People die. Characters die. This is perhaps life’s most unfortunate fact: that people will die and leave the rest of us behind. It’s incredibly rare that any dramatic television series lasting over three seasons will never kill a main or recurring character, and all those deaths have driven a stake through the heart of fandom: Joyce on Buffy, Lady Sybil on Downton Abby, Charlie on Lost, Ned Stark on Game of Thrones, Jen on Dawson’s Creek, Nate on Six Feet Under — but when the person who dies is a lesbian or bisexual character, queer fandom takes it pretty hard.
The history of lesbian representation on television is rocky — in the beginning, we seemed exclusively relegated to roles that saw us getting killed/attacked or doing the killing/attacking. And until the last five or so years, lesbian and bisexual characters seemed entirely unable to date an actual woman or stay alive for more than three episodes, let alone an entire run, of a show. Gay and lesbian characters are so often murdered on television that we have our very own trope: Bury Your Gays. We comprise such a teeny-tiny fraction of characters on television to begin with that killing us off so haphazardly feels especially cruel.
Not every death listed below was wholly uncalled for. In many genres, like soap operas and shows about vampires, zombies, criminals, or games of thrones, characters are killed on the reg. That’s a different trope — Anyone Can Die. Furthermore, shows composed entirely of queer characters will inevitably kill one. But regardless, they still add to the body count weighing down our history of misrepresentation.
And, due to the recent untimely death of Lexa on The 100, this week seemed like a good one to count down everybody we have lost over the years.
This list contains every television death of an OPENLY lesbian or bisexual or queer female character on a television show. With a handful of exceptions, these are all characters who appeared for more than one episode. The exceptions were deemed exceptional because something about the characterization still fits in with the Bury Your Gays trope. Victims-of-the-week from crime procedurals (Law & Order, Cold Case, CSI, Criminal Minds or older shows) or patients-of-the-week from hospital dramas (Chicago Hope, E.R.), aren’t on this list, as that is an entirely different kind of list, but recurring characters from those shows are on this list. Nor is subtext on this list, because we’re not gonna give Xena showrunners Queer Character Credit for a character they refused to make openly queer when she was really so obviously queer. You know? [ETA: Okay, I’ve added Xena after doing further research and because if one more commenter takes up space on this thread — a thread I’m using to find more characters to add, and also to engage with thoughtful/funny readers who have opinions and feelings — to tell me that I “forgot” Xena without reading this introduction, I will become the 200th dead lesbian and the cause of death will be “Walked off a cliff with a commenter in her arms. Murder-suicide.” But Xena will be the one and only inclusion based on subtext.] Also, although I’ve done tons of research, I haven’t personally seen all of these shows, so mistakes may very well exist, and feel free to politely inform me of them in the comments, or tell me about characters I may have missed — it’s especially helpful if you can tell me the cause of death and the year.
Unsure if this needs to be said but… SPOILER ALERT.
Special thanks to the LezWatchTV Database for providing info on shows I haven’t seen or heard about directly!
Every Regular or Recurring Lesbian or Bisexual Female Character Killed On Television
Julie, Executive Suite (1976)
Cause of death: Hit by a car. Her love interest had just walked into traffic after realizing her lesbianism and Julie was chasing her.
Franky Doyle, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1980)
Cause of death: Shot by a police officer after escaping from prison
Sharon Gilmour, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1980)
Cause of death: Pushed down the stairs by a corrections officer
Karen O’Malley, Casualty (1987)
Cause of death: Head Injury
Cecília, Vale Tudo (1988)
Cause of death: Car Accident
Cicely, Northern Exposure (1992)
Cause of death: Shot by a gunman employed by the town’s evil overlord who doesn’t want to let the lesbians change his town. The shot was intended for her girlfriend Roslyn, but Cicely, who was already sick, blocked the bullet and died in Roslyn’s arms, thus magically healing the town’s long-simmering feuds and leading them to re-name the town “Cicely.”
Talia Winters, Babylon 5 (1995)
Cause of death: Activated a sleeper personality that wiped out her actual personality, effectively killing her
Beth Jordache, Brookside (1995)
Cause of death: Genetic heart condition, died in prison
Susan Ross, Seinfeld (1996)
Cause of death: Toxic envelope glue
Naomi “Tracy” Richards, Band of Gold (1996)
Cause of death: Stabbed herself
Lucy, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996)
Cause of death: Caught thieving and hanged
Kathy, NYPD Blue (1997)
Cause of death: Shot by a hit man hired by her girlfriend Abby’s ex, who wanted to get rid of Kathy so she could get back together with Abby. Abby was pregnant at the time.
Sondra Westwood, Pacific Drive (1997)
Cause of death: Murdered by a serial killer
Jadzia Dax, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998)
Cause of death: Blasted by an alien-possessed alien
Sonia Besirky, Lindenstraße (1998)
Cause of death: Drug overdose from medication given to her by her ex-lover’s husband
Leila and Rafaela, Torre de Babel (1998)
Cause of death: Explosion in a shopping mall
Susanne Teubner, Hinter Gittern (1999)
Cause of death: Shot during a bank robbery (she was a customer)
Shaz Wiley, Bad Girls (2000)
Cause of death: Bomb, died in resulting fire
Laura Hall, Shortland Street (2000)
Cause of death: Heart attack
Diamond, Dark Angel (2001)
Cause of death: Used as a lab rat for research that killed her
Xena, Xena the Warrior Princess (2001)
Cause of death: Beheaded
Beate “Bea” Hansen, Hinter Gittern (2001)
Cause of death: Injuries from an explosion
Jule Neumann, Hinter Gittern (2001)
Cause of death: Suicide
Frankie Stone, All My Children (2001)
Cause of death: Murder Mystery!
Bridgit, 24 (2001)
Cause of death: Shot by a man in front of her girlfriend
Tara Maclay, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002)
Cause of death: Shot in the heart by a stray bullet
Kelly Hurst, Family Affairs (2002)
Cause of death: Pushed down the stairs by her lover’s husband
Megan Hartnoll, At Home With The Braithwaites (2003)
Cause of death: Electrocuted in the bathtub
Juliet Becker, The Bill (2003)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Tina Greer, Smallville (2003)
Cause of death: Impaled through the chest on a large piece of wood during a fight with a male character
Sandy Lopez, E.R. (2004)
Cause of death: Injuries sustained from fighting a fire in an abandoned warehouse
Al Mackenzie, Bad Girls (2004)
Cause of death: Poisoned
Hanna Novak, Verbotene Liebe (2004)
Cause of death: Stroke, died in her girlfriend’s arms
Ines Führbringer, Hinter Gittern (2004)
Cause of death: Throat slit, died in girlfriend’s arms
Thelma Bates, Hex (2004)
Cause of death: Murdered by a demon
Flora, Deadwood (2004)
Cause of death: Beaten by a man who then forced a woman to shoot her with his gun
Brenda Castillo, Charmed (2004)
Cause of death: Stabbed with a cursed blade by a man, causing her to rapidly age and then die
Tosha, The Wire (2004)
Cause of death: Shot during a heist gone wrong
Marissa Cooper, The O.C. (2005)
Cause of death: Car crash after being driven off the road by her drunk ex-boyfriend
Servilla, Rome (2005)
Cause of death: Stabs herself in front of her rival house, inhabited by the mother of her lover
Dusty, Queer As Folk (2005)
Cause of death: At a benefit at a gay club when a bomb went off
Dana Fairbanks, The L Word (2006)
Cause of death: Breast cancer
Helena Cain, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Shot by her ex-lady-lover
Manuela Wellmann, Hinter Gittern (2006)
Cause of death: Stabbed, died in girlfriend’s arms
Maya Robertson, Hex (2006)
Cause of death: Hit by a car
Natalie, Bad Girls (2006)
Cause of death: Bludgeoned to death with a brick
Gina Inviere/#6, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Set off a nuclear weapon
Eve Jacobson/Zoe McAllister, Home & Away (2006)
Cause of death: Inside a building when it was blown up
Van, Dante’s Cove (2006)
Cause of Death: Killed by the Shadows
Angie Morton, Stritctly Confidential (2006)
Cause of death: Suicide. Jumped off a building.
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Lucy’s character on Salem was also killed and was also queer. So that makes a big old 5 death stars for Lucy Lawless, not a good record.
is there any evidence of her being queer? i can’t find anything or remember anything from the show.
Lucy Lawless is on here 4 times. Maybe she should try and find gigs that have a longer life span.
She’s the Sean Bean of lesbians.
Im still mad because of Lexa’s death…
You are definitely not alone!
Can we talk about how the whole Chicago franchise (Fire, PD, Med) does really really bad in terms of female and LGBT representation?
They killed of Shay, effectively not only erasing 100 % of its LGBT characters but also 50 % of the female main cast. They claimed that this had to be done in order to further the storyline of Severide but it felt like they just forgot after a couple of episodes. Did I miss something there?
I hope they will be doing better with the Chicago Law, which is coming up at some point in the future. But this will probably have this one lady lawyer in it which was a love interest of Severide, such that again it will be about him.
They’re also properties of Dick Wolf, he of “is it because I’m a lesbian?” fame.
I must have missed that, enlighten me?
ADA Serena Southerlyn of Law & Order SVU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serena_Southerlyn#Departure_and_sexuality
http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Serena_Southerlyn
So basically, Dick Wolf is a dick?
AFAIK Serena Southerlyn is the only queer woman to be a main character in any of the billion Law & Order shows (dammit Benson)? Anyway, we only find out Serena’s gay when her boss fires her, she asks if it’s because she’s a lesbian, and she exits the series 10 seconds later. But that was like 10 years ago.
Jane Lesser (played by Archie Panjabi) in the show Personal affairs on BBC3 in 2009. The show is about secretaries trying to find their colleague that disappeared. It’s revealed that this friend is a transsexual and was having an affair with Jane. When it’s made public Jane killed herself in front of her at her office…
Interesting…BTW its transgender now not transsexual.
Hollyoaks also had Jade Hedy (2013, accidentally stabbed during a struggle) and Texas Longford (2013, pushed out of a window.) Texas kissed a woman several times and planned to start a relationship with her, so IMO she counts.
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Damn, I did not know they did that to Ana & Teresa…fucking bastards.
Yup. It was the STUPIDEST thing ever and I have officially deleted it from my head canon. They went to Paris. The End
Another dead lesbian. I stumbled across this on Youtube. I don’t know the exact what was happening because OMG this show was difficult to watch and my spanish isn’t that good.
It’s a Chilean show. She was trying to poison some guy who was not letting her and her mother leave after she was forced to marry a guy (because I assume that would get rid of her being gay or something)and ended up being forced to drink the poison herself.
Proof of being gay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bC06bnASKI
And this is her death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8YBkQH7DXI
Name: Lucrecia
DoD: 2008 (found on actress’ wiki page: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Bosch#Teleseries)
Sylvia in “Twice a Woman”, 1979. Shot by her girlfriend’s ex-husband.
This list is TV characters w/ more than one episode, not movies.
You forgot 13 from House. She made a promise with House, that when she eventually starts to feel the effects of Parkinson’s, House will put her out of her misery.
Denise Cloyd; The Walking Dead (2016)
shot through the eye with a crossbow
Well, thanks to The Walking Dead, this list is now 146
Spoilers since it happened about 5 mins ago………..
Denise on The Walking Dead. Shot in the head by an arrow mid-speech. Also, they just left her there. Figured it was coming, said out loud that I wasn’t even surprised, yet I’m still shaking.
No, she was buried in Alexandria.
We need to add Denise from the walking dead to this list. killed by an arrow meant for someone else by a man
Well…. we lost another one tonight RIP Denise Cloyd from The Walking Dead.
Denise from The Walking Dead died today around 6:40. She was shot in the head by an arrow after yelling at her friends to learn how to live. It something along the lines of I didn’t tell Tara (her girlfriend) she loved her before she left because she was afraid, and her friends didn’t have to be afraid anymore.
Regarding TWD, there was a moment a couple of weeks ago where Tara and Denise were in their kitchen being happy and this red flag of “well you’re next” went up. And early on in this episode I literally screamed at the TV: “I swear to Merlin if you’re the next dead lesbian on TV!”
I remember that exact moment you’re talking about! I’m SO SAD to lose Denise in this show! I love the actress from her time on Nurse Jackie, and thought she was a great addition to TWD. But no, they had to kill her but somehow Eugene gets to live?? The injustice of it all…
I know! I adored her! I do have to say I am glad that they didn’t kill her off earlier in the episode. If they had her doing something stupid and getting eaten by a walker I would be even more upset. I am trying to take some solace in the fact that she was being rather badass in several ways right before Dwight shot her.
I also know that TWD has a very high death rate in general, and a character’s queerness should not preclude them from the realities of their environment. The showrunners have also altered the storyline from the comics and will continue to do so in various ways. That all being said, it was Abraham that was supposed to die this way, not Denise. In the comics, Denise dies, yes, but later on. In the middle of a pretty epic event she refuses a potentially life-saving amputation because she needs both of her arms to save others. In the comics she is also straight, which means that the producers and writers of the series not only chose to make the TV version queer, but to kill her off earlier, and to rework quite a bit of the plot of the original version to get her in that spot instead of Abe. They still chose to sacrifice 1/2 of their current population of queer women (if I am counting right, if I am not please correct me, seriously, I mean that) instead of allowing the (presumably) straight, white, ex army dude to get shot in the head like her was meant to be.
Correction! Denise from The Walking Dead died from a crossbow arrow that wasn’t meant for her seconds after discussing about her regret of not saying she loved her girlfriend Tara before she left for a supply run.
Denise (The Walking Dead) died from a crossbow arrow that wasn’t meant for her on the episode “Twice as Far”.
Because I’m kind of nit-picky, Denise died from a crossbow bolt, it’s not called an arrow. Not like it matters too much because she’s still dead and it was shit
I’m not looking forward to how devastated Tara is going to be when she gets back to Alexandria. I’m praying she survives the season. It’s probably a waste of time but….yeah.
If they even show Tara finding out.
I was 50-50 on TWD anyway, now I can cross it off the list. Clearly they don’t want us.
Spilier alert for TWD.
And now to add Denise from The Walking Dead. Shot in the head by an arrow. :(
Spoiler*
Add Denise from the walking dead to this list. Welp.
Motherfucker Dwight kill Dr. Denise????!!!!!!!! At least Eugene chew his dick out.
Spoiler alert:
Denise from the Walking Dead
I feel as though you glossed over the cause of death for the two women in American Horror Story-Freakshow. It wasn’t just because they wouldn’t have a threesome with him it was because he had horrific PTSD from the war he just returned from.
That kinda sounds like an excuse. I didn’t think it was so much the lack of threesome as his jealousy over the two of them being together.
Since someone else brought it up, it actually wasn’t because they wouldn’t have a threesome with him so much as because he felt emasculated by them. I think they actually invited him to join them, but he couldn’t do it, he could only watch. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but that’s what I remembered anyway.
I wonder if someone is doing a list of the queer guy characters who have died to see if its about the same number.
I am, actually! I’m doing that list for another site, and I’m gonna write another post here comparing the data and also looking at the data for trans folks, which I’m gathering for another post for this site! Gay men outnumber gay women on television quite a bit, so we’re working on a different scale… but yeah, so far I’m pretty confident that the “bury your gays” situation overall is worse for women… well it’s actually kind of complicated and there are a lot of *really* interesting patterns I’m already seeing that I’m looking forward to talking about with y’all!
Can’t wait. This is all so exciting, even though it’s also horrible. I keep thinking of ideas for lists like, dead lesbians in songs could include Gaga’s character from Americano, but the family from The Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams had a happy ending…
This is such important work you’re doing. I feel so validated.
Sounds really interesting. Would be interesting to splice this kind of data in all kinds of ways. Eg I’m feel women in general would be over represented (like wildly) in their deaths being sexually violent. How many serial killer woman victim shows have there been? I’ve also heard show runners say that the death of a woman is more emtionally poignant than that of a man for the plot – which is a whole other bag of worms.
I think Dead Lesbian Trope is also Fridging, so we’ve got two tropes bearing down on us at given moment.
At any* given moment. Where oh where is an edit button?
All I have to say is When and Where?
I just bookmarked this because as soon as I heard the first cries of another dead lesbian from tumblr this is the first place I went to check.
I don’t even watch TWD and I am so so tired and so angry.
How come Kira from “The Magicians” don’t have a picture?
she did… i must have accidentally deleted it when updating the list last night. replaced!
Eye-opening list.
Slight correction, though: Karen O’Malley in Casualty didn’t die (from either a head injury or anything else), and she was, at least as far as can be told from what was shown on-screen, heterosexual …though given how long the show has run for and how many characters have come and gone, it’s entirely possibly that you’re referring to a different character also called Karen.
I didn’t know Agent Stahl was bisexual/lesbian? (Sons of Anarchy)
Thanks TWD. So pissed off.
Ooooh my gooooood I am so upset.
Is this going to be updated every time someone dies? Because that sounds like a really sad and time-consuming undertaking.