Once upon a time, I had a roommate named April. She wasn’t gay, unfortunately, she had a really awful boyfriend who was always sneaking into our dorm room. Anyhow, now it’s the month of April 2024 and you are wondering where to watch lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters on television, and I am here to share with you information on that exact topic!
Netflix’s LGBTQ+ April 2024 Shows and Films
Wild Things (1998) // April 1
This classic thriller arrives on Netflix with the kind of bisexual behavior that we really clung to with all of our mights back then.
Heartbreak High // Season 2 // April 11
Every now and then a truly inventive and undeniably queer teen television show full of chaotic teens actually succeeds and gets additional seasons and Heartbreak High is one of those shows! We are promised “fresh hotties, a new sports teacher and a mystery assailant” and a “race for school captain seeing dirty tactics run rife through Hartley High.” All our queer faves are returning plus a slate of new faces.
Killing Eve // Seasons 1-4 // April 15
Our bodies are not ready for this
Black Sails // Seasons 1-4 // April 17
This is a show about PIRATES and some of them are GAY! ☹️
Ahead of the Curve (2020) // April 22
A documentary about Franco Stevens, who started seminal lesbian publication Curve, a magazine I read religiously while dreaming of one day starting my very own lesbian magazine! Franco is a powerhouse and her story is really compelling, I’m excited for this!
Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (2024) // April 22
Bisexual autistic comic, podcaster and award-winning memoirist Fern Brady’s comedy show “Autistic Bikini Queen” is coming to Netflix and I think it’s going to be very good.
Hulu’s Queer April 2024 Content
Blockers (2018)
One of my favorite queer movies of all time, Blockers follows a group of teenage friends who’ve made a pact to lose their virginity on prom night and their overprotective parents, who really hate this idea! It’s so much cuter and funnier than the description suggests.
Boys on the Side (1995)
Whoopi Goldberg is Jane, a lesbian musician moving from New York to Los Angeles after breaking up with her girlfriend and her band who joins Robin (Mary Louise Parker) and Holly (Drew Barrymore) on a cross-country road trip that gets messy after the women band together to protect Holly from her abusive boyfriend.
Under the Bridge // Limited Series Premiere // April 17
Riley Keough is Rebecca Godfrey, whose book — about the brutal murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritka Gupta), who left home for a party with the terrible girls she longed to be accepted by and never came home — inspired this series set in 1997 in Victoria, Canada. Lily Gladstone is Cam, a local police officer working the case, which brings both her and Godfrey into the world of the “Bic girls” — allegedly troubled teens sent by their parents to live in a local home for girls. Amongst them is Dusty, played by queer actor Aiyana Goodfellow. Queer producer Quinn Shephard described the project as “three years in the making,” beginning with her working with Godfrey (who passed away in 2022) on adapting the book into a project produced by Shephard, Samir Mehta and Liz Tigelaar (the bisexual showrunner of Little Fires Everywhere). I’ve seen the first four episodes and I really loved them for many reasons including Cam and Rebecca being queer and Lily Gladstone in a tight white t-shirt and also because Archie Panjabi plays Reena’s mother.
Starz Bisexual Show of April
Mary & George // Miniseries Premiere // April 5
This British “x-rated period drama” from Killing Eve writer D.C. Moore is based on a book about the affair between James VI and I and George Villers and stars Julianne Moore as George’s mother, the ruthlessly ambitious Mary Villers, the Countess of Buckingham. There are lots of orgies featuring all combinations of humans and Mary Villers is bisexual and has an affair with brothel-keeper Sandie (Niamh Algar). Nicholas Galitzine of Red, White and Royal Blue plays George.
Paramount+
Star Trek: Discovery // Season Five Premiere // April 4
The final season of this groundbreaking Star Trek franchise series finds its crew in the 32nd century, racing forward on a hotly contested galactic adventure to find a mysterious power hidden for centuries. Non-binary actor Blue del Barrio is returning as genderfluid character Adria Tal and Tig Notaro as Jett Reno is slated to appear in a guesting capacity.
The Challenge: All-Stars // Season Four Premiere // April 10
There will undoubtedly be a great deal of gay chaos on this star-studded season of The Challenge: All-Stars. The Challenge: Fresh Meat II alum Laurel Stucky will be competing and so will her ex-girlfriend, Nicole Zanatta of Real World: Skeletons. (Who also famously competed on Clone Wars, in which she was given the opportunity to date seven girls who looked like her dream woman, Ciara.) And then we have formative reality television event Rachel Robinson, one of the first out bisexuals we ever saw on teevee when she debuted in the 2002 series Road Rules: Campus Crawl (she was also a special guest at Autostraddle’s 2010 Rodeo Disco). And Rachel’s ex, Vanessa Portillo (Road Rules: Semester at Sea) will also be on this season of The Challenge: All Stars. So.
Apple TV+
Loot // Season Two Premiere // April 3
Maya Rudolph returns as Molly Novak, a billionaire fresh out of a high-profile divorce who is determined to give her entire fortune away with the assistance of her foundation director Sofia Salinas (played by Pose‘s Michaela Jaé Rodriguez) and her devoted assistant Nicholas (Joel Kim Booster).
Girls State (2024) // April 5
This “political coming-of-age story” asks “what would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls?” by bringing together teenage girls from a wide variety of backgrounds from all over Missouri to collaborate on “a stirring re-imagination of what it means to govern.” The documentary follows a small cross-section of the invited participants and amongst them is Maddie Rowan, an openly gay activist who’s been attending protests all her life and is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights. But the girls have a lot to say not just about the country and its politics, but the differences between the Girls State program compared to the Boys State that’s simultaneously underway.
Sugar // Season One Premiere // April 5
There is no actual real lesbian content in this program about a private eye named John Sugar (Colin Farrel) investigating the disappearance of Olivia Siegel, granddaughter to a legendary Hollywood producer. There’s technically not any lesbian content in this series but Paula Andrea Placido has a small part working with Sugar in what I believe is a surveillance capacity and in my personal opinion, her character is a lesbian. But that’s just my opinion!
MGM+
Beacon 23 // Season Two Premiere // April 7
Despite this sci-fi series featuring Lena Headey in a lead queer role, we have thus far been underwhelmed by the series and its tendency to play into the worst queer tropes. According to Screen Rant, Season Two trailer “hints at a larger conflict on the horizon as the Beacon is attacked by military forces.”
HBO Max
Black Swan (2010)
Ballet! Homoeroticism! Natalie Portman! Swans! Mila Kunis!
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
This is Drew’s favorite movie and maybe it could be yours! This genre-bending fictionalized documentary / rom-com follows Cheryl, a version of filmmaker Cheryl Dunye, a film buff working in a video store while pursuing a passion project about an obscure Black lesbian actress of the 1930s pigeonholed into stereotypical “mammy roles” of the era. “When Dunye didn’t see her story, she made it herself,” wrote Drew. “But The Watermelon Woman isn’t just her story on screen — it’s also the searching, the wanting, the necessity of that story.”
Prime Video
Fallout // Season One Premiere // April 11
You know, whenever there’s a new show based on a beloved video game or a sci-fi comic or book series and I start googling to find out if it’s got any LGBTQ characters, I inevitably end up having to wade through page after page of the franchise’s fans moaning about how the adaptation will inevitably be ruined by the evil hollywood liberals making it “woke” and as truly fascinating as these takes are, I wish insteaad I could find somebody telling me straight-up face to face WHO ALL IS GAY HERE?!! Apparently the video game Fallout, about a post-apocalypse scenario in which some people have been in underground vaults staying posi about the future while others have been duking it out in a post-nuclear wasteland, was ground-breakingly queer in some capacity, but as a person whose video game education maxed out at The Sims, I will need a commenter to explain the situation here to me thank you!
For Black Sails (spoilers) i would like to clarify that, some of the pirates die but the gay pirates don’t. Also the show ends with a bonus gay pirate and a surprise returned from the dead gay. This show famously unburried their gays.
oh excellent thank you for the note i will adjust!
Came back to say that i was correct in saying none of the gay pirates die but after talking to some friends they all agreed that a pirate adjacent gay does in fact die and stay dead. Sorry.
But you are still more likely to survive and/or return from the dead if you’re queer in this show.
well that’s sort of a win, i think?
I played Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas ages ago and while there are crazy characters (a gang of guys who dress like Elvis, an entire army of Roman soldier cosplay, etc) none are sticking out as gay. Doesn’t mean the show won’t be! Seeing Jackie from Yellowjackets as the main character has me hyped!
yeah at first i was like wait where do i know her from and then when i realized where i knew her from i was very excited
For the sixth month in a row, Netflix has no new shows for us :)
I just hope no one tells Netflix it’s Gayflix again because it really isn’t.
The most anticipated shows this month for me are Mary & George and Fallout, I’m really hyped for them.
yeah it blows! they are debuting Ripley this month, which is based on the Patricia Highsmith novel and has gay men … but no lesbians
By the way, I am really grateful for this list that you prepare every month.
It really helps me what to watch during the month and…
I should also say that the Fallout game series has almost always had queer characters, but I don’t know if the show will have queer characters or not?
https://lgbtqia-characters.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Fallout_Characters
thank you for the thanks! <3
I haven’t watched the challenge in years but damn, vanessa, laurel, AND rachel??? Crazy. (Never liked nicole lol)
The Fallout series isn’t an adaption of any of the games, but rather it’s being billed as Fallout 5. A new iteration taking place in the Fallout universe, that will be canon to the lore. As such, we can’t know if any of the characters are queer or not.
PS – Are you going to talk about Disney+, because I need a place to specifically talk about Renegade Nell.
i haven’t heard anything about it! it looks like it came out in march last friday… is it gay? should we get someone to cover it? it does look gay, she looks gay in those knickers
I’ll just post this. (spoilers obviously)
https://twitter.com/sunkiss236/status/1774232542125629616
oh also interesting about it being fallout 5 rather than an adaptation of the original game (s?), does that mean it will have all new characters?
As far as I know, all of the characters should be brand new.
Dear Riese,
Thank you for your monthly tips. Besos!
There’s also this interesting series from Australia.
‘High Country’ with Sara Wiseman and Leah Purcell as Helen x Andie.
It’s about a detective transferred to Victorian High Country who investigates 5 missing persons. She uncovers a complex web of murder, deceit and revenge.
And yes, the detective has got a sapphic relationship.
https://fero.tips/videos/tv/high-country-s1/
Killing Eve is coming to Netflix on April 15th to scar a whole new audience, if you want to count that. Thanks for these lists – even though they make me sad. BTW, Renegade Nell is filling some kind of hole in my heart right now. I think it just feels queer because the show runner is Sally Wainwright (Gentleman Jack).
in fact i do want to count that thank you betty!
Hi! Just adding to the bunch, HBO Max is having the Season 2 premiere of “Velma” on April 25th!
Thanks for the amazing list, here every month for it!
I don’t think it’s been covered here on Autostraddle, but Ark the Animated Series on Paramount is SUPER GAY! The main character is a lesbian and her love interest is voiced by Michelle freaking Yeoh! It also has Devery Jacobs from Reservation Dogs and a bunch of other great actors in it. You should really be covering it here!
Not sure if it’s been covered but Deadloch on Amazon Prime is super gay as well. Australian, comedy and a murder mystery. One detective has a wife and the town is full of gay women and feminists! The writing is hilarious – you just have to forgive that the other detective is annoying. Synopsis: Two vastly different female detectives are thrown together to solve the murder of a local man in the sleepy seaside hamlet of Deadloch. Check it out!
yes we loved deadloch! valerie did a review:
https://develop.autostraddle.com/deadloch-season-1-review/
and it also ranked #6 on our best shows of 2023 list!
https://develop.autostraddle.com/the-25-best-tv-shows-of-2023-with-lesbian-queer-and-trans-characters/