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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Yang on Psych (stabbed by a serial killer in “Psych: The Musical,” 2013). Not explicitly stated that she’s bisexual, but she hits on both male and female characters and mentions wanting to make out with Elizabeth Hasselbeck at one point. I feel like that qualifies. She also fulfills the “Depraved Bisexual” trope, unfortunately.
had marcella in my “to watch” list…guess i don’t have to worry about that one
My mom watches Call the Midwife and said a lesbian character was just killed off http://www.afterellen.com/tv/419541-season-4-call-midwife-gives-us-sweet-lesbian-romance-dashes-hopes
She’s not dead but PBS is cutting the entire story between Patsy and Delia so it’s like a death.
Felicity from The Catch was just shot dead. There’s another one for 2016.
One of the writers took the Lexa pledge only a few days ago. Damage control?
Just learned that this specific writer did not write this episode.
Is that really an excuse though, because the writer would still be aware of the direction that the show was going with this character.
Not at all. This was just in relation to the Lexa pledge. Because people were upset this writer took the pledge and days after that the show she writes for kills another bisexual.
I’m not defending the writers at all. I haven’t heard any statement from the parties responsible, but the fact remains that another LGBT character was killed off. And honestly, I am not even interested in the reasons.
The Catch had Felicity shot by her male lover after being forced to divulge information about her female lover (who was also the male’s sister)
The Catch had Felicity shot by her male lover after being forced to divulge information about her female lover (who was also the male’s sister) right after she had just finished having sex with the female lover.
In last week’s episode of Blindspot, it was revealed that Sophia Varma faked her suicide. So far she’s still alive.
Two more dead this week: http://www.afterellen.com/tv/486113-rip-two-queer-female-tv-characters
Not sure if this character has been mentioned or even counts, because the whole series is about women killers, but the lesbian character Joana Palacios (Fernanda Castillo) on Mujeres Asesinas was killed by her ex-girlfriend/lover (???) Eliana, due to internalised homophobia. Eliana was strangling Joana, and as they fell off the table they were on, Joana hit her head and bled out from a head wound.
Not a recurring character, it says in the indroductory paragraphs that ‘victims of the week’ of crime (and medical) shows are not going to be added.
someone’s probably already said it but new update they kill Felicity on The Catch. I don’t watch it so I don’t know if her character is actually queer but she kissed one of the main characters and there’s sexual tension abound
Let’s not forget Adam from Degrassi who died from a pointless car accident
Yeah, what about Adam?! Texting (and being LGBTQ) kills.
Adam was a trans boy, and including him on a list of dead gay women would be pretty insulting!
I doubt trans men have that great of a survival rate either, and it would be nice to see someone curating resources for how they’re treated in the media. I’m not even saying it shouldn’t be the same community’s problem, since, while trans men are not queer women, so many trans men formerly identified as queer women and are still part of the same side of the queer community that it doesn’t feel like completely somebody else’s problem. But. A list of queer women is still not the best place to discuss the deaths of trans men.
Sophia Varma from Blindspot is revealed to be alive (she faked her suicide).
Another wlw character named Alexandra is killed on her date with Bethany Mayfair to scare the latter into silence in Blindspot s01e20.
Why is Nadia Petrova on the list? She had a threesome once and it was to steal something.
You’re right about that. She participated in a threesome, but I’m not so sure that she ever was portrayed as actually being into girls.
Ruth Baechtle from Hinter Gittern (I commented this in a reply further down, but IDK if replies get noticed by the editor here). I don’t remember her sexuality being defined, but in my defense, I only caught glimpses of the show after 2001.
As for her cause of death, she developed schizophrenia, her second personality (Lilith?) strangled an inmate (Mona Suttner, kind of the prison’s head of shady business like drug dealing and prostitution) and then locked herself in the cold storage room, freezing to death (One of the few post 2001 episodes I saw).
Helena Cain, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Shot by her ex-lady-lover
….
Cain was not killed by an ex-lover. She was killed by the Cylon prisoner of war that was held on the battleship she commanded. The Cylon that she allowed to be beaten, tortured, raped repeatedly, starved, & anything else anyone could think of. There was never anything said that says this woman was gay/bi/queer/etc. She was a hard as commander who was twisted and more than a bit insane, but her sexuality was never said or implied.
Spoken like someone who didn’t watch the movie. Go skim the Wikipedia article for Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and all will become clear.
There’s also Lilian DePaul in Masters of Sex who kills herself because she’s dying of cancer. The heroine of the story kisses her just before she dies.
A wlw character on Blindspot was also killed lat week http://natblida.tumblr.com/post/143773540864/one-more-dead-wlw-character
While I will not say that they aren’t shows that make a point of “kill the gay”, a list like this is misinformation. A lot of these shows had fully fleshed out gay characters and their death was a pivotal point in the series that crushed many fans. And it had NOTHING to do with their sexual orientation.
Instead of belittling the amazing job writers and actors did for these roles (Hello, XENA, are you kidding me?), try making a list of actual messed up, unnecessary deaths that happened solely because of a character’s sexual orientation. If you just need to add “more to the pile” of dead LGBT, try putting more effort into the descriptions.
I just finished Lost Girl so I’ll take Nadia and Tamsin as perfect examples. Spoiler alert!:
Nadia was possessed by the villain to spy on team Light. A possession would have occurred regardless of sexual orientation. She experiences violent blackouts and loses control of herself. Scared, she begs to be killed to make sure her love doesn’t die. And no one is willing to do it! She dies because she’s possessed again and tries to attack her beloved; the stabbing is a defense. After the stabbing, Nadia thanks Bo for killing her. Her love was safe from her now.
Tamsin was on her last life. Again, would have happened regardless of sexual orientation. She was illusion raped (really messed up, imo) by a man pretending to be the woman she loved. Valkyrie’s die in childbirth. Tamsin was proud to give birth, proud to finally have a legacy. “A Valkyrie’s last life is not called dying, it’s called rising.” She named her child Dagny or “new day”. Putting Tamsin on this list belittles how pivotal of a character she was and her death in general. She did have a happy ending.
Let me also mention that these two women were in a show about a BISEXUAL SUCCUBUS. Lots of supernatural, LGBT everywhere. It was accepted, explained, understood, natural. Each character was loved for themselves. It did not matter how they loved, they were people.
The thing to understand about any show’s writing is that none of it “would have happened anyway”. It’s always a deliberate choice by the writing staff. Even if you look at Lexa, the death that sparked all of this. They could have written her character off, chosen not to build up her romance with Clarke. They could have done it more respectfully. Being gay or bi or queer is always a part of who you are, it’s not something you can separate from a person or a character. So even if not all of these women died as a result of a hate crime, the fact that the writers chose to have them die painful, tragic deaths rather than any other kind of ending speaks to a cultural phenomenon. Whenever a writer chooses to do this to a gay or bi character (one of the very very few that exists in television) they’re furthering the idea that women who love women can’t be happy. That our lives will only ever be miserable because of our sexuality. It’s a tactic that’s been used for as long as lesbians have been allowed into pop culture. We can exist, as long as we’re punished. As long as we don’t get happy endings.
Lost girl was one of the first shows I ever saw with a person like me, a bi woman who got to be happy and loved and had friends and family. That was revolutionary for me at the time. But if I distance myself from that and look at it objectively, it’s a show that had four? four characters who were bisexual or lesbian women that showed up recurringly. Bo and Lauren ended up happy of course, but Nadia and Tamsin were both killed off in horrible ways. Both were violated by men, both had their agency taken away, both died painful violent deaths. Especially in regards to Tamsin (who by my interpretation was a lesbian), she was deceived, raped, held captive, treated like an animal, all by a man, and she died. That is not a happy ending by any means. Just because she chose to love and keep her child does not mean that was a happy ending. It honestly still makes me sick to think about it. I was devastated when I saw it. We deserve better than that. And tbh no writer can convince me that that was the best ending for her. Or that it was ‘inevitable’. They chose that. They picked it, despite the history of violence against lesbians that it reinforced.
Also adding characters to this list doesn’t mean they were bad characters. It doesn’t belittle how important they were. Tbh, this list wouldn’t have been started if so many women hadn’t loved and identified with Lexa. She was a complex, compelling character that got a shitty ending. A team of writers sat down and decided that that was how she would go out, completely ignoring the hundreds of years of history that comes into play. The way they treat lgbt characters matters, because of the history of murder, rape, oppression, that lgbt people have gone thru. Beyond that it’s just good writing not to play into overdone tropes.
The Family gave us a cancellation present.
Bridey’s dead on the side of a road, so we’ve got yet another addition this year.
SPOILER SPOILER on my previous. Sorry guys I thought the line break would keep the spoiler from turning up on the side of the page.
I don’t think it counts as a spoiler since it literaly is not going to surprise anyone.
Was she hit by a car?
Because there’s bonus points if she got hit by a car.
We seem to get hit by cars a lot.
Cars are only in the UK. It’s guns in the US.
Ah, an important distinction.
Bumper cars across on one side of the pond, shooting gallery on the other.
It’s veritable carnival of death, because it’s not fair or a circus either.
It is a little ironic that a LGBT character was killed off so the actor (Floriana Lima) could play a different LGBT character.
Bridey, The Family (2016) Rest in Peace
Bridey died on the Family. She comprised of so many bad LGBT tropes it was almost funny. Almost.
I haven’t read all the comments, and so I’m sure this has already been said, but there are a hell of a lot of murders by jealous men. :(
Don’t panic, this addition isn’t POI yet.
But Blindspot offed Mayfair.
Jane the Virgin brought Rose back from the dead, but in doing so they retconned another lesbian character out of existence, so… I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.
Yep, Rose will have to be taken off the list since she is officially alive. And hopefully this means we’ll be seeing more of her and Luisa next season.
SPOILERS for the finale ahead: In case anyone is wondering what we’re referring to, Luisa’s new girlfriend Susanna Barnett was revealed to actually have been Rose the entire time. Rose never died, she was just wearing a super high-tech mask. And “Susanna” never existed.
I wonder if that was the writers’ plan all along or if they did that to allow Megan to leave.
I think they always planned on bringing Rose back if possible and perhaps had Rose-as-Megan in their back pocket as a possible idea – I’ve noticed how a lot of their interactions actually still fit into this new “Susanna never existed” framework, which is more than I can say about Dan being Gossip Girl lmao – but it probably didn’t solidify until Megan got a show and Bridget became available.
*Rose-as-Susanna. Getting the actors mixed up with their characters.
I want to watch the whole season (well the Susanna episodes anyway) again with this in mind. I swear Susanna was in Miami the same episode as Rose was shown to be in Switzerland. I guess the events could’ve been occurring at different times though.
Never having seen Gossip Girl I’ll have to take your word for it. ;-).
The “Dan is Gossip Girl” reveal was so hilariously nonsensical that it actually made the whole thing kinda amazing. I didn’t even watch the show and I was thoroughly entertained by the resulting meme.
Anyway, before the finale, Rose appeared on eps 2×11 (at the very end) and 2×12. It’s been confirmed by Jennie Urman that the “Rose” in 2×12 at least was a hapless unfortunate double meant to throw the police off Rose’s trail. Before that, according to imdb (because I don’t remember this at all), Rose’s last season 2 appearance was in 2×02, and Susanna didn’t show up until 2×04. So it could work, I guess?
I’m still sad though because I thought Susanna and Luisa were adorable and this just kinda casts a pall on their entire relationship. I almost wish that Susanna had just died instead even if that would have meant more dead lesbians because then at least we’d still have the character.
evil geese – I entirely agree. If Susanna had died, we would have just lost future Susanna. Instead we lost past Susanna, future Susanna, and Luisa/Susanna’s relationship is just Rose manipulating her. I would rather have remembered the character (so very, very) fondly than have her never exist.
Rose from Jane the Virgin was revealed to not actually be dead last night! Yay!!
I always wanted to see Rose/Bridget back on JTV, but not at the expense of Luisa’s character growth or Susanna’s character existence. :-|
Needs updated with 5/16 death/murder of Blindspot star Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Lesbian and black.
I’ve hear there’s a Bethany and Alexandra who died on Blindspot over the last week or two?
Not sure if she’d be counted but would it be worth adding Julia Mallory from Dirt to this list too? She was never explicitly stated as bisexual but she was sleeping with her female drug dealer – Garbo, who of course fell in love with her – in order to keep her steady supply of drugs coming in… It could go either way. She ended up getting hit by a car I think
Not sure if Aife from Lost Girl qualifies as “recurring”. She showed up in 3 episodes in season 1 (was the season’s final antagonist), 2 in season 3, 1 in season 4 and in 3 or 4 episodes in season 5.
As a succubus, she was bi- (or pan-) sexual by default and also seen with both genders.
She had her throat slit by Hades, who wanted to crush their daughter’s spirit by letting her find her dead mother and grandfather. (2015, shortly before Tamsin)
[Orphan Black spoiler alert]
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orphan black’s most recent episode (4×06) had two characters confirm delphine’s death. if you need me i’ll be busy cloning my tears.
Didn’t Krystal just say she saw her get shot? Like not necessarily say she was dead?
I don’t trust Evie and I feel like she’d say that just to upset Cosima, it’s obvious she’s not a fan of the Leda clones after Beth.
I’m still not going to believe she’s dead until I see a body.
Please add Rebecca Sutter, How to Get Away With Murder (2015): Murdered by suffocation under the suspicion of killing her friend Lila Stangard, who she secretly loved.
This list is for CANON queer women only.
I didn’t see it mentioned here, but Alice Morgan (openly bisexual) was killed offscreen on Luther, in it’s 4th season (this was December 2015). It might turn out to be a Delphine case, and she’s not truly dead, but until then, she’s another dead bisexual woman on tv.
We can add Vivian from the US Mistresses. She convinces her husband to bring one of the Mistresses into their marriage, then collapses and dies of cancer.