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“But I do think there's a bit of a stereotype going on. I'll read [a script] and say no on the basis that [the character’s] the tough-talking lesbian sidekick. It almost seems like an archetype at a certain point.” Lyonne went on to add that many of the lesbian roles she’s read are “specific to a male point of view of what a gay woman would be.”

Lyonne has played a variety of lesbian characters, something she feels “well-versed” in, despite not being gay herself. Still, she wishes audiences and the media would avoid categorizing them as such. Back in June, while promoting the latest season of “Orange Is the New Black,” Lyonne made a comment about the media defining a show or its characters by their sexuality, saying it breaks her heart when something is called a “gay show.” Asked about it again, in regards to “But I'm a Cheerleader,” Lyonne explained, “This idea that back then we had made a ‘gay’ movie, [Megan] was a ‘gay’ cheerleader, and now I'm a ‘gay’ prisoner ... is such a glaring injustice.” Lyonne compared this way of typifying sexuality to heterosexual characters: “You would never say, 'Oh what's this movie about?' 'It's this guy, he's a straight lawyer and he falls for this straight doctor and they go on a straight honeymoon.'”