Sesame Street, Trans Youth, and the Many Ways to Be Niamh

Published: August 22, 2025

In 2024, I wrote an article for Trans Day of Visibility about how Sesame Street could introduce a transgender Muppet character by focusing on giving children space to experiment with gender presentation. I talked about how kids as young as three are capable of understanding their gender and making decisions about how they want to express it. I mentioned that the best thing adults can do to help transgender kids is to give them permission to try new names, pronouns, clothes, hobbies, and hair styles that suit them. I also specifically talked about the character Niamh, who was seen trying new gender-neutral clothing in an episode of the Sesame YouTube spinoff The Power of We Club.

A lot has changed since March 2024, though.

Trump got elected, of course. And since then, more and more laws targeting trans folks, both adults and children, have been made each month. Many companies cut back on their pride offerings, fearing right-wing backlash that could lead to a loss of business or, in Sesame Street‘s case, funding.

It’s been tough for trans people, especially trans youth. But as a trans woman who does community activism work, I haven’t given up hope. I think there’s so much that we can do to help each other, even still, and I’ve been trying to do work that promotes that. In June, I was invited by Sesame Workshop to give a presentation to their staff about the links between Sesame’s themes and the needs of transgender youth. Believe me, it does feel like there’s a path forward, but it’s undeniable that it’s a hard one in today’s political landscape.

This week, Sesame Street dropped Episode 5532, “No Wrong Way to Be Me.” It’s Niamh’s first featured role on the show proper, and a subtle discussion of many of the same themes I wrote about last year. Obviously, I’m not taking credit for this episode. It was in production before my article was written and before I spoke with the workshop in June. But what’s fascinating is the parallel thinking at play. I want to genuinely thank the Sesame Street team, especially writer Jennifer Capra and Niamh’s performer Z. Briggs, for the great things in this episode. However, I also want to express my genuine disappointment about the missed potential for a clearer, more meaningful story about gender presentation.

So a quick recap, for those of you who didn’t watch the episode: It‘s haircut day on Sesame Street, and everyone is lining up to get new ‘dos from Queer Eye’s Jonathan van Ness, whom I guess we are supposed to believe comes to Sesame Street every week to cut monsters’ hair. Anyway. Niamh has permission from her parents to try any hairstyle she wants, and expresses genuine concern that people associate her too much with her long braid. But she’s unable to decide what new hairstyle to choose until her buddy Tamir reminds her that there’s no wrong way to be Niamh. Ultimately, she decides she wants a much shorter hairdo, and J.V.N. is happy to help her.

While it’s admittedly a little strange to tell this story with Niamh, a character who has literally never uttered a line of dialogue on Sesame Street prior, it feels appropriate to continue with her struggles from the ”Dressed-Up Birthday Party” Power of We Club episode. We’ve learned that Niamh is a character who cares deeply about her appearance, and her desires for her appearance often go against conventions for a little girl. She’s not Abby Cadabby! She wants short hair and to wear a suit jacket.

As I said last year, this doesn’t make Niamh automatically nonbinary or transmasculine. Girls can have short hair and wear suit jackets. But it’s definitely unconventional and against female stereotypes, and it’s important for trans kids at home to see Niamh making strides in this area. Centering this episode on Niamh’s haircut is meaningful, because we have already seen real incidents where transphobes harass cisgender girls with short hair, assuming they are transgender. In other words, despite how innocuous it may seem, hair length can be a huge signal of gender nonconformity to the world. What’s also crucial is that we’re told Niamh’s parents are letting her decide. They are giving Niamh space to try new things regarding her presentation, rather than forcing her to fit into a role she doesn’t want. Tamir also assures Niamh that she’ll look great no matter what style she chooses.

The episode keeps reminding its audience that hair is fun to experiment with because it grows back. This feels relevant as well, because it underlines that gender affirming care for children as young as Niamh is always reversible. Things like haircuts, outfits, and names can always be changed back. Even puberty blockers, which are obviously given to children older than Niamh, have an effect that can easily be reversed by ending their use. No child Niamh’s age is receiving an unchangeable surgery. They are experimenting, learning what it means to be them, by doing things they can always undo.

It’s also notable that J.V.N. is the hairdresser in this episode, and part of why I feel so strongly that this episode is about gender presentation. I know that kids won’t recognize them from Queer Eye, and the show unfortunately never uses Jonathan’s preferred they/them pronouns to refer to them. However, what audiences will see is a person who plays with gender stereotypes being loved by their community. J.V.N. brings attention to the pride they take in their long hair, and kids can see that they not only have a beard but also jewelry and painted nails.

In both Niamh’s plot and J.V.N.’s appearance, kids see people experimenting with how their gender is communicated to the world. This isn’t just about telling children they can make these choices, although that is extremely important. It also shows parents and kids who may be comfortable presenting in traditional ways that those who don’t are still worthy of acceptance and love.

But as happy as I am, so much of this episode rings hollower than I would like.

For one thing, despite their colored nails, we really can’t see much of J.V.N.’s outfit in this episode. They might be wearing a dress, they might be wearing an oversized sweater… I truly can’t tell. The way the images are framed, we really never see them from the waist down, as if they too are a Muppet. To audiences at home, it certainly looks like they’re dressed colorfully but masculine. This is a little unusual to me, because in public appearances, they often clearly wear skirts. In fact, five years ago, they wore a skirt on The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo. I suppose today, that would not be received well by audiences for the reasons we discussed earlier, but it feels pointed that they’re dressed in a way that reads as reserved. If they clearly wore a skirt, as before, it would have been an important reminder of another way people can safely and reversibly play with their gender presentation.

Secondly, as mentioned earlier, we really don’t know enough about Niamh for this episode to be as meaningful as it should be. I don’t just mean that she hasn’t appeared much before. Even within this episode, we aren’t really told why she is growing to dislike her braid. Likewise, there’s no explanation of what she likes about the short haircut. Also, we don’t see her express any real concerns about what might happen, concerns that Jonathan and her friends could assuage to remind both kids and parents why letting her do this is so beneficial. Adding these details would’ve taken more time, though. These aren’t issues exclusive to this episode. Since Sesame Street’s format change, the storyline of each episode often feels rushed, with characters expressing little motivation for their actions.

Yes, it’s a show for babies, and I am a 34-year-old woman. I’m not expecting a Shakespearean soliloquy here. But I think a little more depth would make this conflict clearer, and make the resolution more triumphant.

After all, when things are handled so briefly, there is so much room for the message to be misinterpreted or missed altogether. To me, I feel confident that this episode wants to tell us that children can experiment with gender expression. But I spend all my time thinking about these issues. At the speed this episode moves, and the surface-level explanations of Niamh’s motivations, I’m not convinced the average child or parent watching at home will understand that this is about a bigger topic than “kids can get haircuts.” I would have liked to see Jonathan or one of the Sesame adults speak specifically about things like making choices beyond hair, and how the choices we make tell people about who we are inside.

I guess at the end of the day, sure, I would like to have seen more from this episode. It could have been huge, and it wasn’t. We talk a lot about how representation matters. If a trans child sees Niamh navigate her gender expression in the same way they want to, they will know that they’re not alone. If cisgender children or adults see that others deserve the space to try new things, they will grant it. It’s more complicated than “H is for hair,” but I believe children benefit from learning things more complex than that. But ultimately, in today’s political climate, a huge episode where this stuff is explored as explicitly as it was in the “I’m Pogey” episode of Back to the Rock may not be possible.

Still. This episode exists, and it’s important and special. There’s now a Sesame Street episode where a little girl decides to cut her hair short, and no one objects. And I truly believe that some children who needed to hear Niamh’s message will learn that there’s no wrong way to be them.