Truth will set us free: ‘Stranger Things’ and queerness
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf
On December 31, 2025, “Stranger Things” aired its last ever episode. Season 5 of the hit Netflix series had its ups and downs, but one of the best parts of the show’s final run was its centering of queerness as essential to salvation.
“Stranger Things” first aired in 2016 and was one of Netflix’s first true hits, cashing in on ’80s nostalgia and an excellent addition to the “kids on bikes” genre. Since then, it has expanded into a massive media empire, with a spin-off and an animated series in the works. The series follows a group of middle schoolers and, later, high schoolers, as they battle the federal government and the cosmic, otherworldly forces of an alternate dimension known as the “Upside Down.”
A quiet kid who loves drawing, Will is one of the core members of the group. His disappearance was the narrative throughline of Season 1. Since the beginning of the series, Will’s sexuality has been hinted at — but never directly addressed. We got close in season four, when it was clear that Will had feelings for his best friend Mike, but season five made the issue central to ensuring our protagonists’ victory over evil. For one, this season’s enemy, Vecna, threatens Will with a false vision of the future where his friends all reject him because of his sexuality.
After receiving mentorship from another queer character, Will finally chooses to come out to his friends, who accept him unconditionally. This happens right before the major battle for the fate of humanity, but it is no less significant than what comes after. In choosing to focus on such an intimate scene, the show reaffirmed its core commitment to the idea that it is only through being together and choosing to love one another that evil can be conquered.
It takes courage to be who we are, and that courage found in community is the only thing that can defeat evil.
In that way, the show does not just show us queer characters who are making bold choices to become visible to their friends and family; it says that such actions are salvific in a real sense. It is only by coming out and reuniting all the parts of himself that Will can claim the power needed to play a key role in defeating Vecna, who does everything that he can to keep Will afraid of such a disclosure.
That’s not to say that everyone liked that message being so central to the plot. The episode that featured Will’s coming out was “review bombed,” a practice whereby a group organizes to negatively review a piece of media on ratings websites like Rotten Tomatoes. In this case, those negative reviews took the season from a solid rating to a more middling position, with the episode featuring Will’s coming out rating the lowest of any episode for the entire season.
Homophobia and unwillingness to see queer stories featured prominently in media does not merely stay isolated to online reviews; it lives in the real world. A poll conducted by the Trevor Project in 2024 found that 1 in 10 LGBTQ+ young people attempted suicide in the past year, while 39% seriously considered it. Those statistics are daunting, and one thing seems abundantly clear from recent research: churches with regressive theologies are undoubtedly playing a role in those alarming statistics.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can find our way toward liberating theologies that empower people to love themselves as they are. After all, Jesus came that we know the truth — about ourselves, about God, and our place in the universe. We do not have to be afraid of queer truth-telling because the truth will set us free. Maybe what we need to do is take our cue from “Stranger Things,” which has come closer to the Gospel than many of our churches on this issue: it takes courage to be who we are, and that courage found in community is the only thing that can defeat evil.
Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf is senior minister, Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois. He currently serves as the co-associate regional minister with the American Baptist Churches Metro Chicago. His most recent book, co-authored with Anna Piela, Confronting Islamophobia in the Church: Liturgical Tools for Justice (Judson Press 2026) offers a theology of interfaith engagement with Muslims. Woolf is also a co-founder of Challenging Islamophobia Together Chicagoland, an initiative that brings together people of all faiths to counter Islamophobia from a religious perspective.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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