After a two-year wait, the celebrated dark fantasy series “The Sandman” is back on Netflix for Season 2.
The show is packed with queer characters, complex displays of gender fluidity, and incredible queer and trans actors bringing the beloved graphic novel to life.
But because we can’t have nice things in 2025, there’s a twist.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Earlier this year, a deeply disturbing expose came out in New York Magazine alleging many counts of SA and extreme coercion on the part of Neil Gaiman, the fantasy author who penned “The Sandman” and played a big hand in adapting it for Netflix.
“When I was writing [The Sandman], and today, I had gay friends, I had trans friends. I wanted to see them represented in the comics that I was writing,” Gaiman told The Queer Review in 2023.
“And it felt like to me that if I wrote comics and left them out then I would not be representing my world or the world that I was perceiving accurately, bravely or truly and that was the point of art so for me that was a given.”
It’s the old “can you separate the art from the artist” question, and it comes with a particularly sharp edge in 2025, when anti-LGBTQ+ backlash continues to threaten to take away the queer visibility we’ve enjoyed on screen in the past few years.
Gaiman also adapted his novel Good Omens—co-written with Terry Pratchett—for Amazon years ago, transforming the relationship between angel and devil Aziraphale and Crowley into a canon gay relationship, to the delight of viewers.
But again…can this kind of representation matter if it comes with the knowledge of Gaiman’s alleged abuse against women?
The different between JKR and this NG discourse is people are signing up for the new HP show fully knowing her transphobia and how she uses HP money to fund hate while the people on GO/Sandman didn’t know NG was a trash bag until the allegations. Thats literally it.
— AziCrow’s Doing Everything Together (@guessimdemonsthen.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Things get even more complex when you think about the incredible work put forth by “The Sandman’s” queer and trans cast.
In both seasons, trans icon Indya Moore delivers a stunning performance as Wanda, a canon transgender character who helps guide others between worlds.
Nonbinary actor Mason Alexander Park, who received rave reviews for their performance as the Emcee in the recent West End Cabaret revival, also delivers an incredible turn as Desire.
To make matters even more complicated, since the Gaiman expose came out in January, it’s likely that none of the cast members knew about any of this before signing on to do the show’s second season.
I am genuinely sorry for every not-terrible person involved with making The Sandman show, who didn’t deserved their hard work to be shitcanned because one rich guy decided to be an asshole
Unfortunately he did, and so it will be. Hopefully they’ll all go on to new shows by better people
— Vivian Moira Valentine (@itsviviactually.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 5:52 PM
This is a very good essay.
You can’t separate art from artist here bc:
1) the Sandman is such a self-insert character w a monster-to-women rehabilitation storyline that the show becomes a rehabilitation project for Gaiman
2) More views = more $ that he’ll use in his lawsuits against his accusers
— Effie Seiberg (@effies.bsky.social) July 2, 2025 at 4:55 PM
It’s a difficult moment for queer fans. With beloved queer shows getting cancelled left and right and the threat of studios dumping queer projects for the forseeable future, it’s hard for queer viewers to turn their backs on one of the gayest shows on TV right now.
That said, nobody wants to give more money to someone accused of doing massive, unforgiveable harm to others.
If you absolutely must watch Sandman season 2, pirate it. Even if you already pay for Netflix.
Watching this show not only supports royalties for a sexual predator, it also teaches Netflix that it’s okay to work with sex pests in the future.
— Birds Are Dinosaurs 🦢=🦖 (@birdsaredinosaurs.bsky.social) July 2, 2025 at 6:24 PM
One thing that sucks about Neil Gaiman is, while you can’t separate art from the artist, a TV show isn’t like a novel or music.
Sandman is like a 100 people’s jobs and should have been several people’s big breaks. And I absolutely can’t watch it.
— Joe Uchill (@joeuchill.bsky.social) July 2, 2025 at 4:31 PM
All in all, it’s a complicated situation for queer viewers. As desperate as we are to see ourselves onscreen—and to support queer and trans artists who often have to settle for unfulfilling roles that censor their queerness—it’s difficult to know how to engage with “The Sandman” in a way that doesn’t continue to line Gaiman’s pockets.
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