Cyrus Goodman is a fictional main character in the American family comedy-drama television series Andi Mack on Disney Channel.
Andi Mack creator and executive producer Terri Minsky has stated in an interview with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences that the character of Cyrus was inspired by her daughter's friends, most of whom are gay and realized that about themselves when they were middle school students:[T]he fact that my daughter, most of her close friends are kids who knew at the age of 12, 13, junior high,[a] that they were gay.
[b][2][3] In March 2017, The New York Times reported on the character in an article about the then-upcoming Disney Channel series prior to its premiere in April 2017.
Along with his friends, he lives in Shadyside in the fictional U.S. state of Midwest and starts the series as a seventh grade student at Jefferson Middle School.
The first gay main character on American Disney Channel, Cyrus has come out to Andi, Buffy, and their mutual friend Jonah.
[9][10][11][12] Cyrus is Jewish and has celebrated his bar mitzvah, the second depiction of that coming of age ceremony after Lizzie McGuire on Disney Channel.
[10][11][18][19] Cyrus grows close to TJ, the captain of the Jefferson Middle School boys' basketball team, after they bond over their shared personal issues.
Not only are you reinforcing the idea to countless scared individuals consuming the media that they exist, they matter and their stories are worth telling, but you're increasing their visibility in a wider landscape, helping to normalize them to a world that may seek to marginalize them or simply ignore them altogether.
[8][32][33] Pride commented that the romantic moment between Cyrus and TJ in the series finale is "both the first and the last we get from the Disney Channel’s first real queer relationship between two main characters.