My shot of Mj from 2018, at the Pose launch in Harlem (Image by Matthew Rettenmund)

The Emmys were awash with nominations for the same shows over and over — The Crown, Mare of Easttown, The Handmaid's Tale, we get it!

They were also filled with diversity and quite a few LGBTQ highlights:

Somehow, Bowen Yang — who writes, is an excellent and memorable performer, and is about to star in a movie — is but a featured player on SNL. All the better to snatch up a new distinction: the first featured player to be Emmy-nominated for his work on the venerable show.

Mj Rodriguez was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Pose, making her the first trans woman in history to achieve a nomination. Incomprehensibly, she is apparently the first Latina to be nominated for dramatic acting on TV in nearly 50 years.

Other queer nominees (actors and, in some cases, roles) include Billy Porter for Pose, Hannah Embinder for Hacks (she is cynically nominated as if she is a supporting actress on a show on which she is really the lead), Carl Clemons-Hopkins for Hacks, Kate McKinnon for SNL, Dan Levy for hosting SNL, Emma Corrin (who is nonbinary) for The Crown, Gillian Anderson for The Crown, Samira Wiley for The Handmaid's Tale, Jonathan Groff for Hamilton, Cynthia Errivo for Genius: Aretha, the hosts of Queer Eye and, of course, past Emmy winner RuPaul for ... you know what for.

I don't care what anyone says — I'll always love awards shows, even when I hate them, and I will never not think it's a big deal when formerly marginalized people are recognized in this way.

And Bowen Yang better get a promotion.