Toy company Lego announced their first LGBTQ playset ahead of Pride Month on Thursday.
Lego shared on Twitter about the new set, dubbing it the “Everyone is Awesome!” set.
The 346 piece set features 11 figures which resemble the colors in the official flag of the LGBTQ community.
“We’re super excited to reveal our new set – LEGO Everyone is Awesome! Because we celebrate every LEGO builder #LEGO #EveryoneIsAwesome,” Lego said in their post.
Vice President of Design at the LEGO Group Matthew Ashton shared the reason he created the new set, saying being openly gay himself, he wanted to make a real statement with this design about “love and inclusivity,” adding that children “are our role models and they welcome everyone, no matter their background.”
Ashton added that he faced a lot of negativity growing up while being openly gay during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
“Representation is so important. I grew up in the 80s and was obviously a gay kid. There was a lot of negativity back then around being gay; it was right in the middle of the AIDS crisis when I was a young teen and that was incredibly daunting and scary,” Ashton said in his statement.
“Being quite an effeminate kid, I was constantly told by different adults around me what I should and shouldn’t play with, that I needed to behave like a ‘real boy’ and to toughen up. I was dissuaded from doing the things that came most naturally to me,” he added.
Ashton said that this new set is the one he’s most proud of, because of the statement it’s making.
“This sends a signal to everyone that this is what we stand for at The LEGO Group and that we want to embrace all of you, because creativity is for everyone. We do truly feel that everyone is awesome. We all have the right to be accepted, to be loved and also to be creative. With this set, we hope to show that we care, no matter who you are.”