence. As Willow’s romance with Tara progresses (in secret, to both her friends and even viewers), Oz comes back into her life unannounced, months after he leaves earlier in the season. In this moment, it’s obvious that it’s, well, complicated — the same careful phrasing Willow uses when she comes out to Buffy.
Her feelings for Oz still seem to be present, but when explaining to her best friend her dilemma (a combination of “woo hoo” and “uh oh” and “why now,” in classic Willow fashion), all she can say is “It’s complicated.” Buffy questions her, wondering how Willow’s first love returning to her life as an improved man would add any sort of confusion to her love life.
“It’s complicated… because of Tara,” Willow verifies, changing the entire series with one groundbreaking line.
Of course it’s complicated — Willow is caught between two lovers, one being her first, another being exciting and new (and a woman). But it’s not only this love triangle that’s complicated, it’s Willow’s queer experiences that led up to this moment that reveal how unique queer coming-of-ages can be. Some say that her lesbianism (if we choose to call it that) was evident a full season earlier, when she calls her vampire doppelgänger “kind of gay.” Signs may have occurred earlier, back when Willow fixated on her crush with Xander that seemed to carry no chemistry apart from a lifelong friendship. Or it became apparent way later, when she meets Tara and at first feels “weird” about her meeting her friends — simply because to her, they are more than friends. (The magical spells alluding to sexual encounters between Willow and Tara are also so on the nose after a few rewatches, but I digress). Finally, with her coming out to Buffy, everything comes full circle — Willow is in love with a girl!
Yet, this new part of her life doesn’t invalidate her previous “straight” experiences, and at the same time, these experiences don’t make her any less of a lesbian. Her fulfilling relationship with Oz didn’t disappear with her new interest in Tara; rather, it acts as a necessary life event to guide her into this new relationship. In my dream Buffy world, Willow would have continued a lasting friendship with Oz after coming out — a plotline that reflects the true nature of their tight-knit relationship shown in seasons prior. I never dated men before coming out as a lesbian, but I did have several crushes and know more lesbians and gay women than not who had loving relationships with men in their pasts. Some of these relationships were traumatic, but some were the opposite and only ended due to lesbian desires. That being said — sexuality can be fluid and can become realized late in life, even after years of rewarding heterosexual relationships. And Willow Rosenberg helped an entire generation realize this, in making us love both Oz and Tara and still see her as a lesbian. Alternatively, this plotline can make others view her as bisexual, pansexual, or simply queer. Whichever way viewers choose to perceive her character to affirm their own sexual experiences, Willow can act as a lens to see one’s queer self.
Buffy and its treatment of queerness definitely has its flaws — primarily by becoming the most common example of the Bury Your Gays trope and even by using Faith as a classic queerbaiting technique. Yet, I feel held everytime I watch Willow grow from the timid high schooler to a fully-fleshed out lesbian witch, revealing the ways in which queer sexuality can be confusing, complex, and a source of empowerment.
Hearts of viewers break when Willow says goodbye to Oz in their last scene together in “New Moon Rising,” but are then gently pieced back together when Willow responds “I am” to Tara, expressing that she has to be with the person she loves. And with the episode’s final moment of Tara blowing out a candle, knowing that Willow is choosing a new, queer experience over her past, I always, with every watch, feel my lesbian heart soar.
About the Author
Natalie Geisel (she/her) is a senior at The George Washington University studying women’s, gender, and sexuality studies with minors in English and communication. Her love of writing sprouted from starting her fashion blog in high school, and her current written work focuses on topics of LGBTQ+ content, culture, and identity. Launching and managing Camp Thirlby was out of interest in intersecting gender and sexuality into the world of youth and wellness, hoping to add marginalized voices, like her own queer one, to an underrepresented community. When she’s not writing, she spends her spare time at dance rehearsal, attending local indie shows in the DC area, or finding the best cafes that serve oat milk. She’s passionate about inclusive sex education and sustainable fashion and thinks everyone should be, too. You can view all of her written work on her website.
