I'm not meaning to sound condescending, but I think what you said is incredibly ironic.

doesn't think outside the box very often

this is about the heteronormativity of popular culture and how alienating it is to those outside the norm

Perhaps you should take a step outside your heteronormative bubble and imagine what it must be like for LGBT* children to grow up in a society that doesn't accept them completely

You do realize that pokemon, including the story and characters, is Japanese? Nothing about American culture or media applies here. Japan is, in general, much more accepting of differing sexualities. In fact, they elected an openly transsexual person to office over a decade ago and have had other officials openly homosexual. To further the point, American releases of many games (including Pokemon games) have been censored to dilute sexual references to both hetero and homosexual relationships.

I just think its kind of funny how you think I'm being narrow minded because I'm not thinking of how American minorities react to a story that was written for another culture where sexuality is not as big of a deal as it is here.

I've got one last (long) point, so if you don't want to discuss anymore just stop reading here.

Sometimes, the token black person, or token gay person is required in media to show and remind people that they are accepted, for whatever reason

I strongly disagree with this, and so do any friends of mine who happen to be affiliated with any sort of minority group. Having a character being gay, or black, or jewish, etc etc just for the purpose of appearing "diverse" or "accepting" trivializes anybody actually struggling with any problems that may arise for any number of reasons. Here's why -

Having a "token" character is completely different than having a character in a show who is a minority. Token characters are thrown in to show that the creators/network accepts that minorities "culture" and the only way to do that as a subplot is to shove as many stereotypes into the character as possible. A movie/show about a white character/family in the suburbs? Token black guy will be the thuggish, yet loveable, character who is very likely big and buff, chases money/women, and may have a "seemingly harmless"/under control problem with drugs or alcohol that adds comedy to the story. They will never use negative stereotypes, like the token black guy abandoning a son, but the still perpetuate what a "black man" should be.

The same goes for the token gay/religious character, but its even worse because there are less visual cues to tell you that they're gay/jewish/muslim etc. The token gay guy will always be the OveRTheTOp, flamboyant, sassy gay guy. They probably have lots of female friends who they love to go shopping with. The token lesbian will be very guy-ish, probably make a lot of raunchy sex jokes that other women characters wouldn't make, and probably sexualizes the other characters in the same way males do.

None of these things help kids struggling with an identity crisis in any way. Having stereotypical characters will not make them feel accepted, it will make them feel more alienated as it sends the message "If you're like this character, this is how you should act to get people to like you!" instead of advocating them to do soul searching to find themselves.

Anybody who says "I identify with that character because they're gay" is silly, you should be saying "I identify with that character because I can see that they're being treated differently because of their sexuality, and I can relate to that." If you honestly want kids to feel accepted the entire plot needs to revolve around struggling with sexuality, not have a walking/talking stereotype that they can identify with because they're both attracted to the same sex.