60 Best Queer and Lesbian Netflix TV Shows
Why simply marathon a good television show when you could marathon a good lesbian show on Netflix or a show with some element of lesbians, trans people, bisexuality, pansexuality or queerness within it? Netflix’s original programming is chock full of LGBTQ-inclusive TV shows, lesbian series and wlw TV shows, and although they also host a variety of content produced by other studios and networks, this list is focused on TV series developed by or in partnership with Netflix, because those are the shows you can mostly expect to find on Netflix channels worldwide and indefinitely. Because we are a website for LGBTQ women and trans people of all genders, that’s the type of representation we’ll be highlighting here, today.
The Queerest Netflix Original LGBTQ Inclusive TV Shows:
These LGBT Netflix TV Shows and lesbian series have LGBTQ+ women and/or trans people either playing lead characters or simply in abundance and in general de-center cisgender heterosexual stories. If you want queer and trans stories front & center, these shows are for you!
Dead End: Paranormal Park
2022 // 2 Seasons // 20 Episodes
Barney Guttman (Zach Barack) is the lead character of this delightful comics-inspired animated series, playing a Jewish queer trans boy who lives in a haunted house and has a crush on his best friend, Logs. The show follows his adventures with his other pals Norma (who is pansexual and autistic) and Norma’s girlfriend, Badyah (Kathreen Khavari).
Everything Now
(2023-) // 1+ Seasons // 8 Episodes
Courte
15-year-old protagonist Mia Polanco (Sophie Wilde) returns home after spending many months away for inpatient eating disorder treatment. Her friends have changed — they’re drinking, doing drugs and having sex, and Mia angles to catch up in this series full of messy teenage queers stumbling their way through it all.
Everything Sucks!
(2018) // One Season // 10 episodes
We fell hard for this ’90s throwback lesbian Netflix TV show centered on a tomboy coming out to herself and the world (and crushing hard on an alternateeen drama queen played by Sydney Sweeny) — you can marathon the whole thing in a night and lament that it got cancelled.
The Fall of the House of Usher
2023 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
I love them, your honor.
Mike Flanagan’s final project for Netflix is his most epic, precise and haunting: a limited series that weaves multiple Edgar Allen Poe stories into one grand tale of the Usher family: Roderick is the head of a major pharmaceutical company responsible for an addiction epidemic that has made his family very rich. Then, one by one, his children begin to die — and he has six of them, by five mothers, and at least four of them are queer, and there are other queers, too, you will see.
Feel Good
Channel 4 // (2020-2021) // 2 Seasons //12 episodes
Mae Martin is VERY cute and funny in this delightful little queer Netflix TV show in which they play Mae, a recovering cocaine addict and stand-up comic who falls for a straight girl in Season One and crawls out of a relapse in Season Two. It’s so smart and sweet and perfect.
First Kill
(2022) // One Season // 8 Episodes
This “sweet (and sometimes bloody) story of firsts — first times, first kills, and first loves” only lasted one season at Netflix, but for that one season we had ourselves a lesbian protagonist and a central narrative of a vampire from a legendary lineage falling for a human girl, much to the chagrin of everybody else.
Glamorous
(2023) // One Season // 10 episodes
The protagonist of Glamorous is a gender-non-conforming non-binary makeup artist (played by trans actress and social media star Miss Benny) working for makeup maven Madolyn Addison (Kim Catrall) in an office crawling with homosexuals and bisexuals, including her designer Britt, a Black masculine lesbian played by Ayesha Harris, and Britt’s crush Valentina. It’s a very queer show even if lesbians aren’t centered, but it’s also pretty mediocre!
Gypsy
(2017) // One Season // 10 episodes
We got one entire season of this uneven, generally terrible yet still somehow totally addictive psychological thriller that starts Naomi Watts as a bisexual therapist who gets wrapped up in a thing with a girl she’s stalking for reasons too convoluted to get into here.
The Haunting of Bly Manor
(2020) // Limited Series // 9 episodes
Ah the classic gay pinky link.
This follow-up to The Haunting of Hill House is entirely centered on Dani, the (bisexual!) live-in nanny for a weird family living in ye olde haunted manor. Housekeeper Hannah is played by queer actress T’Nia miller, and there’s also a very gay gardener in overalls, Jamie. The story between Dani and Jamie inspired Valerie to note that this show “isn’t a ghost story, it’s a lesbian love story — with ghosts.”
Heartbreak High
(2022 – ) // 1+ Season // 8+ Episodes
In this Australian series we are once again confronted with the reality that everybody is gay now! We’ve got the autistic and queer Quinni (played by austistic actor and disability rights advocate Chloé Hayden), the mixed-race and nonbinary Darren (played by nonbinary actor James Majoos), lesbian lothario Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran), her Indigenous and queer best friend/ex Missy (Sherry-Lee Watson) and there’s even an (oh-so-rare) asexual male character. In her review, Kayla noted that these identities are used “not to check boxes but to paint a vibrant and varied world that covers the trials and tribulations of high school from the low-stakes shit like crushes and clique drama to much higher stakes conflicts like unsafe living conditions, sexual assault, and violence.”
Heartstopper
(2022 – ) // 2+ Seasons // 16+ Episodes
Would you like to have your heart warmed to its very core by an adorable British LGBTQ+ romantic comedy series based on a webcomic/graphic novel by 27-year-old aromantic asexual writer Alice Oseman?? Now you can!!! Trans TikTok sensation Yasmin Finney plays Elle, one of Charlie’s best friends. Queer couple Tara (queer actor Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) are also featured in the story! It’s a gay male couple at the forefront of the tale, but honestly they both have a lot of lesbian energy?
I Am Not Okay With This
(2020) // One Season // 8 episodes
For Sydney (Sophia Lillis of Sharp Objects), the surly self-described “boring 17-year-old white girl” at the center of the lesbian Netflix series “I Am Not Okay With This,” her feelings of powerlessness around her father’s death have become augmented by something else she isn’t sure how to name, but the friend she confides in about it is quick to refer to it as “superpowers.” Also she’s in love with her best friends.
Master of None (Select Episodes)
(2015 -2021) // 3 Seasons // 25 Episodes of which 14 include a lesbian character and 7 are 100% focused the lesbian character’s story
COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2021
So the thing is that overall, Aziz Ansari’s critical smash Master of None is not a 100% lesbian TV show. BUT it’s possible to watch JUST the Denise-focused episodes and make it into your very own 100% lesbian TV show. Season One featured out lesbian writer/comic/actress Lena Waithe as Ansari’s lesbian pal, Denise, and although Season Two had less Denise overall as Aziz frolicked overseas, it also had one of the most important episodes in lesbian television history, “Thanksgiving,” for which Lena Waithe made history as the first Black woman to win an Emmy in Comedic Writing. The final season of Master of None, called “Moments in Love,” focuses entirely on Denise and her relationship. You can watch just “Thanksgiving” and Season Three and you won’t feel lost at all.
Orange is the New Black
(2013 – 2019) // 7 Seasons // 91 Episodes
One of the first-ever Netflix original series was also one of the first lesbian TV shows on Netflix: Orange is The New Black has like a billion queer characters, including a bisexual protagonist as well as rampant misandry, a nearly all-female cast, and racial diversity for days. We’ve got a trans woman of color playing a trans woman of color (Laverne Cox), we’ve got queers playing queers (Samira Wiley, Lea DeLaria, Ruby Rose, Vicci Martinez, Taylor Schilling), a not-so-hidden agenda to expose the draconian absurdity of the prison-industrial complex, and situations that’ll make you laugh, sob, and fall in love. With a television show. Until Season Four, which ends in tragedy and heartbreak and is highly problematic and, well, it might turn you off the show forever!!! If you’re willing to forge forward, which many understandably were not, the show eventually regains its footing and adds more queers every year.
Ratched
(2020-) // 1+ Seasons // 8 episodes
“[Ratched gives us] Sarah Paulson in all her dyke drag queen glory… this eight-episode series — that is supposedly season one of a four season arc — is absurd in its very existence and delicious in its classic movie concoction. There is so much to chew on, so much to celebrate, so much to critique, and yet the whole thing feels so completely Ryan Murphy it’s hard not to just delight in its very existence.” — Drew
The Sandman
(2022-) // 1+ Seasons // 11+ episodes
“The Sandman crafts a fantastical world where dreams are as real as the ground under your feet, where feelings are gods and rubies can make wishes come true, where nightmares walk among us and where everyone, it seems, is at least a little bit queer.” — Valerie
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
(2018 -2020 ) // 5 Seasons // 52 episodes
“Not everyone is queer at the end of the day on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power — but almost everyone is! There’s Bow’s gay dads, there’s longterm lesbian couple Netossa and Spinnerella, there’s non-binary Double Trouble, and, well, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but there’s four more queers by the time this ragtag squad of rainbow rebels defeats fascism and restores Eternia to it’s pre-colonized natural state. But the queerness of She-Ra isn’t contained to the romantic storylines. There’s the joy and healing of found family, the trauma of being different in the families we’re born into, there’s pathways out of evangelical fascism, there’s guilt and shame and redemption, there’s mental illness, and good heavens the rainbows! Mostly, though, in some really dark days, there’s hope. Come for the ’80s nostalgia, stay for the storytelling that is as captivating and well-plotted as all the best stuff non-animated stuff you’re watching.” — Heather
Sense8
(2014 – 2018) // 2 Seasons & 1 Movie // 25 episodes
If you like ambitious, sprawling sci-fi epics with enormous budgets, assorted racial stereotypes and a refreshing transgender female character in an interracial lesbian relationship with another woman, then this show is for you. The show creators have confirmed that every character is pansexual and there’s also a a gay male couple. Season Three was wrapped up as a movie event that bestowed a very happy queer ending upon us all.
Tales of the City
(2019) // One Season // 10 episodes
Picking up quite a bit of time after the original groundbreaking series left off, the Netflix reboot of gay Tales of the City, helmed by lesbian showrunner Lauren Morelli, returns to San Francisco and finds trans matriarch Anna Madrigal still played by a cis actress (although she’s played by trans actress Jen Richards in a flashback episode, one of the season’s strongest, which also features trans actress Daniela Vega) and surrounded by new and returning characters. One is Shawna, played by Elliot Page, and other residents of 28 Barbary Lane include a maybe-breaking-up couple comprised of Margot (May Hong), a queer woman, and Jake (Josiah Victoria Garcia), a trans man.
XO, Kitty
(2023-) // 1+ Seasons // 8 Episodes
You might think that this show is kinda gay but it’s gayer than that, believe it or not! This spinoff of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before finds Kitty moving to South Korea to attend the same school her mother did and reunite with her long-distance boyfriend — only to learn he has another girlfriend, but their relationship is not exactly what it seems to be.
More Gay, Queer and Lesbian Netflix TV Shows
These Netflix shows all have major trans, queer or lesbian characters, although they might not always be out from the first episode.
Arcane
(2021 – ) // 1+ Seasons // 9+ Episodes
ARCANE (L to R) : HAILEE STEINFELD as VI, ELLA PURNELL as JINX in ARCANE Cr. NETFLIX © 2021
“I’m not quite sure what I expected Arcane to be, but I didn’t expect it to be an epic sci-fi adventure about found family, queer badasses, and underground rebellion. And yet, to my delight, that’s exactly what it was.” — Valerie
Atypical
(2017 – 2021) // 4 Seasons // 38 Episodes
Atypical is about a teenage boy named Sam who’s on the autistic spectrum and his family. One of those family members is his younger sister, Casey, who plays mostly a supporting role in season one. However, in season two she moves to a new school and starts getting her own storylines, one of which is queer, and it just keeps getting better from there!
Baby-Sitters Club
(2020-2021) // 2 Seasons // 18 Episodes
Netflix’s reboot of The Baby-Sitter’s Club is about as wholesome as you’d expect, but without veering too corny, and is full of the “girls can do anything” energy that made the book series a classic for decades. In the first season, Mary-Anne babysits a young trans girl in an standout episode. In the second season, we’re treated to two teen coming outs: one via a casual mention from a BSC member and another in a much more substantial plot from Claudia’s big sister, Janine.
Bienvenidos a Eden / Welcome to Eden
(2022-) // 2+ Seasons // 16+ Episodes
A bunch of attractive, stylish, hungry teenagers are lured to a mysterious island under the guise of it being the most exclusive influencer event ever, only to find themselves amid a terrifying murderous cult. Zoa (Amaia Aberasturi) is the bisexual daughter of an absent father and an addict mother, Bel (Begoña Vargas) is a badass lesbian in braids and Mayka (Lola Rodríguez) is a trans woman, hacker and DJ who discovered Eden’s existence all on her own. According to Into, “all the greatest characters —who support the rebellion and help people escape— are queer.”
Big Mouth
(2017 – ) // 7+ Seasons // 51 Episodes
The majority of Big Mouth‘s queer content is focused on queer male characters, but it’s a beloved program by the community. “The series doesn’t turn into a hopeful after-school special just to validate its characters’ identities,” NBC Out wrote of this cartoon that aims to personify the creatures that drive puberty inside the teenage brain. “Rather, it commits to presenting their lives in full, complete with dick jokes and anxiety monsters and characters who are deeply problematic alongside characters who are kind and wise. Yes, they are LGBTQ, but at the end of the day, they’re teenagers — and teenagers are messy as hell.”
Boca a Boca / The Kissing Game
(2020) // One Season // 6 Episodes
This Netflix LGBT TV Show from Brazil follows teenagers in a small ranching town who are falling ill, seemingly from a “kissing orgy” at a wild dance party held by a local cult. The lead character, Frances, is queer and has a crush on her friend, Bel, who is the first student to get sick.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
(2018 – 2020) // 4 Seasons // 36 Episodes
“Given that Part One features actual cannibalism, it’s wild that CAOS’s Part Two is darker, bloodier, and more unsettling than the first, but this show loves to outdo its own extremities. Theo transitions in Part Two, and Sabrina fights for gender equality in the premiere, but the series does occasionally struggle with its own mythology and with uniting both sides of its storytelling, which whiplashes between grounded character work and sheer chaos. There are even magical orgies on this show, featuring the brilliant villain Prudence as well as Sabrina’s quippy cousin Ambrose. Pansexuality is normalized at Sabrina’s school, but sometimes that queerness doesn’t permeate the show’s main storylines. But if you’re looking for something spooky and cinematic, this is your show.” — Kayla
Collateral
BBC Two // (2018) // 1 Season // 4 Episodes
Parisa Tag/Netflix
This British thriller spends four parts investigating a murder that only has one witness — Linh, who’s having issues with her immigration status and is dating a vicar who’s way older than her. As the detectives delve deeper into a criminal underworld, the realities of the crime reveal themselves in unexpected ways.
Control Z
(2020 – 2022) // 3 Seasons // 24 Episodes
This Mexican whodunit set in a high school where a hacker upends the social order by leaking students’ secrets co-stars Zion Moreno as Isabela de la Fuente (in Season One), a popular girl who’s trans status is revealed by aforementioned hacker. Samantha Acuña is Alex, a lesbian who struggles to fit in and make friends her own age.
Dead to Me
(2019-2022) // 3 Seasons // 30 Episodes
In Season 2 of “Dead to Me” Is Flirting With You Via Natalie Morales, Valerie sings the praises of this dark comedy series from lesbian showrunner Liz Feldman about the friendship between two women who meet in a support group after Jen (Christina Applegate)’s husband dies in a car accident. Judy (Linda Cardellini) ends up moving in with Jen and becoming a second Mom to her kids as they get wound up in some pretty sketchy and f*cked up shit! In Season Two, it turns out that Judy is queer when she starts up a thing with a chef played by bisexual actress Natalie Morales. THEY’RE GAY and it’s GREAT.
Dear White People
(2017 – 2021) // 4 Seasons // 40 Episodes
“It’s no secret that Dear White People has a checked history with its depiction of queer black women,” wrote Carmen, referring specifically to Season One’s problematic tropes. But Season Three saw this “incredibly smart and stylized” show finally “give us the nerdy Black Gay Girls we deserve.” After coming out in Season Two, supporting character Kelsey Phillips gets fully fleshed-out as a character and debuts a romance with Brooke, a media studies undergrad “whose main character traits up to this point have been: being nerdy, being very annoying, being an excellent student journalist.” But by Season 4, she’s gone!
Degrassi: Next Class
F2N Canada // (2016 – 2018) // 4 Seasons // 40 Episodes
Seasons Three and Four debuted in 2017, bringing with them a cute romantic storyline between a Muslim Syrian immigrant, Rasha, and Degrassi’s Latina lesbian student council president, Zoe. Season Four’s journey for Yael was maybe the first-ever televised situation a young assigned-female-at-birth person realizing that they are non-binary.
Derry Girls
Channel 4 // (2018 – 2022) // 3 Seasons // 19 Episodes
Derry Girls, a teen comedy set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles in the 1990, ended its first season with a great coming out episode for Clare and Season 2, while not really meeting our total expectations for exploring Clare’s sexuality, does give us one of the best lesbian prom episodes ever.
Elite
(2018 – ) // 7+ Seasons // 56+ Episodes
This delicious sexy teen soap set in Spain, where scholarship kids clash with the town’s richest citizens at an exclusive private school, is basically about blackmail, and also murder! There’s a lot of gay-guy stuff, but the gay-girl stuff for the first three seasons is pretty light. In Season 4, we finally get the (of course, tragic and complicated) sapphic romance we’d been waiting for.
Gentefied
(2020-2021) // Two seasons // 18 episodes
Gentefied is centered on three adult cousins — Chris, Erik, and Ana — as they work to keep their grandfather’s taco shop, Mama Fina’s, afloat amid rising rents. Ana, the queer youngest cousin, just wants to change the world through her art, continue her love story with Yessika, her girlfriend since high school, and keep the other two from killing each other with their macho pride. Gentefied is hellafied fun, smart, and has a lot of damn heart.
Ginny & Georgia
(2021-) // 2+ Seasons // 20+ Episodes
15-year-old Ginny, her brother who never talks and her hot Mom Georgia move to a New England town where it’s like, perpetual autumn. Georgia schemes. Ginny is surprised to learn that being smart and pretty will actually garner you friends — she’s never been very good at friends — and one of those friends (Maxine), my friends, is a LESBIAN.
G.L.O.W.
(2017-2019) // 3 Seasons // 30 Episodes
Season One of this smart, quirky 1980s Jenji Kohan project about the “gorgeous ladies of wrestling” was almost maddeningly not queer despite having gay men and a pretty gay premise. But Season Two delivered a romance to remember between two women of color, which hit some pretty interesting complications in Season Three.
The Haunting of Hill House
(2018) // One Season // 10 Episodes
“Based on Shirley Jackson’s iconic novel, this ten-part reimagining is noteworthy for its standout lesbian character: Theo Crain, wonderfully portrayed by Kate Siegel. Blessed (or cursed) with ESP, Theo can read minds and feelings with simply a touch. Her gift acts as a metaphor for any child who grew up in an abusive household and was forced to be hyperaware. She wears gloves that she keeps on even during one-night-stands. For Theo, sex is about distraction, not connection. She may not be the protagonist, but Theo is a relatable and deeply felt queer character that holds the whole series together.” —Kayla
Human Resources
(2022-2023) // 2 Seasons // 20 Episodes
This Big Mouth spin-off follows the workplace dynamics of the hormone monsters which include pansexual Love Bug Sonya (Pamela Adlon) and pansexual Kitty Beaumont Bouchet the Depression Kitty (Jean Smart) and trans teen Natalie (Josie Totah). Plus there are lots of male queer characters as well!
The Imperfects
(2022) // 1 Seasons // 10 Episodes
“If you like messy superpower origin stories, found family feels, comic-book-esque fight scenes, and slowly unraveling mysteries, with a bonus queer, asexual, South Asian woman, Netflix’s The Imperfects is the show for you.” — Valerie
La Casa de las Flores / House of Flowers
(2018 – 2020) // 3 Seasons // 34 episodes
Behind a family-run flower enterprise lies SCANDALS and SECRETS, and Instinct writes that it was “a turning point for modern-day Mexican television” that “features non-traditional characters and dives deeply into sexuality, gender identity, and dysfunctional families.” Eldest sibling Paulina is shocked when her husband comes out as a trans woman (unfortunately played by a cis male actor), María José, who eventually has a thing with their family’s lawyer.
Las Chicas Del Cable / Cable Girls
(2017-2019) // 6 Seasons // 42 Episodes
This period drama set in 1928 Madrid features a tight-knit group of women who work together at Spain’s only cable company (cable as in telephones, not television) — united for many reasons including their desire to work in the first place, which wasn’t a traditional desire for women at the time. One of the women, Carlotta, is bisexual, married to a man, and has feelings for Sara, another cable girl. The Dart describes it as “Netflix’s hidden gem.”
Lucifer
Fox // (2015-2021) // 6 Seasons // 93 Episodes
“Long before they moved to Netflix, Lucifer‘s title character, and his best demon bud Maze have been openly bisexual. But I’ve discussed here and there on this very website that Lucifer the show seems to have a questionable hold on what that means. But, the show’s shift to Netflix also gave us a shift in perspective on bisexuality, specifically as it related to Maze. In fact, Maze’s entire arc in Season Four was centered around her feelings from Eve (yes, THAT Eve) and trying to get them across, despite being someone who isn’t all too familiar with the practice of sharing her feelings.” — Valerie
Merry Happy Whatever
(2019) // 1 Season // 8 Episodes
When this charming if banal Netflix holiday sitcom opens with Kayla Quinn (Ashley Tisdale) and her husband Alan deciding to stay in different houses for the season in pursuit of an eventual divorce, and over the course of the season, Kayla comes out to herself and her family. “ashley tisdale playing a lesbian is everything i never knew i needed but is now the best thing in the universe,” tweeted one fan, which about sums it up!
Mindhunter
(2017 – 2019) // 2 Seasons //19 Episodes
This thriller about the early days of the FBI’s criminal profiling department starred the always delightful Jonathan Groff and received largely positive reviews when it debuted on Netflix this fall. Anna Torv played Wendy Carr, a psychologist with a scholarly interest in interviewing imprisoned serial killers to determine what the hell is going on there. Her lesbianism is sidelined in Season One but in Season Two, Wendy gets a VERY hot girlfriend who looks nice in a tank top, and queer storylines bubble back up to the surface.
Neon
2023 // One Season // 8 Episodes
“….how rare is it to see a queer Puerto Rican girl on television? Let alone one that is three-dimensional and fully realized instead of someone’s pithy sidekick or one-liner? But I’d imagine it’s impossible for anyone to watch Neon and not fall in love with Emma Ferreira’s performance. As a comedy, Neon is not exactly laugh-out-loud funny (more of a enjoyable chuckle and vibe), but in Ferreira’s hands Ness’ warmth and goofiness finds perfect home.” – Carmen Phillips
Never Have I Ever
(2020-2023) // 4 Seasons // 40 Episodes
Your mileage may vary on this coming-of-age comedy is centered on Devi Vishwakumar, a Tamil Indian-American teenager growing up in Sherman Oaks grappling with her father’s recent death and her burning desire to be cool. She’s got two best friends, and one of them is named Fabiola, and she’s an Afro-Latina and also SHE’S GAY.
The OA
(2017 – 2019) // 2 Seasons // 16 episodes
Vulture writes that The OA “gently, but insistently, weaves a queer narrative,” with its themes of chosen family and “a secret language they share together, something that feels akin to drag culture.” But it’s also remarkable for the character of Buck, played by 15-year-old trans actor Ian Alexander, one of the only trans male characters on television when this deeply weird, impossible-to-describe and wholly immersive sci-fi show premiered in 2017, heralded as “the future of trans visibility in Hollywood.”
One Day At A Time
(2017 – 2019) // 3 Seasons // 39 episodes
In addition to being charming as fuck and giving Autostraddle a mid-season shout-out, Norman Lear’s One Day at a Time makes the case for an old-fashioned style of show taking up progressive causes. Three generations of a Cuban-American family endure the slings and errors of everyday life, including a daughter who comes out as a lesbian mid-Season One and has her first queer relationship in Season Two.
The One
(2021) // One Season // 10 Episodes
In a loosely-constructed dystopian future, a corporation had created a DNA test capable of determining your sole perfect soulmate, and the temptation to find one’s “match” unleashes interpersonal chaos. Amid all this we have lesbian detective Kate (Zoë Tapper), investigating a murder that often muddles the far more interesting questions the show raises, whose soulmate gets in a car accident on her way to meet Kate and spends the series in a coma.
The Politician
(2019 – 2021) // 2 Seasons // 15 Episodes
Ryan Murphy’s first project for Netflix is chock-full of gay, even if we can’t decide if we actually like it or not. The wealthy and glamorous mother of the show’s protagonist, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, has a lesbian affair. Queer black actress Rahne Jones plays lesbian candidate Skye Leighton, who has an affair of her own. Trans actor Theo Jermaine plays one of Payton’s political advisors. Season Two brings a bevy of throuples and casual sexual fluidity. Also most of the guys are queer too!
REBƎLDE
(2022-) // 2+ Seasons // 16 Episodes
This series is based on a Mexican telenovela by the same name which was a massive hit, spawning an actual pop group that released nine studio albums. Netflix’s re-booted contemporary REBƎLDE follows a new crew of very hot and talented teen musicians enrolled at the Elite Way School. Amongst them is Andi (Lizbeth Selene), “a rocker at heart” and “a drummer who scoffs at any rulebook, from what she wears to whom she dates in between rehearsing for Battle of the Bands” who has a relationship with Emilia Alo (Giovanna Grigio), “the most popular girl at EWS.”
Sex Education
(2019-2023) // 4 Seasons // 34 Episodes
Come to have your life ruined by Gillian Anderson; stay for infectious teen drama laced with a very fun, weirdo sense of humor. Baby dykes learn to scissor, Gay Moms exist nonchalantly, and an awkward teenage boy who finds success walking in his mother’s footsteps by offering Sex Education to his classmates. As the show progresses, a lead character discovers her pansexual side all the way into a queer relationship and a Black non-binary character faces off against a new, conservative administrator. In its final season, basically everybody becomes queer and great fun is had by all.
Santa Clarita Diet
(2017 – 2019) // 3 Seasons // 30 Episodes
“Santa Clarita Diet is an absurdly dark comedy featuring Drew Barrymore as a suburban real estate broker who’s also a zombie (just go with it). Her neighbor, Lisa, comes out in Season Two and starts dating Deputy Anne (played by queer actress Natalie Morales). As a couple they’re super sex positive and hilariously vocal about it. Sure they are both sort of just funny side characters to the main plot, but Natalie Morales is an underrated comedic talent in everything that she does, and in Santa Clarita Diet she puts in some of her finest work.” — Carmen
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
2023 // One Season // 8 Episodes
Look at how CUTE everyone is.
“Despite its title, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is not about Scott Pilgrim, not entirely. It’s also about bisexual blader Ramona Flowers, who Scott Pilgrim wants to date — and her League of Evil Exes he has to contend with first.” – Valerie Anne
She’s Gotta Have It
(2017 – 2018) // 2 Seasons // 19 Episodes
Nola Darling, the pansexual protagonist of this contemporary remake of the Spike Lee original film that made waves for its portrayal of black female sexuality, has a relationship with a lesbian named Opal in Season One and that was cool except that also it kinda wasn’t. But then Season Two came along and gave Nola the bright light she deserved, although it’s unfortunate that so much of her queer love story happened off-camera.
Stranger Things
(2015 – 2023) // 4+ Seasons // 34+ Episodes
It takes three seasons to get there but once you do — this acclaimed and beloved ’80s-set series about mysterious forces and the children who battle them finally reveals a lesbian character — Robin, who Carmen describes as “the breakout star of a snarky teen nerd rebel.” The fifth and final season will air this year.
Survival of the Thickest
2023- // 1+ Seasons // 8 Episodes
Based on Michelle Buteau’s memoir and thenceforth also starring Michelle Buteau, Survival of the Thickest is a fun romp of a show about Mavis Beaumont, plus-size stylist rebuilding her life after a breakup. One of her best friends is a bisexual woman exploring the possibility of actually dating women for the first time, and Mavis is often surrounded by queer community, working with queer people and attending queer events, including noted drag queen Peppermint.
Teenage Bounty Hunters
(2020) // One Season // 10 Episodes
Jenji Kohan’s comedy about twins who become bounty hunters just to add a little bit of excitement to their lives has a gradually emerging bisexual storyline that hits a very sweet spot for us all.
Top Boy
(2011 – 2023) // 5 Seasons // 32 Episodes
Ali Painter/Netflix © 2022.
This British crime drama follows two drug dealers returning to London streets to find their pursuit of money and power threatened by a fresh new hustler on the scene. Jacqueline “Jaq” Lawrence is a masculine lesbian and a main character of the series starting in Season Three, as she moves from from number two to top dog. Her girlfriend, Becks, is played by model Adwoa Aboah.
Trinkets
(2019 – 2020) // 2 Seasons // 20 Episodes
Unlikely friendships and enemies to friends are extremely my jam, and this show has it all!
Brianna Hildebrand plays queer lead character Elodie, the shy new girl in town, in this show about teenage shoplifters. Of Season Two, Valerie wrote, “between the female friendships and sweet queer romance, Trinkets Season Two didn’t have to steal my heart because I gave it freely.”
Tuca & Bertie
2019 // One Season on Netflix // 10 Episodes
Xtra said of this popular and cancelled-too-soon-by Netflix adult animated series that it was “not just explicitly queer — though Tuca is canonically bisexual — but thematically queer in its embrace of non-normalcy.” Following two birds in their 30s (voiced by Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong) entering a new stage in their friendship, guest voices include queer icons like Tessa Thompson, Nicole Byer and Laverne Cox. After its first season at Netflix, it spend its next two at Adult Swim.
The Umbrella Academy
(2019-2023) // 3+ Seasons // 20+ Episodes
Elliot Page’s Viktor turns out to be the queer we hoped in Season Two and in Season Three, comes out as a trans man. The series, based on a comic book, centers on a dysfunctional family of adopted sibling superheroes who have reunited to stop the apocalypse and figure out how their father died. Its fourth and final season will air this year.
Warrior Nun
(2020-2022) // 2 Seasons // 20 episodes
19-year-old Ava wakes up in a morgue with a divine artifact all up in her back and proceeds to fight demons on earth while heaven/hell tries to control her. Her friend Sister Beatrice is openly gay. In Season One, Ava’s relationship with Beatrice was teased but in the second season, it was able to truly blossom and grow.
Valeria
(2020 – 2023) // 3 Seasons // 24 Episodes
This Spanish-language rom-com explores the sex lives and interpersonal drama of four best friends: the titular writer Valeria, who finds herself in an unhappy marriage, and Carmen, Lola and Nerea. According to Refinery 29, Nerea’s “lust for living as an out lesbian is one of the most important stories of Valeria (and adds some hot queer sex to the proceedings.)”
Why Are You Like This?
ABC Australia // 2021 // One Season // 8 Episodes
This Australian comedy import into the LGBT Netflix shows cannon follows “three best friends navigate life in their early 20s — including work, fun, identity politics, hookups, and wild nights.” Mia is bisexual and part of this Extremely Online trio that will provide you with a delightful few hours of queer TV.
Netflix Anthology Series With Notable LGBTQ+ Episodes
Black Mirror
Channel 4 // (2011 – ) // 5 Season Anthology Series // 22 Episodes //
This sci-fi dystopian anthology series tells a new story every episode, usually taking place in the future and with a focus on technology. In Season Three, Black Mirror gave us a beautiful gift: San Junipero.
Easy
(2017 – 2019) // 3 Season Anthology Series // 25 Episodes
Joe Swanberg’s character-driven series that uses Chicago as central throughline bounces between different people, providing intimate snapshots of their lives. The recurring queer women on the show — Jo and Chase — provide some of the best episodes, covering a sprawling gay relationship arc of coming out to breaking up.
Other good Netflix Original Programming with minor LBGTQ+ female and/or trans characters/stories: American Vandal, Archive 81, A Storm for Christmas, Beef, Bojack Horseman, Broadchurch, Chosen, Doctor Foster, Fuller House,Get Even, Grace & Frankie, Grand Army, Hollywood, House of Cards, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast), Jupiter’s Legacy, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Manifest, Marcella, Midnight Mass, Raising Dion, Russian Doll, Self-Made, Shadow & Bone, Sky Rojo, Special, The End of the F*cking World, Tiny Pretty Things, Unorthodox
Other Medicore Netflix Original Programming with minor-to-medium LBGTQ+ female and/or trans characters/stories: 13 Reasons Why, The A-List, Altered Carbon, Anne With an “E”, Away, Cowboy Bebop, The Devil in Ohio, Godless, Hemlock Grove, Insatiable, Q-Force, Resident Evil, The I-Land, You
Looking for more lesbian TV shows you can stream right now? Here you go:
January 2024: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Max, Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Peacock, Starz and Paramount+
Well it’s a brand new year and we are still the same people we were last year… or are we? The only way to find out is to sit down and get into some television and cinema experiences with lesbian, bisexual queer and trans characters on HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ Showtime, Starz and Peacock.
Top Row: Death and Other Details, Sort Of, SkyMed, True Detective Bottom Row: Hightown, Hazbin Hotel, The Traitors, LOL: One Last Laugh Ireland, Love on the Spectrum, All Fun and Games
HBO Max’s Queer January 2024 Content
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2023) – January 8
Giovanni, one of the world’s greatest living artists and commentators, plays with the lesbian poet’s fascination with space travel as it “reckons with the inevitable passing of time through a collision of memories, moments in American history, live readings, and visually innovative treatments of Giovanni’s poetry.” Drew wrote of the film, “what makes this portrait of Nikki Giovanni so special is it makes her contradictions, her elusiveness, her boundaries, part of the film itself.”
True Detective: Night County: Season 4 Premiere – January 14
The fourth season of this lauded crime series stars lesbian icon Jodie Foster as Liz Danvers, a detective in Alaska investigating the disappearance of eight men from a research station with her partner, Iñupiaq cop Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), with whom she shares a complicated past. Isabelle Star LeBlanc is Liz’s queer daughter Leah Danvers. Queer actor Fiona Shaw also stars as “a survivalist with a past full of secrets.” It appears that Jodie Foster’s character is straight, but showrunner Issa López describes Navarro and Danvers as “two characters that love each other, found each other and fell in love, and then fell out of love terribly. Now they’re enemies. And that’s when we meet them. And the show is the story of how they fall back in love. This is friendship. But in the end, it’s the same thing.”
Sort Of: Season 3 Premiere – January 18
The final season of nonbinary creator Bilal Baig’s TV series, an Autostraddle TV Awards favorite, finds Sabi coping with grief and an unanticipated feeling of freedom after their father’s death. Free of his expectations, they confront big questions about their identity and start making big life choices in their typical messy, hopeful, sort of way.
Netflix’s Queer January 2024 Shows & Movies
Black Sails (Starz): Seasons 1-3 – January 1
This Starz show is about pirates, set in New Providence Island and intended as a prequel to the 1883 novel “Treasure Island” and there are quite a few queer female characters aboard this ship.
Loudermilk (Audience Network): Seasons 1-3 – January 1
Ron Livingston stars as a music critic and recovering alcoholic “who regularly doles out clever but acid-tongued critiques to his clients, his friends, and any random person he interacts with.” Anja Savčić is Claire, his young queer sponsee who’s life is also a bit of a mess.
This is Us (NBC): Seasons 1-6 – January 8
The legendary tearjerker about the lives of a set of parents and their three kids across multiple time periods ended up adding a very cute queer storyline in Season Three with one of the kids in the cast.
Love on the Spectrum: Season Two – January 19
People on the autism spectrum navigate the wonderful world of dating and amongst them is Teo, who’s seen expressing excitement for a lady-date in the trailer.
Queer Eye: Season 8 – January 24
Non-binary hair queen Jonathan Van Ness returns for the eighth season of this reliable tearjerker — which’s also Bobby Burke’s final season!!! Who is going to remodel an entire house in three hours after Bobby leaves???!
Amazon Prime Video’s January 2024 Streaming
Hazbin Hotel: Season One – January 19
This animated series follows Charlie, the Princess of Hell, a young whippersnapper full of ambition who’s built the Hazbin Hotel, a facility that aims to rehabilitate demons, thus making them suitable for Heaven and thus no longer taking up space in her kingdom of Hell. Most of her pals and colleagues scoff at the idea, but her girlfriend Vaggie (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) and her adult-film-star pal Angel Dust are in for the ride.
LOL: One Last Laugh Ireland: Season One – January 19
Graham Norton hosts this reality television program in which 10 comedic stars gather to make each other laugh without ever laughing themselves. Whomstever can last the longest without cracking up will win $50k for their charity of choice! Amongst the funny people on this program is queer comic Catherine Bohart.
Hulu’s January 2024 Gay Streaming Opportunities
Grandma (2015) – January 1
Lily Tomlin stars as the titular Grandma, Elle, a lesbian poet and widow who gets a visit from her teenage granddaughter who needs money for an abortion. Thus the two head on an all-day journey into Elle’s past trying to score the cash to make it happen.
Good Trouble: Season 5b Premiere (Freeform) – January 3
It’s time for the final episodes of this spinoff of lesbian Mom TV show The Fosters, which has become a queer powerhouse in its own right.
All Fun and Games (2023) – January 5
A critically panned thriller about a group of teens in Salem who find a cursed knife from the 17th century that turns children’s games into horrorshows. Laurel Marsden is Sophie, a lesbian on her way to Smith College and the best friend of Billie, one of two protagonists.
Echo: Season One (Disney+ and Hulu) – January 9th
The latest hotly anticipated Marvel series is, let’s face it, unlikely to have any queer women characters — but the show is still worth noting for everything else it’s got going on. Indigenous actor plays deaf Cheyenne hero Echo (aka Maya Lopez), queer indigenous actor Devery Jacobs and Jacobs’ Reservation Dogs co-star, Zahn McClarnon.
Death and Other Details: Season One Premiere – January 16
Centered on the “brilliant and restless” Imogene Scott, “Death and Other Details” is a locked room murder mystery set on a lavishly restored Mediterranean Ocean liner, where every guest and every crew member is a suspect. Imogene must team up with her nemesis, Rufus (Mandy Patinkin), “world’s greatest detective” to solve this little crime. Non-binary actor Karoline plays a “very rich lesbian heiress.” Queer actor Lauren Patten also stars.
Peacock’s LGBTQ+ January 2024
Ted: Season One – January 11
This television series set in the ’90s is apparently the prequel to the apparently very popular film Ted, about a dude who’s best friend is a teddy bear who came to life voiced by Seth McFarlane. Max Burkholder is John Bennett (the dude with the best friend) and Giorgia Whigham plays his cousin Blair. And yes there is a storyline that is relevant to your lesbian interests!
The Traitors: Season Two – January 12
The second season of this incredibly popular reality television competition show hosted by queer icon Alan Cumming has a cast chock-full of reality veterans, including the newly-out Survivor winner Parvati Shallow!
Paramount+ Showtime January 2023 Gay Streaming
The Changemakers: Docuseries – January 1
This eight-part documentary series “follows an A-team of impassioned campaigners as they discover the work of several remarkable activists and their respective communities around the world.” Amongst them are Black, queer, feminist migrant Trinice McNally, known for her work around inclusive college campuses.
Basic Instinct (1992) – January 1
Famous for its truly appalling bisexual stereotypes, Sharon Stone stars as a depraved bisexual murderer in this ’90s thriller.
Chasing Amy (1997) – January 1
A film that hits different now than it did back then, Chasing Amy is Kevin Smith’s film about a straight male cartoonist who falls in love with his lesbian pal, Alyssa (a character inspired by Smith’s friend, Guinevere Turner.)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) – January 1
Bisexual hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) helps Journalist Mikael Blomkvist track down a woman who’s been missing for 40 years! This celebrated film is chock-full of trauma, dark mysteries and cold landscapes. It’s possible that Ronney Mara made you gay when you first saw this film, or perhaps you were already gay after seeing Noomi Rapace play Lisbeth in the Swedish film that came out in 2009.
Chloe (2010) – January 8
This erotic thriller finds Julianne Moore hiring a sex worker played by Amanda Seyfried to test her husband’s fidelity but then stuff happens between Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried, obviously.
SkyMed: Season Two – January 11
All nine episodes of this series that “follows the personal journeys and jaw-dropping medical rescues of young medics and pilots who fly air ambulances across Northern Canada” drop January 11th, and the preview is teasing a romance between Lexi (Mercedes Morris) and new character Stef (Sydney Kuhne).
Starz’s January 2024 Lesbian Show
Hightown: Season 3 Premiere – January 26
The final season of this drama series led by queer actor Monica Raymund will see her character, Massachusetts State Trooper Jackie Quiñones, unemployed after falling off the wagon — but her lack of official authoriy won’t stop her from trying to help save “the most often ignored and forgotten victims in Cape Cod, sex workers.”
The 25 Best TV Shows of 2023 with Lesbian, Queer and Trans Characters
I’ve never been more at a loss to describe the year in LGBTQ+ television than I am in 2023. Due in part to the intolerable pay inequity and corporate profit-hoarding that led to lengthy SAG and WGA strikes, many of the year’s television projects were delayed or under-promoted — we had about 40-60 less shows to vote on this year than we typically do, since I began creating this specific iteration of a best-shows end-of-year list in 2019. In fact, the year’s most unifying lesbian television cultural moment isn’t on this list at all, because it was a reality show: Netflix’s The Ultimatum: Queer Love. The other two most widely-watched queer-inclusive shows of this year can be found in the top two of this list.
It was another year of rampant cancellations (including future seasons of community touchstones The L Word: Generation Q and A League of Their Own) and television industry trends overall have made us very jaded about the chances we’ll ever get more than one or two seasons of any gay show. Only seven shows on this list have been renewed for another season at press time, or around 27%. In fact, many of this year’s most buzzy queer-inclusive television events were Limited Series that never aimed for more than a single trip around the sun, like Class of ’09, Dead Ringers, Swarm, The Other Black Girl and Daisy Jones & The Six.
Still, the breadth of options in terms of genre, identities and storytellers was rich in 2023. We had a few delightful surprises in 2023: the ridiculously queer final season of Riverdale, new quirky queer-focused dramedies like Such Brave Girls and Everything Now, haunting and gay-as-fuck Poe adaptation The Fall of the House of Usher and the surprisingly LGBTQ+ debut of XO Kitty. Video-game adaptation The Last of Us was exactly as good as we’d hoped it would be, and Deadloch came straight from Australia into our hearts. We also said goodbye to Top TV List mainstays like Sex Education, Reservation Dogs and A Black Lady Sketch Show. A lot of the lesbian-inclusive shows we talked about the most in 2023 were shows we mostly complained about; like The Morning Show, And Just Like That and Ted Lasso. Yet we lived to watch another day!
So now, here you have it: the best TV shows with lesbian, queer, bisexual women and/or trans characters of 2023, according to our TV Team of me, Carmen, Kayla, Drew, Nic, Natalie and Valerie.
25. The Horror of Dolores Roach (tie)
Prime Video // Season One
Cancelled
“We deserve more weird shit on television. And I’m not talking about just anything weird that’s thrown against the way for weirdness sake. No, we deserve finely crafted, well-tuned, thought out big swings — and no one took bigger swings this year than The Horror of Dolores Roach. A barely adjusted adaptation of Sweeney Todd that takes the famed “demon barber of Fleet Street,” known for slicing his client’s throats and baking them into pies, and sets it a story about the prison industrial complex, recidivism, and gentrification.. all centered on a bisexual Puerto Rican woman in Washington Heights? There is no way that should have worked. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in writing about television, it is to never count Justina Machado out. As Dolores Roach, Machado soars in the madness.
Aaron Mark’s tense, hilarious, stressful, and sometimes manic (said lovingly!) scripts draw parallels between 19th century London and 21st century New York that I never saw coming. And did I mention that queer favorite Michelle Badillo was also in the writers room? Layering on all of these threads, The Horror of Dolores Roach is first and foremost always a Latine story, and the elegant attention to the racial and cultural complexities inherent to that story honestly floored me. What a tremendous swing! It’s too bad that Dolores Roach ended in a blood bath of its own, being cancelled along with two other queer Latine shows (With Love, Shelter) all on the same day.” — Carmen Phillips
25. Fellow Travelers (tie)
Paramount+ Showtime // Limited Series
Ben Mark Holzberg/SHOWTIME.
“The territory tread by Fellow Travelers is, in pieces, not unfamiliar for those of us who’ve watched every LGBTQ+ historical television program and movie ever, who’ve seen a queer community light candles and light up the night after the death of Harvey Milk countless times, who’ve woven through myriad hospital wards filled with dying men and homophobic nurses, who’ve seen multiple actors take on Roy Cohn in all his disgusting ambition. I tuned in to Fellow Travelers because I’d heard it had a Stormé Delarverie — an iconic butch lesbian performer and civil rights icon who’s a far more rare appearance in the cannon. Unfortunately, her character was woefully underused. Outside of the story of Marcus, a Black journalist played be Jelani Alladin, I’m not sure that Fellow Travelers had many new things to say at all. Yet I stuck around and loved every minute, compelled and drawn in to a series packed with nuanced performances and characters torn between political, personal, spiritual and romantic urges. Fellow Travelers deftly avoids sentimentality, but evoked so much of it, like all the best tortured love stories do. I love our history, and all the flawed, terrible, beautiful struggling people who found themselves in its pages.” — Riese
24. A Murder at the End of the World
FX/Hulu // Limited Series
Emma Corin in A Murder at the End of the World
“Since her breakout indie Another Earth in 2011, Brit Marling has been excavating genres. She understands what makes the average entry work and then pulls the usual beats to new terrain. Taking on true crime and murder mysteries, Marling and frequent collaborator Zal Batmanglij have made possibly their boldest and most accomplished work in this seven episode series.
With a stellar cast led by Emma Corrin, Harris Dickinson, and Marling herself, the show has all the intrigue of the genre it’s destroying. It works on the surface; works even better underneath. The twists and turns of the story are motivated by character while also questioning the entire charade of a murder mystery. Why are we so attached to tales of individual killing when mass murder is enacted by the powerful every day? Maybe as a society we’re scared of the wrong things and the wrong people.
There’s no way to talk about the brilliance of this show without revealing its many twists. This is a work that understands artists don’t have to choose between exciting storytelling and a sharp eye on our world.” — Drew Gregory
23. Harley Quinn
Max // Season Four
Renewed
Last Year: #13
“Some shows have a great gay season, pat themselves on the back, then pull back. Not Harley Quinn! This year’s fourth season was as wacky and gay as ever, with Harley joining the Bat Fam and Ivy being the She-EO of The Legion of Doom, the duo has to try to find a work-life balance so they can be their best selves while also keeping their relationship healthy. Things are bonkers all season long but one thing remains true: Harley and Ivy are deeply in love.” — Valerie Anne
22. Daisy Jones & The Six
Prime Video // Limited Series
“It’s hard to explain why Daisy Jones & The Six works. On paper, perhaps, it shouldn’t. Adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name, Daisy Jones has an almost artificial sheen to it — the equivalent of buying a “vintage style” band shirt from a fast fashion store online instead of an actual vintage one found in the basement of a dusty thrift store. By which I mean, it’s (obviously) fake because it’s a television show, but also it feels fake, which should be breaking a cardinal rule about how historical television should work. And yet!
Tucked underneath that haze is one of the best Black queer loves stories last year. Beneath everything that feels fake, is a beating heartbeat of love and Disco that gives nod to a still under-discussed, but very real, core branch of Black queer history. And that’s worthy of pushing past its faults… because it matters. (Also, Daisy Jones & The Six is a really fun time! There’s a reason those fast fashion t-shirts are so popular.)” — Carmen
21. Harlan Coben’s Shelter
Prime Video // Season One
Cancelled
“Harlan Coben’s Shelter sadly joined the graveyard of canceled queer TV shows quite literally one week after I finally binge watched the series. I came for the group of offbeat teens I would end up wanting to Protec, and stayed for the surprising queer adult storyline featuring faves Missi Pyle and Constance Zimmer. At times the show’s core mystery of “what the heck is up with the Bat Lady and all these missing kids?” was a bit convoluted and overstuffed, and the side sex trafficking plot was frustratingly weak; but it’s the characters that kept me coming back for more. Ema’s (Abby Corrigan) gay panic over the possibility of her crush Whitney actually reciprocating her feelings felt real and authentic to the high school experience. And over in adult land, we were treated to a rare burgeoning queer relationship between two grown ass women that gave me the same giddy hope as if they were their teenage selves, who we meet via a series of flashbacks. The relationship between Shira and Hannah could have been played for queer shock value, but after their kiss, we instead got to see them peel back the layers of feelings lingering since high school. I don’t know what Prime Video has against the three queer shows they canceled in one fell swoop, but Aunt Shira and Hannah deserved better!” — Nic
20. Top Boy
Netflix // Season Three
Final Season
Last Year: Didn’t Rank
“Over the course of its three seasons on Netflix, Top Boy had one of the best lesbian slow burns that we’ve seen in ages. Traditionally when we’re discussing “slow burns” in queer television, we are talking about romance. What makes Top Boy stand out from the class — ironically, coming out on “top” — is that Jasmine Jobson’s Jaqueline “Jaq” Lawrence’s character development largely happens away from her romantic entanglements. That’s not to say that her relationship with Becks (Adwoa Aboah) isn’t warm and full, it absolutely is. But it’s Jaq’s relationship with her sister, Lauren (Saffron Hocking), that becomes her most defining. It’s watching Jaq move from a tertiary character in Top Boy’s first season to the key of its unraveling in the third that makes Jobson’s work impossible to turn away from.
Top Boy is one of the best crafted, tightly wound, crime dramas that I’ve seen in easily a decade. It’s nearly a cliche for a television critic to point to a show and say “it’s like The Wire” because we all hold The Wire in such high esteem. So I know how this will sound! But honestly, Top Boy is the closest I’ve come to a show that even breaches The Wire’s airspace. It’s that damn good.” — Carmen
19. Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies
Paramount+ // Season One
Cancelled
“Set in the saddle-shoe-laden, sock-hop-having, shiny musical version of the 50s from the movie Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies employs similar themes of teen drama and relationship angst but with more people of color and queer people. The queer people in question are Cynthia (who wants nothing more than to be a T-Bird) and Lydia (theater queen bee…basically if Sharpay had any chill whatsoever) and they are cute as all heck.” — Valerie
18. Dead Ringers
Prime Video // Limited Series
“This TV adaptation of one of David Cronenberg’s best films harnesses so much of what makes the original equal parts disturbing, erotic, and delirious but also expands the text to be even more exploratory of reproductive justice and experimental science. But most of all, it acts as a perfect vehicle for the ultra talented and alluring Rachel Weisz, who gets to deliver not one but two great performances as the central twin doctors with a fucked up codependent relationship and a tendency to swap identities. She brings specificity and distinction to each role, charming and unsettling all at once.” — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
17. Ginny & Georgia
Netflix // Season Two
Renewed for Season Three
“The second season of Ginny & Georgia is just as stressful and funny and fast-paced and dark and emotional as the first. The show is brilliantly acted, with a cast that pulls out all the stops to explore tumultuous teenage emotions and complicated parent/child relationships. Our resident lesbian Max is a rainbow ball of chaos, fighting with her friends, pining for her ex, and failing to see the cute costume girl flirting with her, being hilariously Max all the while.” — Valerie
16. The Afterparty
Apple TV+ // Season Two
Cancelled
Last Year: Didn’t Rank
“The Afterparty proved its gimmicky premise isn’t too limiting by delivering a second round of mini parodies parroting various film styles. In fact, season two improves upon the first by leaning less into the copaganda and more into queerness, the Wes Anderson-spoofing episode centering new gay character Hannah easily a standout in the season of silly spoofs. Poppy Liu was a highlight in two very different queer series this year — Dead Ringers and The Afterparty — and their comedic chemistry with weirdo Anna Konkle makes for a surprisingly sweet subplot in a fun murder mystery.” — Kayla
15. Survival of the Thickest
Netflix // Season One
Not Yet Renewed or Cancelled
“Survival of the Thickest is the kind of show that I quite simply love to love. It’s a pinnacle of what I consider to be “happy place television” — and before you mock me for bringing joy for pure joy’s sake into the conversation, may I remind you that each of us have our own version of happy TV, it’s likely what brought us to loving television in the first place. For some its sci-fi or genre shows, for others its horny bodice-ripping historical dramas, soap operas. The thing that allows you to sit mindlessly at the end of a day with your bra off (if you wear one). I grew up with a steady stream of 00s rom-coms and Carrie Bradshaw teetering on high heels down Madison Avenue, so watching Michelle Buteau create and star in one of the best romantic comedies that I’ve seen on TV in years, a celebration of “big titties and freckles” that seamlessly pulls of being both nostalgic and an entirely fresh take on the genre? With queer talent like E.R. Fightmaster in the writers room and Peppermint on screen?? I wish that Survival of the Thickest had given Tasha Smith’s Marley, Buteau’s bisexual best friend, more screen time. But as a whole it’s hard not to give Michelle Buteau her due, she repped for the big girls this year and I raise my cosmo to her.” — Carmen
14. Everything Now
Netflix // Season One
Not Yet Renewed or Cancelled
“One of the more complex and empathetic depictions of an eating disorder I’ve seen on television, Everything Now succeeds at making its protagonist Mia neither victim nor villain, complicating her actions at every turn. It’s a show about the way we hurt people we care about, the way we keep showing up for people we care about even when they’ve hurt us. There’s a fun little queer love triangle at its heart, too, but I’m especially interested in the familial dynamics and friend group in this frankly underrated show.” — Kayla
13. Riverdale
The CW // Season Seven
Final Season
Last Year: Didn’t Rank
Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — © 2023 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
“Riverdale is a unique long-running teen soap in the sense that I genuinely believe its best seasons are its first and its last. The series often, especially in its later seasons, blew things up and reinvented itself (sometimes literally, with bombs), but season seven does that most strikingly, sending its characters back in time as well as in age for what at first blush looks like a redo of season one’s simple high school drama dressed up in 50s drag but actually turns out to be a surprisingly of-the-moment exploration of the ways society attempts to stifle teen expression and sexuality. It is, of course, also just full of absurdity, musical numbers, and over-the-top plotting, but it’s pure camp, a bold and borderline experimental show that’s easy to mock but actually quite unlike anything else in its genre.” — Kayla
12. Heartstopper
Netflix // Season Two
Renewed for Season Three
Last Year: #12
“What can I say about the wholesome splendor of Netflix’s Heartstopper other than “I CAN’T STOP SMILING HOW ARE THEY ALL SO CUTE?!” Season 1 was one of the queerest things I had ever seen in my whole life, and somehow in season 2, they managed to out-queer themselves by spending even more time with the supporting cast, including a beautiful storyline wherein Isaac discovers his asexuality. Our couples are still as happy and in love as they were last season, but with some added relationship growing pains. Charlie is determined to help Nick’s coming out to be less traumatic than his own, while Tara and Darcy grapple with how to verbally express their feelings for one another. And while Elle and Tao finally explore and name their feelings for each other, Elle also finds new comfort in two trans friends at the new art school she’ll be attending. The thing about Heartstopper is that it’s probably too idealistic and sweet and gentle for some people, and that’s okay! Sometimes it’s nice to live in a space where queerness isn’t constantly under attack; where it can be cheesy and saccharine. Plus, if needing Olivia Colman’s gentle and understanding parenting and unconditional love for her child in my life is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” — Nic
11. A Black Lady Sketch Show
Max // Season Four
Cancelled
Last Year: #5
“A few weeks ago when Adele’s picture from The Hollywood Reporter‘s “Women In Entertainment” issue surfaced on the internet, writer/podcaster/Autostraddle contributor Jon Paul joked, “It’s giving Dr. Haddassah Olayinka Ali-Youngman, Pre-PhD.” A Black Lady Sketch Show star and creator Robin Thede channeled her infamous character and shot back, “SEE, SEE, SEE… the ONLY Adele I recognize is Adele Givens! THIS Adele is just GIVENS us cultural appropriation!” The brief exchange made me double over with laughter and miss ABLSS anew.
The show wrapped up its four season run this year but it remained at its creative peak. It continued to integrate queer characters into sketches, without making their sexuality or gender presentation the point or the punchline. But while I’m remiss that we won’t get another chapter of classic sketches like Courtroom Kiki or the Coral Reefs Gang, the true legacy of ABLSS lies in the number of black women it gave space to…women who will, no doubt, continue to keep us laughing.” — Natalie
10. Such Brave Girls
Hulu // Season One
Not Yet Renewed or Cancelled
“Gross-out comedy at its finest, Such Brave Girls mines unlikely material for laugh-out-loud comedy. Its characters are all either self-absorbed or self-destructive or a combination of the two, all afflicted with anxiety, obsession, and insecurity. This dysfunctional family of two sisters and a single mother are delightful to watch, even as they’re tearing each other down or making life harder for themselves. Watching it feels like getting punched in the mouth.” — Kayla
9. Poker Face
Peacock // Season One
Renewed for Season Two
“Charlie Cale has a gift (or a curse, depending on your vantage point): she can tell when someone is lying. But when her gift runs afoul of some gangsters — she implicates them in the murder of her best friend — she’s forced to hit the road in her Plymouth Barracuda, keeping distance between herself and those who want her dead. Along the way, Charlie stops to earn some money or get some food and unwittingly finds herself enmeshed in a local murder mystery. In anyone else’s hands, this show might be another basic procedural with its case of the week, but Rian Johnson reinvents the genre and Natasha Lyonne awes as the enigmatic Charlie.
But what makes Poker Face truly special are the rotating cast of guest stars. From Hong Chau as a queer long-haul trucker to Cherry Jones as a movie producer turned serial killer, it’s a veritable Murderers’ Row of talent. Each episode is tightly crafted, never allowing the case of the week ensembles to distract from Charlie’s quest to unspool the lies she’s been told.” — Natalie
8. XO Kitty
Netflix // Season One
Renewed for Season Two
“XO, Kitty is a story about a girl who travels across the world, in part, for a boy. She — that is, the titular Kitty Song Covey — is seeking the fairytale ending to her “against all odds” love story with the boy she met while on vacation. You’re forgiven if you by-passed XO, Kitty thinking it was all about the straights.
But what Kitty actually finds in Korea isn’t an affirmation of love as she’s always known it: she finds that love can just as easily be the thing you never, ever expected. Yuri starts off as the show’s antagonist, the person standing between Kitty that that fairytale ending that she imagined. But slowly, Yuri’s character deepens and Kitty’s feelings for her grow along with it. The crush is unanticipated and overwhelming, in the way that first crushes always are, and it is a delight to watch.” — Natalie
7. Minx
Starz // Season Two
Not Yet Renewed or Cancelled
Last Year: #17
“Thank the lord that Starz rescued the second season of this smart show about a second-wave feminist go-getter’s adventure into making a porn mag for women, because the sophomore season is when everyone in the ensemble can get their time to shine. Minx is just so sexy and funny and so is Shelly, who’s grappling with what she really wants, sexually and career-wise and with her family, as she reaches a mid-life crossroads at a very different place than she anticipated. Jessica Lowe’s Bambi remains one of television’s sharpest uncut gems, and her friendship with gay photographer Richie is so real and heartwarming. A magazine’s founder might have a vision but she’s nothing without the big personalities who sign on for the ride, in reality or in the stories we tell about it.” — Riese
6. Deadloch
Prime Video // Season One
Not Yet Renewed or Cancelled
“Stories that showcase queer community in all its messy fullness — the rocky marriages and the idealized ones, the exes, the old hurts and the shared joys, the weird little group activities — tend to take place in prison, in high school or in a major queer urban hub (Los Angeles, New York, London). But Deadloch is just a small, sleepy town on the coast of Tasmania where everybody knows everybody else and, for no particular reason, there are so many lesbians. So there’s that, but there’s also a genuinely intriguing murder mystery tearing through the town, delightful, self-referential, smart humor and characters that worm their way right into your heart. One of the year’s most delightful surprises.” — Riese
5. Sex Education
Netflix // Season Four
FInal Season
Last Year: #6
“To me, the loveliest aspect of television as a medium is how an audience can grow alongside a work. Each season, checking back in with characters and a world with new personal change.
When the first season of Sex Education came out, I was two years into transitioning, going through a breakup, and exploring my queer and feminine sexuality for the first time. Laurie Nunn’s artful, tender show acted as a guide, a reminder that sex was important and a reassurance that it wasn’t. There’s no judgment in her world, just characters working to be better and working to better understand their bodies and desires.
It’s now almost five years later and the show’s final season was a worthy end. As I grew into myself, so did the show, pushing itself to be even more inclusive and to take more formal risks. Sex isn’t about perfection — it’s about experimentation, pleasure, and connection. The show’s final — admittedly a tad overstuffed — season encapsulates this truth. Season one may have been perfect, but season four lets itself be imperfect. That’s an even greater achievement for a show. It’s an even greater achievement for any of us.” — Drew
4. Reservation Dogs
FX/Hulu // Season Three
Final Season
Last Year: #6
“In its final season, Reservation Dogs pivots from being a story primarily about four indigenuous teenagers to one about the community in which they inhabit. The show recalls the past that haunts them — episode three’s focus on the horror of Native boarding schools is a standout — and begins to imagine a future with Elora, Bear, Willie Jack and Cheese carrying on the traditions. As it has for its entire run, Reservation Dogs volleys between happiness and sadness, grief and gratitude, and seriousness and humor to outstanding effect.
For my money, it’ll go down as one of the greatest shows, not just of 2023, but of all time.” — Natalie
3. The Last Of Us
HBO Max // Season One
Renewed For Season Two
Last Year: Didn’t Air
“When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” It’s a phrase used by the Fireflies, a resistance organization in the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, to recruit others to their cause. In a weird way, it also happens to represent how I made it through 2023. “The light” can be so many things; literal brightness, people who make us feel safe, or even media that reminds us that we’re not alone. For me, this show will always be that last thing.
I’ve written many many words on this here website about TLOU, and it’s no secret that the combination of the video game and TV series results in one of my favorite stories of all time. It’s one of hope, family, love, and at times…desperation. Sure, it’s also about a zombie apocalypse, but that almost feels secondary to the humanness of it all. And at the core is the relationship between Joel and Ellie, and their journey from essentially co-workers to family (in a good way, not the way corporations say it). The first season of the show also gave us the beautiful sweeping love story of Bill and Frank, a couple whose depth was impossible to portray in the video game, that changed strawberries for me forever (IYKYK). Throughout Joel and Ellie’s journey we learn about the people and circumstances that informed who they are as individuals; including Ellie’s best friend and crush, Riley, in a flashback episode that makes me cry every single time I watch it.
To be able to exist at the same time as this story is told feels like a dream and a privilege. And knowing what I know about Part II of the game, season 2 is about to get a whole lot gayer.” — Nic
2. The Fall of the House of Usher
Netflix // Limited Series
“The latest Mike Flanagan joint is like if Edgar Allen Poe wrote Succession, with writing like poetry and acting to blow your socks off and so. many. queer. characters. It’s almost like Mike Flanagan is trying to one-up his own self with how many queer characters he can add to his shows. We’ve got queer people making mistakes, queer people behaving badly, queer people being mysterious, just, all the queer people, and all the feelings.” — Valerie
1. Yellowjackets
Showtime // Season Two
Renewed For Season Three
Last Year: Didn’t Air
“It was a tough feat to follow up its near perfect first season that had everyone buzzing, but Yellowjackets managed to avoid a sophomore slump, even if its second season was a bit more divisive among fans than its first. As someone doing super detailed recaps and close readings of the show every week, I found it just as meaty :wink: this year, and some aspects of the show even grew in surprising ways. In season two, the performances from the younger, lesser known actors were truly just as strong as those of the more experienced talent, with Sophie Nélisse in particular becoming a highlight of the incredibly stacked cast. Meeting Adult Van was a highly anticipated moment that did not disappoint, and the series continued to prove the most compelling mysteries are the ones that can’t really be solved.” — Kayla
9 of the Best Queer Animation Wins of 2023
2023 was a spectacular year for inclusivity in animation. We said goodbye to many legendary queer characters and said hello to the new who captured our hearts. Across the film and television landscape, whether aimed at kids or adults, 2023 in animation took things to the next level. Nimona was finally set free through her fantastic movie, Harlivy had a daughter (more or less), and Scott Pilgrim’s updated anime rewrote Ramona’s bisexual identity for the better.
Here are ten *looks at Velma.* NINE, nine queer animation WINS from this year. I’m sorry there aren’t any anime or RWBY here, I don’t have a Crunchyroll account and you can’t convince me to get one.
Captain Laserhawk Makes Ubisoft Go Ubihard
Captain Laserhawk is a badass adult-action animated series that takes all the Ubisoft properties (FarCry, Assassins Creed, Rayman) and goes full Roger Rabbit in terms of originality meets internal property, with an edgy Suicide Squad premise. A rogue, cybernetic metahuman finds himself working as a mercenary for the government with a motley crew of criminals after his boyfriend/crime partner betrays him and leaves him for dead. As if you’re in a purple-infused techno rave on poppers, its 90s-retro, cyberpunk environment is full of exhilarating action and humor. It’s an environment where family-friendly Rayman goes on a murderous rampage, and you don’t even bat an eye at it at all.
Fionna & Cake Canonizes Gary and Marshall Lee’s Yaoi Romance
Adventure Time had been playing with multiverses long before Jobu Tupaki touched her first everything bagel, or Spidey swung to change animation history. In the millennial-oriented series Fionna & Cake, the gender-reversed versions of iconic girlfriends Marceline and Princess Bubblegum, Marshall Lee (voiced by Donald Glover) and Gary (voiced by Andrew Rannells), stir up in a heartwarming affair in the cityscape version of Ooo. While their mutual best friend, Fionna, is on a traumatizing multidimensional adventure across time and space, they eventually encounter each other and hang out. A blossoming slow-burn relationship between them forms in the wake of her absence. Its winter setting evokes a cozy Richard Curtis-like feel. I’ve never seen Love Actually, so Marshall Lee and Gary falling for each other throughout a few episodes will suffice.
Nimona Got Her Goddamn Movie Made, and It’s Great
In 2021, Disney’s homophobic asses shut down Blue Sky Studios, which was deep into production Nimona, the story about the little shapeshifting girl getting her anti-hero boss acquitted for a crime he didn’t commit, based on the comic by ND Stevenson. Cut to shortly after, a mere few months, and Nimona was resurrected by the British (DNEG Animation) faster than her body could even decompose. Her movie is a transgressive triumph that pushes the means of identity and tolerance with a phenomenal trans allegory, bottled in a heartful steampunk gay ol’ thrill ride. While she flies high on 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, the latest Disney animated release, Wish couldn’t even climb to a fresh ranking — sitting at a whopping 48%. Wish is the first negatively reviewed Disney flick since Chicken Little. Nimona got her last laugh.
Steven Universe Turned Ten
Wow, the crystal gems are gay elders now. Yup, Steven Universe turned ten years old. Say what you will about Rebecca Sugar’s sci-fi pacifistic charged series, but it was groundbreaking for LGBTQ+ visibility in children’s media. Sugar battled through thick and thin with their ukelele to explore complex LGBTQ themes revolving around same-sex relationships and gender inclusivity, making iconic strides in animation history. Fans like myself can rest knowing its story is definitively concluded and won’t have to suffer a strenuous hiatus for episode drops.
Todd Ingram Falls Into a Wells
Everyone I know speaks about Envy Adams in the Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World movie as the foreshadowing of their bisexuality. The character’s boyfriend, Todd Ingrim, kissing Wallace Wells sparks his own bi-flame within the confines of the remarkable anime, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. During the mockumentary-styled episode “Lights. Camera. Sparks?!” Wallace slyly enchants Todd while shooting the in-universe Scott Pilgrim movie. Let’s say Wallace banged the vegan out of him, leaving Todd down so bad he proclaims to be in love with Wallace Wells for three days longer than he felt with Envy in their over a decade as a couple, revealing a tattoo of him on his body. And all while Envy was present for that declaration! Sadly, those sparks weren’t reciprocated, but I’m here for the Todd and Wallace OTP.
Ramona and Roxie Get a Rewrite
Significantly updating its source material, the excellent Scott Pilgrim Takes Off episode “Ramona Rents a Video” rewrites Ramona Flowers’ bisexuality from more than a bi-furious punchline (as iconic as it is). Ramona and Roxie duke it out in a video store, but this time, Ramona atones for her past mistakes. We get a glimpse of their romance while they were roommates, emphasis on “mates.” She apologizes and receives closure. I can spend a thousand words detailing how “Ramona Rents a Video” is a remarkable turning point for the show’s direction and tonal maturity, but alas, this will be a big ol W of its own.
The Owl House Casts a Perfect Spell With Its Finale
The Owl House creator Dana Terrace had to go through their demon realm at the Mouse House in the past few years to tell a complex tale about a queer teenage human becoming a witch in their manner. Despite the show’s increasing popularity, Owl House was given three 45-minute specials masked as a third season to wrap up its tale. Through its final slew of episodes, Terrace and her team stuck the landing in completing Luz’s arc to becoming the good witch she trained to be in an epic climax. Between having their first bisexual lead and striking the first same-sex romance for the Disney Channel with Luz and Amity, The Owl House will be the most progressive, transgressive series that’ll go down in Disney Channel history. Disney never deserved Luz Noceda in the first place.
Neytiri. No, Not the Avatar Character, Harley and Ivy’s Daughter, Duh!
When Harlivy started, Showrunners Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker said they’d never break up. Season 4 is another testament to that declaration as the series continues its strong streak in delving into Batman’s rogue’s gallery of villains facing identity dilemmas. Harly Quinn season 4 takes Harlivy into the future, where they meet their daughter, whom they called Natiryi. Another Schumacher and Halpern W right there. Granted, they fought her because of apocalypse stuff, but hey, Harly and Ivy procreated, and it’s canon. Or it’s not because they ended up preventing the apocalypse from happening. They have or HAD a daughter.
Pixar’s Globby, I Mean Lake
Perhaps it was the worst timing for Disney to announce that they have a minor non-binary water character in Elemental right off the heels of The Other Two’s biting Disney satirical takedown with a pile of glob. That being said, Pixar has been fighting for queer visibility in their movies for a long time (cc: Alisha Hawthorne’s onscreen kiss in Lightyear). Despite Wade Ripple’s sibling Lake, voiced by a non-binary voice actor Kai Ava Hauser, having little screen time, they are indeed the first Pixar non-binary character. If only Pixar could have some future stories that center around out-queer characters. No shade to my favorite sea creature, son Luca. He is innocent.
Apple TV+’s Best TV Shows With Queer Characters
Apple TV+ is a streaming service still building its identity and they’re still best-known for Ted Lasso and The Morning Show. They only release a few new programs every month, and nearly everything they produce has a high production value and a strong visual imprint. There’s a lot of high-concept sci-fi, sprawling international casts and big-name actors. You won’t find any teen soaps or mainstream drama, but they love to send people into space or underground.
As the smallest player in the streaming space; Apple TV+’s offerings are not quite robust yet when it comes to lesbian, bisexual and trans women and nonbinary people, but there is still a lot there for LGBTQ+ TV shows on Apple TV — like Acapulco, Dickinson, Mythic Quest, Bad Sisters, For All Mankind and The Afterparty.
Due to the relatively small number of shows on the platform, pretty much every show with a queer woman in it is on this list, because there are so few! So… one of the shows included on this list received an absolute pan from our reviewer, that there are at least three queer characters accounted for by the below list whose storylines could be easily described through the lens of “queer character tropes we hate.” But one thing is for sure: someone spent a lot of money on these shows!!!!! Good luck out there!
Acapulco
Year: 2021-
Length: 2 Seasons, 20 Episodes
Our winning narrator Maximo (Enrique Arrizon) is coming-of-age as the newest employee of Los Colinas in the 1980s, a bustling resort in the titular Mexican beach town that has an uneasy relationship with its locals. Charming and visually delightful, Acapulco wins you over with its big beating heart, easily shifting between English and Spanish throughout. Maximo’s rebellious sister, Sara (Regina Reynoso), falls in love with her (thankfully also queer) best friend and the two are challenged by their homophobic families in their quest to be happy together.
The Afterparty
Year: 2022 – 2023
Length: 2 Seasons, 18 Episodes
A stylized and clever whodunit stacked with comedic talent, Season Two of The Afterparty is where things get really queer. Weirdo tech titan groom Edgar is murdered the night of his wedding, and the guests all point fingers at each other — amongst them is Hannah (Anna Konkle), Edgar’s adopted sister, who had an affair with his bride Grace (played by queer actor Poppy Liu). Each character gets an episode produced in a specific cinematic style, and Hannah’s is especially excellent. As Kayla writes, “The Wes Andersonification of her sprawling queer romance is apt for who she is, and it makes for a comedic episode, yes, but also a very immersive and occasionally strikingly earnest one.”
Read Kayla’s piece about The Afterparty’s Season Two finale and its serving up of a Sapphic Wes Anderson Spoof.
Bad Sisters
Year: 2022 –
Length: One season, 10 Episodes
Wry and warm and funny and rich; this Irish series co-starring and co-created by Sharon Hogan finds four sisters trying desperately to off John Paul the insufferable, abusive gutter-scum husband of the fifth. Sarah Greene is Bibi Garvey, the second-youngest sister and a married lesbian who lost her right eye in a car crash in a tale as dark as it is warm. Although we sadly didn’t write a standalone review of its first season, that was not for a lack of love: Bad Sisters easily made our list of the Best TV Shows of 2022, where it was described as a “MASTERPIECE in television.”
The Big Door Prize
Year: 2022 –
Length: One season, 10 Episodes
This project from the EP of Schitt’s Creek is based on a book in which a small town grocery is suddenly gifted with a machine, Morpho, that is seemingly able to predict the “Life Potential” of its users. Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) and Cass (Gabrielle Dennis) and their daughter are the central family in this tale, but Heather writes that “The Big Door Prize succeeds because it opens up the entire town for viewers, with each new episode focusing on a different character and the card they received from the MORPHO.” Amongst them is Izzy, Cass’s lesbian mother.
Read Heather’s “The Big Door Prize” Features a Middle Age Lesbian Mommi and Existential Promise.
The Buccaneers
Year: 2023
Length: One Season, 8 Episodes
Queer trans actress Josie Totah is Mabel Elmsworth, a lesbian in a group of noveau riche daughters of prominent American families in the1870s who travel to London to find husbands. After an immediate culture clash there are also balls and kissing in the rain and telegrams. Based on an unfinished Edith Wharton novella, Drew lamented that it ultimately “fails to capture Wharton’s voice and, more disastrously, fails to find a voice of its own.”
Read Drew’s pan of The Buccaneers: Apple TV+’s “The Buccaneers” Ruins Edith Wharton and Fails History.
Dickinson
Year: 2019-2021
Length: 3 Seasons, 30 Episodes
“Let’s take everything we thought we knew about Emily Dickinson, tear it up, wave the lens of a teen comedy over it and see what crazy hijinks we get up to,” writes Sally of this delightfully queer, inventive, three-season series that’s amongst the best Apple TV has to offer our people.
Read Apple TV’s “Dickinson” Is an Angsty, Gay, Absurd Delight and “Dickinson” Season 2 Is an Ode to Emily and Sue.
For All Mankind
Year: 2019 –
Length: 4 Seasons, 35 Episodes
This re-imagining of American history in which “the global space race had never ended” opens in 1969 with the Soviet Union beating the U.S. to the moon, devastating NASA and the national mood. When the Soviets one-up themselves by sending a woman into space, NASA does its own diversity push, making room for astronauts like Jodi Balfour’s Ellen Waverly, a closeted lesbian. Every season of this vivid alternate world opens with a time jump, first to the 1980s, then the 1990s (Balfour’s last) before Season 4 makes it to the 2000s.
Read Valerie’s review: For All Mankind’s Lesbian Love Story Is Literally Flung Out of Space.
Invasion
Year: 2021 –
Length: 2 Seasons, 20 Episodes
Somehow one of two TV shows to send an astronaut into space who is having a secret lesbian affair with someone on the ground team for her mission, Invasion follows five people on different sides of the world gradually coming to grips with an experiencing the impact of a mysterious convergence of events causing death and destruction everywhere. (It’s Because Aliens, but it takes an entire season for them to officially reveal to the viewer what the show description already spoiled for all of us.) Queer scientist Mitsuki (Shiori Kutsuna) is a captivating and complex character that makes the whole thing worth watching.
The Last Thing He Told Me
Year: 2023
Length: One Season, 7 Episodes
Based on a thriller one might enjoy reading on a long flight, The Last Thing He Told Me stars Jennifer Garner as Hannah, a woman desperately seeking her just-disappeared husband and uncovering lots of little secrets in the process (as well as a surprisingly intimate relationship with her stepdaughter, Bailey). Aisha Tyler is Jules Nichols, Hannah’s lesbian journalist best friend who helps Hannah in her search for the truth!
Read Valerie’s review: Aisha Tyler Plays Gay Again in “The Last Thing He Told Me”.
Little Voice
Year: 2020
Length: One Season, 9 Episodes
Sara Bareills wrote original music for this incredibly earnest and lighthearted series about Bess, young woman looking for love and writing songs in a very sanitized New York City. Her roommate, Prisha (Shalini Bathina) has a heartwarming little gay storyline.
Loot
Year: 2022 – present
Length: 1 Season, 10 episodes
Maya Rudolph stars as Molly, a woman who becomes the third-wealthiest woman in the United Sates after earning an $87 million dollar divorce settlement from her cheating tech billionaire husband. She elects to re-engage with the world and the charitable foundation she’d long neglected with the help of her team — including trans actress Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as Sofia Salinas and beloved gay comic/actor Joel Kim Booster as Nicholas.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Year: 2023 –
Length: 1 Season, 10 episodes
In this Monsterverse TV series, Anna Sawai is Cate Randa, a middle school science teacher in San Francisco and a lesbian who, while looking for her missing father Hiroshi, finds her half-brother and learns of her father’s involvement in Monarch, a covert organization tracking Godzilla. They travel with her brother’s ex, May, a hacker played by queer actor Kiersey Clemons — who eventually in my opinion develops some sexual tension with May! The show hops between two timelines; the past timeline tells the story of Cate’s grandparents, scientists involved with Monarch’s earliest development. Lee Shaw (Kurt Russel) appears in both timelines as a close ally to the Randa family.
The Morning Show
Year: 2019 – present
Length: 3 seasons, 30 episodes
Oh, The Morning Show — a big headliner for Apple TV overstuffed with marquee names like Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, anchored by talent like Greta Lee, Holland Taylor and Karen Pittman. The Morning Show takes viewers behind the scenes of a major TV network’s signature early AM news program and its anchors and its scandals. In Season Two, noted terrible person Julianna Margulies joins the cast as a lesbian love interest for Reese Witherspoon’s bisexual feminist whippersnapper anchor, Bradley Jackson.
Mythic Quest
Year: 2020 – present
Length: 3 Seasons, 30 Episodes
Valerie described this show set in the quirky office of a video game development company producing a popular fantasy MMO as “funny and heartfelt and goofy, and really just exactly the kind of binge I needed in these stressful times.” In addition to having some great queer female characters and a satisfying romantic storyline, “it uses humor to shine a light on things like the lack of women in game development roles and the struggles female gamers face from toxic fandoms, all without MAKING light of them.”
Read Valerie’s review of Mythic Quest’s Queer Season 2 Storyline/a>, which got her “gamer girl high score.”
Pinecone & Pony
Year: 2022 – present
Length: 2 Seasons, 16 Episodes
Pinecone and her pony face trolls, giants, dragons and a dangerous rope bridge in this animated series that Heather Hogan called “the most wholesome queer TV show I have ever seen!” Heather specifically loved the relationship between Gladys and Wren (Wren’s a nonbinary character played by nonbinary actor Ser Anzoategui), “one of the few queer couples I can think of, in all TV history, where both characters are POC, both are older, and both are fat.”
Read Heather’s Apple TV+’s “Pinecone & Pony” Season 2 Is Wholesome Queer Content.
Severance
Year: 2022 – present
Length: One Season, 9 Episodes
This show does not have any queer female characters BUT, it has one of the most charming gay male storylines I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness, and it’s one of the best television shows I’ve ever seen. Adam Scott is Mark S., an employee of Lumon Industries who has agreed to a “severance” program in which his non-work memories don’t exist within his working mind. Amongst his fellow employees is Irving Baliff (John Turtoro), who loves rules and develops a connection with Optics and Design head Burt (Christopher Walken). Queer actor Jen Tullock is Devon, Mark’s pregnant sister.
Ted Lasso
Year: 2020 – 2023
Length: 3 Seasons, 34 Episodes
The comedy that put Apple TV on the map, Ted Lasso’s first season was a nearly perfect production about an American football coach going through a tough time with a positive attitude hired to take over an English soccer team. Keely (Juno Temple), who enters the season as the girlfriend of hot-headed legend Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and eventually becomes its marketing manager, is bisexual, and in the third season she gets a little (and ultimately lacking) storyline with venture capitalist Jack Danvers (Jodi Balfour).
Read Heather’s first post about Ted Lasso confirming Keely’s bisexuality, and its Jane Austen Catastrophe and Riese’s review of its overall lesbian storyline.
Truth Be Told
Year: 2021 – 2023
Length: 3 Seasons, 28 Episodes
A pretty formulaic thriller helmed by Ocatvia Spencer, who plays an Oakland journalist who restarts a true crime podcast that made her famous to investigate a1999 murder case of a local professor. It’s Season Three when things finally get gay — Poppy works with a lesbian high school principal, played by Gabrielle Union, to investigate the disappearances of several young black girls. It doesn’t end well, but also, Gabrielle Union is playing a lesbian.
Read weekly recaps of “Truth Be Told” on our Boobs on Your Tube column.
Visible: Out on Television
Year: 2020
Length: 5-part miniseries
This docuseries is clearly incredibly relevant to our interests here, but it’s also very good! Combining archival footage with interviews of LGBTQ+ TV actors, writers and directors, Visible: Out on Television is narrated by Janet Mock, Margaret Cho, Asia Kate Dillon, Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Waithe.
Read Heather’s review: “Visible: Out on Television” Is a Must-See Docuseries on the History of LGBTQ Representation on TV
December 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Hulu, Max, Starz, Shudder and Peacock
Ho Ho Ho Happy Holidays to everybody in the whole world, but especially to people who are reading this post in search of new December 2023 streaming television and film events airing on the various networks to which we subscribe and featuring lesbian, bisexual and queer female characters and/or trans characters! Come sweet children of the winter harvest and let’s see what the world has in store for us!
Top Row: Familia, Cindy la Regia: The High School Years, Friends & Family Christmas, Such Brave Girls
Bottom Row: Under Pressure, We Live Here, Rebel Moon, The Knife Before Christmas, Blue Jean, Power Book III: Raising Kanan
What’s New and Gay on Netflix in December 2023
Blockers (2018) – December 1
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.
Black Swan (2010) – December 1
Ballet! Homoeroticism! Natalie Portman! Swans! Mila Kunis!
Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team (2023) – December 12
This documentary follows the U.S Women’s Soccer Team on their 2023 journey to the World Cup, a time in which they were hoping and dreaming to win a third championship in a row but did not. Watch the trailer for Under Pressure.
Familia (2023) – December 12
Leo, the family patriarch who lives alone with his son Benny, brings his whole family together once a month to catch up over a meal hosted in a resplendent landscape — and this time he wants to talk to his three daughters about the future of his idyllic olive farm. One of those daughters is pregnant and won’t say who the father is and also has brought her possible-girlfriend to the farm! Said maybe-girlfriend takes pictures and has tattoos. Watch the trailer for Familia.
Cindy la Regia: The High School Years: Season One – December 20
Cindy wants to conquer the world! But then her crown is taken away! In this Mexican television series, CIndy must survive high school and the pressure of the high society of San Pedro Garza García. Her friends are by her side forever. One of them is a lesbian!!!! Cindy is like, “I’ve never met a lesbian before,” and her friend is like, “you’ve known me all your life, stop it!” Ultimately they will challenge the rules of love and be unstoppable. Watch the trailer for “Cindy la Regia: The High School Years”
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) – December 22
A peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy is threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, but a hot myseterious strangers, Kora (Sofia Boutella) rises up to become the villagers’ best hope for survival. She must assemble a band of warriors — “outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge.” Amongst them is Milius, played by nonbinary actor E.Duffy. Milius is a nonbinary refugee from a farming world that chose to cooperate with their tyrants rather than resist and ended up demolished. Snyder told Vanity Fair that Milius’s strength is their heart — they have the “purest” motives — just wanting to defend this world ’cause they weren’t able to defend or save their own. Watch The Rebel Moon trailer.
Star Trek: Prodigy (Season 1) – December 25
The first season of this animated Star Trek series, originally launched on Paramount+, is being added to Netflix in anticipation of its second season hitting Netflix exclusively in 2024. The series aimed at kiddos has been applauded for its non-binary character, Zero. Zero is a Medusan, an energy-based species that has no gender or corporeal form (living the dream, honestly).
Queer on Max in December 2023
Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023) – December 5th
Queer photographer, filmmaker and journalist Amanda Mustard turns the lens around to her own family in this stirring documentary, investigating sexual abuse crimes committed by her grandfather. Watch the trailer for Great Photo, Lovely Life.
Hulu’s December 2023 LGBTQ+ Content
We Live Here: The Midwest: Season One – December 6
This docuseries profiles families who’ve established deep roots in communities they sometimes struggle to exist within: a trans/queer family with five kids in Iowa who’ve been expelled from their church; a Black gay couple in Nebraska whose daughter is testing the line of acceptance; a lesbian couple in Kansas whose son is being homeschooled on their farm after being bullied in school; a gay teacher in Ohio building safe spaces for LGBTQ+ kids and a Minnesota couple rebuilding their families after transitioning. Watch the trailer for We Live Here: The Midwest.
Blue Jean (2022) – December 14
It’s 1988 in the UK and Thatcherism has the country focused on traditional values. Jean is a netball coach and PE teacher who’s closeted at school and has a thriving queer community at home — but those worlds collide when she sees a student at her local gay bar, and the student sees her, putting her job at risk. “The triumph of Blue Jean is that it takes time showing the queer lives at stake,” writes Drew. “This is not a dour film. It has hot lesbian sex, sweaty snapshots of queer bars, and, ultimately, portrays the power of community.”
Such Brave Girls: Season One – December 15
Produced by A24, Such Brave Girls is a “loosely autobiographical” British sitcom described by star and creator Kat Sadler as “a family sitcom about trauma” and a show about “being narcissistic losers who are pathetically obsessed with what people think about us.” Sadler plays Josie, a character with a lot of mental health struggles, a possessive boyfriend and a burning crush on a woman. “There is a particular joy in seeing a woman-led, female-written show that doesn’t pull its punches and revels in plumbing the depths,” writes The Guardian. Watch the trailer for Such Brave Girls.
Letterkenny: Complete Season 12 – December 26
The final season of this cult hit Canadian community is set in an eccentric rural community in Canada full of very funny people, including several queer characters.
Peacock’s Gay Movies for November 2023
All of the brand-new Hallmark content on Peacock is added to Peacock the day after it airs on the Hallmark channel and is subsequently removed three days later. So watch them right away okay
Commitment To Life (2023) – December 1
This documentary looks at the fight against HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles through its community and activists but with a specific focus on Hollywood, and “how an intrepid group of people living with HIV/AIDS, doctors, movie stars, studio moguls and activists changed the course of the epidemic.” Watch the Commitment To Life trailer.
Kajillionaire (2020) – December 1
Miranda July’s super strange movie about a quirky family of petty criminals stars Evan Rachel Wood as 26-year-old Old Dolio, who even as an adult remains in an emotionally manipulative relationship with her parents, who treat her like an accomplice rather than a daughter. Things get complicated when the family ropes Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) into their next heist, and a weird relationship begins building between Old Dolio and Melanie.
Round and Round (2023) – December 11 (Hallmark)
Maybe this is incredibly wishful thinking but if the oil burned for eight whole nights then it certainly feels possible that there is a minor lesbian character in this Hanukkah time loop Hallmark movie? Because if you look in the back of this picture… there’s a lesbian couple there! Queer actor Jess Smith plays “Bex” in this film, and straight people aren’t named Bex. Anyhow Louis Litt from Suits is in this movie in which Rachel is stuck in a time loop reliving the night of her parents’ Hanukkah party and wondering if Zach, the “nice boy” Grandma is trying to set her up with, will help her make it to tomorrow.
Friends & Family Christmas (2023) – December 18 (Hallmark)
IT’S HERE OUR FIRST LESBIAN FOCUSED HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIE!!! Ali Liebert is a lawyer named Amelia and Humberly Gonzalez is a photographer named Dani who ropes Amelia into pretending to be her girlfriend for the holidays because Dani is simply just quite overwhelmed by the holiday season and pressure from her parents. Fake lovers become real lovers, we know the rules here!
Starz’s LGBTQ+ TV for December 2023
Power Book III: Raising Kanan: Season 3 – December 1
Carmen said “Power Book III: Raising Kanan is easily the best of the Power series” and also “good as hell and gay as hell!” Set in the 1990s, Raising Kannan is when we meet a teenage Jukebox and her various early lesbian trysts. The series has already been renewed for Season Four ahead of its season three premiere.
Shudder’s Lesbian Movie Of December 2023
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) – December 1
This “queer Christmas slasher” with loads of LGBTQ+ characters centers on Winnie (Jane Widdop, Yellowjackets), who saves her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve only to be depressed and suicidal a year later. Then she is drawn into a parallel universe where she learns that without her, things would suck a lot more, and also now the killer is back and she’s gotta team up with the (queer) town misfit Bernie (Jess McLeod, who played a queer non-binary character in One of Us is Lying) to ID him and get back to real life. Also, Winnie’s got a cool lesbian aunt and there’s just apparently a lot of gay stuff overall even though reviews are mixed!
40 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) Amazon Prime Video Original TV Shows
What TV shows with lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans characters are on Amazon Prime Video? What a good question you may have typed into your computer browser, looking for Prime Video queer television programs with lesbian storylines and/or LGBTQ+ themes and characters!
While various television shows with queer female and/or trans characters rotate in and out of the Prime Video library, content produced by Prime Video stays there forever and is mostly available worldwide, and that’s what we’re focusing on with today’s list.
The Absolute Most Lesbian Amazon Prime Video Original TV Shows:
A League Of Their Own
2022 // 1 Seasons // 8 Episodes
Not only is this program the gayest Amazon Prime video TV show, it’s one of the gayest TV shows ever. Bringing queer narratives to the forefront of a story in which they were once erased, the A League of Their Own TV show wedged into our hearts with fists full of hope, sportsmanship and a record number of very hot queer characters, almost entirely played by very hot queer actors. If you wanna know more, we’ve luckily written ten billion articles about it, and this review is a good place to start.
High School (Freevee)
2022 – // 1+ Seasons // 10+ Episodes // US + UK Only
Based on the iconic queer twin musicians Tegan and Sara’s memoir High School and produced by Clea Duvall, this series features TikTok stars Railey and Seazynn Gilliand as two future iconic queer twin musicians named Tegan and Sara experiencing their painfully awkward high school years in mid-90s Calgary — their early forays into music and intense friendships and queerness and love.
Transparent
2014-2019 // 5 Seasons // 41 Episodes
Joey Solloway’s Transparent is centered on a Los Angeles based Jewish family chock-full of queers: there’s Moira, the parent who comes out as a trans woman in the series premiere and is unfortunately played by a terrible person who is also a cis man (Jeffery Tambor), bisexual mother-of-two Sarah (Amy Landecker) who gets kinky with Jiz Lee, steals Tig Notaro’s wife and has a throuple with her husband and Alia Shawkat, and nonbinary aimless twentysomething Alex (Gaby Hoffmann) and classic Jewish mother Shelly (Judith Light at her very best). There are multiple trans women characters played by trans women actors (most notably Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette, Hari Nef and Sophie Giannamore), Carrie Brownstein plays a bisexual geek named Syd and Cherry Jones playing, basically, Eileen Myles. It was brilliantly written and game-changing and once upon a time had the privilege of employing more trans and queer folks behind the camera than any other show.
Deadloch
2023- // 1+ Seasons // 8 Episodes
This Australian show about a small seaside town with, somehow, a massive lesbian population, is a murder mystery and a comedy and just truly a g-ddamn delight, as well as being so effortlessly inclusive. Local men start dying, the “man-hating lesbians” are blamed, and Senior Sergeant Dulcie Collins is on the case with help she didn’t request, Detective Eddie Redcliffe. They’re an odd couple detective duo.
Dead Ringers
2023 // Limited Series // 6 Episodes
Rachel Weisz plays twin gynecologists seeking to revolutionize the way pregnancy and birth are handled in the medical world in “this bloody and horny psychosexual thriller full of body horror, mind games, and sci-fi-ish strangeness.” An adaptation of the 1988 David Cronenberg film, one of the twins is a lesbian, but the other has been known to seduce on her behalf.
One Mississippi
2016 – 2017 // 2 Seasons //12 Episodes // U.S Only
Tig Notaro’s super-good semi-autobiographical comedy series One Mississippi follows a Los Angeles radio host “Tig Bavaro” as she returns home to Mississippi after a double mastectomy and a C. difficile infection to be with her family when her mother is taken off life support. She moves in with her brother and stepfather and begins learning things about her mother and her home that she never knew. Then she falls for a straight girl played by her real-life girlfriend Stephanie Allynne. It’s really funny and when it got cancelled by Amazon I was very sad.
Danger & Eggs
2015 // One Season // 13 Episodes
Trans showrunner/animator Shadi Petosky’s series, co-created with Mike Owens, focused on the adventures of “a young masc lesbian on her topsy-turvy adventures with her anthropomorphic egg friend” and aimed to be incredibly overwhelmingly, rather than subtextually, queer as hell. Its roster of voice actors contained so many of our faves, like Stephanie Beatriz, Jasika Nicole and Angelica Ross, plus there’s a huge list of guest stars like Jazz Jennings, Tyler Ford and River Butcher.
Amazon Prime Video Series With Primary LGBTQ+ Female and/or Trans Characters and Storylines
The Boys
2019 – // 3+ Seasons // 24 +Episodes
In Amazon’s universe of “depravity and violence,” superheroes are known to the general public, under the thumb of an exploitative corporation, and prone to narcissism and vanity. “The Seven” are the corporation’s top superhero team and “The Boys” are vigilantes attempting to reign in corrupted heroes. One of the Seven, Queen Maeve, a warrior / feminist / humanitarian, is bisexual.
Daisy Jones & The Six
2023 // One Season // 10 Episodes
The Black lesbian singer Simone who earned this position on this list is not Daisy Jones and she’s not The Six, but she is Daisy’s best friend for a time and she does get one pretty fantastic episode dedicated mostly to her storyline, which follows her stepping into her career and her relationship with her girlfriend Bernie in New York City.
The Expanse
2015 – 2021 // 6 Seasons // 62 Episodes
The Expanse follows a disparate band of antiheroes as they grapple with a conspiracy that is threatening the fragile future they’re living in a colonized Solar System. Also; being queer is not a big deal in this future! Elizabeth Mitchell plays lesbian character Anna Volovodov, a doctor who leads a small Methodist congregation. Season Five amps up the queer factor in a major way.
Fairfax
2021 – 2022 // 2 Seasons // 16 Episodes
“Fairfax is heavy satire with mile-a-minute deep-dive entertainment insider jokes and visual gags, with a misanthropic teenage lesbian main character (played by Kiersey Clemons) who’s live-laugh-loving / brand building in Los Angeles.” — Heather
Flack
2019 – 2020 // 2 Seasons // 12 Episodes // US + Canada only
Anna Paquin stars as an unflappable bisexual American PR professional / fixer working in London to help her high-profile clients escape sticky situations. However her own life is a little bit less “fixed.”
Four More Shots Please!
2019 -2022 // 3 Seasons // 30 Episodes
This series follows four female friends in Mumbai who are living life on their own terms including bisexual personal trainer Umang Singh, who’s always on the lookout for the next hot hookup. But she’s got one weakness: Bollywood actress Samara Kapoor (played by the beloved Lisa Ray). ” We get plenty of steamy scenes with Bani J and ham acting from Lisa Ray,” wrote Himani in her review, “but, personally, I’m way more interested in Umang’s back story, which is revealed through a series of flashbacks in episode three.”
Gen V
2023- // 1+ Season // 8+ Episodes
And history would say they were roommates.
This spin-off of The Boys is set in the Godolkin University School of Crimefighting, where hopeful heroes train and hone their skills with the goal of getting a prestige post-training assignment or a spot in the elite Vought International’s The Seven. Jordan is bi-gender (able to transition from one gender to another, played by two actors) and its central heroine, Marie, is sexually fluid.
Good Omens
2019 – 2023 // 2 Seasons // 12 Episodes
Based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett book, Good Omens is essentially a love story between an angel and a demon. Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and demon Crowley (David Tennant), who spend Season One going from “co-workers” to “intense queer subtext.” Season Two opens with a new love story added in: Nina (Nina Sosanya) runs a quaint coffee shop and Maggie (Maggie Service) owns a record shop across the street and has a big fat lesbian crush on Nina.
Harlan Coben’s Shelter
2023 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
This very bad but reasonably compelling thriller is the story of “a New Jersey town plagued by disappearing children, murder, and butterfly imagery.” Aside from the somewhat predictable murder plot itself, we have a teen boy moving in with his aunt after his father’s death only to discover a town seeped in mystery. His new friend, goth art girl Ema (Abby Corrigan), is queer, and so is his aunt (Constance Zimmer!).
Harlem
2021- // 2+ Season // 20+ Episodes
Tracy Oliver’s Harlem follows four Black single friends in their 30s as they navigate careers and love in the city, in a crew headed up by Camille (Megan Good). Lesbian actor Jerrie Johnson is Tye, a masc lesbian character. Sa’i enjoyed both seasons and notes that in Season Two, “Black joy, and more specifically the joy of Black women, is one of the major themes of the season, and it is a delight to take part in.”
Homecoming
2018 – 2020 // 2 Seasons // 16 Episodes
Season One of Homecoming, based on a Gimlet podcast, starred Julia Roberts as a caseworker for veterans at a live-in transition center for veterans sponsored by a giant corporation with some sinister secret intentions. It’s a watch-in-one-night binge: eerie, intense, winding and worth it. Season Two opens with a new protagonist, played by Janelle Monáe, waking up in a rowboat in the middle of a river. Also, she’s gay.
Hunters
2020-2023 // 2 Seasons // 20 Episodes
Three decades after World War II, a group of Jews and allies have set out to find and kill Nazis who are still living, thriving and employed in the United States. FBI Agent Millie Morton is on the case and also she’s a lesbian! Who lives with her hot girlfriend! It’s a sharply stylized series with a winning cast, although its Holocaust flashbacks can be alternately horrifying and problematic.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
2021 // One Season // 8 Episodes
This adaptation of the teen horror movie that was an adaptation of a book rockets the story into present day Hawaii with the same basic conceit but an otherwise very different story. It’s difficult to describe what happens without giving you spoilers, but for our purposes here: there is a bisexual main character played by Brianne Tju and the lead is…. kinda bisexual?
The Lake
2022-2023 // Two Seasons // 16 Episodes
Canadian comedy The Lake follows Justin (Jordan Gavaris), a gay man reconnecting with his biological daughter Billie (Madison Shamoun) who he had with his best friend when they were teens in high school, bonding in a quaint but drama-filled lakeside community where Justin summered as a kid. In Season Two, Billie returns to the lake and gets mixed up in a love triangle with professional tree planter Forrest (Jhaleil Swaby)…and Forrest’s tree planting sister Ivy (Max Amani).
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
2023 // Limited Series // 7 Episodes
A young girl from a violent upbringing is orphaned and moves in with her grandmother, June Hart, on a flower farm in a story that “takes its time unfurling stories about secrets, lies, cycles of abuse, physical and emotional violence at the hands of men, and the importance of found family and having a support system.” Sigourney Weaver is June, the lesbian matriarch who runs the flower farm with her partner Twig.
I Love Dick
2017 // One Season // 8 Episodes
Joey Soloway’s series based on the book by Chris Kraus brought Roberta Colindrez as Devon into our lives, and the world has not been the same since. Chris (Kathryn Hahn) heads to Marfa for her husband Sylvère’s (Griffin Dunne) fellowship and meets the sponsor, Dick, who she becomes immediately obsessed with. Different characters head up individual episodes, and Devon’s is SURPRISE my favorite.
The Legend of Vox Machina
2022- // 2+ Season // 24+ Episodes
“When making their D&D liveplay game turned (adult) animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina, the Critical Role team kept all the original queerness of the campaign the story is based on, and then some. Vex, Vax, Scanlan, (and probably also Keyleth) are bisexual. We have Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand, Game of Thrones) and noted bisexual Stephanie Beatriz as wives Lady Allura and Lady Kima; also nonbinary actor Stacey Raymond as the nonbinary Bryn. The story is also queer in nature, in its story of underdogs doing their best with their found family; it’s funny and boisterous and you don’t have to know a thing about D&D to enjoy it. The show got renewed for a second and third season so there’s plenty of queerness to come!” — Valerie
Leverage: Redemption
2021 – // 2+ Seasons // 29+ Episodes // US + UK Only
In this follow-up to the original Leverage (2008 – 2012), reformed criminals — the Hitter, the Hacker, the Grifter and the Thief — have returned, and along with a new tech genius and corporate fixer, they’re ready to take on a new style of villain and provide leverage to people who need help. Queer actress Aleyse Shannon plays lesbian character Breanna Casey, Hardison’s foster sister and the new tech genius, a skilled hacker and engineer.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
2017 – 2023 // 5 Seasons // 43 Episodes
(Nicole Rivelli/Amazon via AP)
It’s tough to decide where to put this show because it took five entire seasons of its punchy, colorful, quippy, feminist-lite Jewish comedy to actually acknowledge that Susie was gay, but better late than never!
Mixte / Voltaire High
2021- // One Season // 8 Episodes
This critically acclaimed French comedy series takes place in 1963, five years after the legalization of mixed-gendered education, when Voltaire High’s takes the leap to go co-ed, thus turning the entire world upside down! The school nurse, Jeanne, is a lesbian married to her best friend Paul.
Mozart in the Jungle
2014 – 2018 // 4 Seasons // 40 Episodes
This comedy-drama series was inspired by the tell-all Mozart in the Jungle: Sex Drugs and Classical Music, in which oboist Blair Tindall recounted her professional career in high-profile symphonies. Saffron Burrows plays Cynthia Taylor, a bisexual cellist with The New York Symphony and Gretchen Mol is Nina, a union lawyer who initially hits it off with Cynthia, one of the many men and women with whom Cynthia has an affair.
Outer Range
2022- // 1+ Seasons // 8 Episodes
This Sci-Fi Neo-Western follows a Wyoming rancher, fighting for his land and his family, who is visited by a drifter with a connection to his ranch and consequentially discovers a mysterious bottomless hole on his land that inspires prophetic visions. Tamara Podemski plays Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk, who oversees the county where all this stuff is happening, and Indigenous Queer actor Morningstar Angeline plays her wife.
The Outlaws
2021 – // 2+ Seasons // 12 Episodes // US, CA, AU, NZ & Nordic countries only
This BBC One “brilliantly silly crime comedy” set in Bristol brings together seven strangers sentenced to complete a Community Payback period of service who discover a BAG OF MONEY but then discover some sketchy characters are looking for it. One of the seven, Gabrielle Penrose-Howe, is a lesbian influencer with anger management problems.
Paper Girls
2022 // One Season // 8 Episodes
Behind the scenes photography for Paper Girls.
This heart-tugging edge-of-your-seat adaptation of the comic book series about a group of misfit late ’80s paper girls who get caught in a time-hopping adventure had barely begun to touch the outer edges of the queer storyline promised by its source material in Season One. Alas, it was cancelled too soon.
The Power
2023 // 1+ Seasons // 9+ Episodes
An adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s best-selling novel, The Power finds a whole swath of women around the world suddenly realizing they have superpowers. As Nic writes, “after generations of oppression, nature decides to even the playing field a bit and gives women their power back.” One of the central storylines follows Roxy, the lesbian daughter of a British mob boss. Another storyline finds its way to a girl’s home run by rebel nuns that includes Sister Maria, a trans woman played by Daniela Vega.
Swarm
2023 // Limited Series // 7 Episodes
Donald Glover’s horror series takes a stab at stan culture through unhinged protagonist Dre (Dominique Fishback) whose passion for Ni’Jah, a pop star with a fan club called “the swarm” leads her to make choices like “murdering people”! Seeds of her queerness are planted from the jump but it isn’t until the last episode that she fully comes into her gay identity and starts dating a graduate student named Rashida (Kiersey Clemons). Around mid-season she spends some time with a queer cult led by Billie Eilish.
The Rig
2023- // 1+ Seasons // 6+ Episodes
An oil rig crew are cut off from all communication with the Scottish mainland when a mysterious fog creeps in, forcing them to find a way home while battling environmental pressures and tensions within the crew, only to have the threat reveal itself to be wilder than they ever imagined. Amongst this crew is one (1) woman who is both “one of the guys” and “a woman who promised her wife that she’d quit this mess and take a job closer to home so they can raise a baby together.”
The Wheel of Time
2021 – // 2+ Seasons // 16+ Episodes
This epic fantasy series follows Moiraine, a member of the Aes Sedai, an elite group of women who are capable of channeling the One Power. Moiraine Damored is an Aes Sedai who finds herself in a backwoods place called Two Rivers, convinced the Dragon (the Chosen One of the entire series) is one of the villagers who live there. The head of the Aes Sedai, Siuan, lives in Two Rivers, and also, her and Moiraine “know each other. Like know each other.”
Wilderness
2023 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
This bisexual lighting is :chef’s kiss:
Adapted from the kind of novel you’d buy in an airport bookstore and be really glad you did, Wilderness is a thriller about a jealous wife and a mysterious murder and the woods and also the lead’s best friend is a lesbian and the lead is also queer (you’ll see!)
The Wilds
2021- 2022 // Two Seasons // 20 Episodes
A group of troubled teen girls are sent to a wellness retreat on a desert island that is NOT QUITE WHAT IT SEEMS — they end up having to fend for themselves, with and against each other. There is a rewarding queer storyline between a hot-tempered lesbian athlete and [spoiler] and as Valerie wrote in her review of The Wilds, “the girls have this charm that makes you want to learn more about each of them, and the show has a clever way of revealing their backstories bit by bit that keeps you needing to come back for more.” We came back for more for Season Two, which for some reason decided we needed BOYS to make the show sing. Unfortunately, the increasingly intense thriller was cancelled after its second season.
With Love
2021 – // 2+ Seasons // 11+ Episodes
Over the course of a year of holidays, we see the Diaz family’s stories play out, weaving in and out of the lives of unrelated people all searching for love. Trans actress Isis King plays Sol Perez, a nonbinary oncologist dating Miles, who has a nonbinary teenage child, Charlie (played by Busy Phillip’s nonbinary child Birdie Silverstein). It’s created by Gloria Calderon Kellett of One Day at a Time fame!
Amazon Prime Video TV Series With Secondary or Minor Queer Storylines and Characters
Alpha House
2013 – 2014 // 2 Seasons // 20 Episodes
Inspired by several fictional Republican Senators who share a Washington DC row-house in this political satire with a long list of revered recurring/guest actors (Wanda Sykes, Amy Sedaris, Cynthia Nixon) and cameos from figures including Stephen Colbert, Rachel Maddow and Elizabeth Warren. Julie Carrel (Brooke Bloom) is the chief-of-staff for Senator Louis and her girlfriend, Katherine (Natalie Gold) is chief-of staff to a different senator. They eventually get pregnant!
Bosch
2014 – 2021 // 6 Seasons, 60 Episodes // US Onl
Irreverent Los Angeles homicide detective Bosch trusts his instincts over the rules but has an impeccable record of finding the killer. Commanding Office of LAPD Homicide Grace “Bullets” Billets is a closeted lesbian and Bosch’s supervisor. Rose Rollins shows up for a few eps in Season One to date her.
Carnival Row
2018 // One Season // 8 Episodes
This neo-Victorian fantasy-noir finds bands of mythical creatures escaping from their riotous homeland to seek comfort in a city where they are not entirely welcome. Queer model/actress Cara Delevingne plays Vignette Stonemoss, who is pansexual and was involved fellow faerie Tourmaline, although that element of her character earns only the most passing of mentions.
Fleabag
2017 – 2020 // 2 Seasons // 12 Episodes
In its second season, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s eponymous protagonist Fleabag confirms her bisexuality while sharing a drink with a lesbian businesswoman played by Kristin Scott Thomas. But you’re gonna watch this show regardless because it’s so good!
Goliath
2015- 2021 // 4 Seasons // 32 Episodes
“Down and out” lawyer Billy McBride, played by Billy Bob Thornton, gets pulled back into the work through some byzantine and unexpected cases, including a TRULY BIZARRE Season Two situation that continues to haunt me. Anyhow, there are some adjacent queer women characters who appear in Seasons One and Three, including Billy’s ex-wife, played by Maria Bello. Nina Arianda’s performance as Patty Solis-Papagian is a genuine delight!
Hanna
2019 – 2021 // 3 Seasons // 24 Episodes
Hanna lives in a remote Polish forest with her father, the only man she’s ever known. She was part of a CIA program he recruited for, where children’s DNA was enhanced with 3% wolf to form “super-soldiers.” In Season 2 we meet other children from the same program and one of them, Jules, is a lesbian.
The Man in the High Castle
2015 – 2019 // 4 Seasons // 40 Episodes
You’ve really got to pay attention to a lot of high-concept alternate history depicting a parallel universe where the Axis powers won World War II and thus Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan are in charge, each taking a piece of the United States for themselves. A small lesbian storyline arrives in Season Three.
Modern Love
2019- // 2 Seasons // 16 Episodes
This anthology series inspired by The New York Times column has a lesbian episode in Season Two in which a middle-school-aged girl catches feelings for her schoolmate, Alexa, and they bond over their shared love for anime.
Panic
2021 // One Season // 10 Episodes
Every summer the graduating seniors of Carp, Texas gather to risk their lives competing in a series of challenges that inspire them to confront deep-seated fears in hopes of winning a shit-ton of money. Anyone can play but only one will win. There are two recurring lesbian characters who are dating each other!
Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams
2018 // One Season // 10 Episodes
One episode of this anthology series tells the story of a future policewoman, played by Anna Paquin, sharing headspace with a game designer as both track down violent killers whose existence has enormous consequences.
Red Oaks
2014 – 2017 // 3 Seasons // 30 Episodes
In the first three minutes of Red Oaks, David’s father has a heart attack on the tennis court and says, in what he believes are his final living moments, that his marriage to David’s mother Judy (Jennifer Grey) is dead and he’s pretty sure Judy “is a lesbian or at least technically bisexual.” Thus we journey into the world of Red Oaks, a Jewish New Jersey country-club in the mid-80s. While the show is pretty squarely focused on David and his adolescent adventures, once the inevitable divorce hits, Judy starts questioning her sexuality and tentatively wading into the waters of light kissing with other ladies.
Hulu’s 27 Original TV Shows With Lesbian and Bisexual Women Characters
What TV shows could you watch on Hulu if you want to see some gay, lesbian or bisexual women characters? Hulu’s original content keeps getting more queer and there are so many television programs for the LGBT audience, and if you’re looking for the answers to these questions — and I think you are, because here you are — boy have I got the post for you, my friend! (We’ve also got a list of the best queer movies on Hulu if you’re in the market for that.)
Although Hulu famously hosts content from a variety of studios and networks, this list is focused on Hulu originals — shows you can expect to remain on Hulu iin most of the markets they serve. Except for, of course, the ones they’ve removed. (Dollface and Marvel’s Runaways, so far.)
The Bisexual
2019 // One Season // 6 Episodes // Channel 4 Co-Production
The Bisexual sets itself apart by featuring a diverse group of lesbian friends in addition to focusing on the queer protagonist’s narrative and the entire show just feels so undeniably authentic. “Akhavan has done something truly brilliant here,” wrote Heather Hogan in her review. “She’s created a show for an audience that understands the joke ‘Bette is a Shane trying to be a Dana’ and then centers it on a character who’s meant to make everyone who gets that joke a little uncomfortable.”
Casual
2014 – 2018 // 4 Seasons // 44 Episodes
(Photo by: Greg Lewis/Hulu)
Smart, irreverent family comedy Casual centers on Valerie (Michaela Watkins), who, along with her daughter Laura (Tara Lynne Barr), moves in with her dating-app-founder brother Alex (Tommy Dewey) after her divorce. In Season One, Alex dates a poly bisexual woman named Emmy, and in Season Two, Laura has a thing with a female friend — and it seems for a bit that that is the end of it, but nope! Laura is bisexual and continues dating and having things with other women through the series’ four seasons. However, you do have to suffer through four seasons of Alex, a very entitled white man!
Class of ’09
2023 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes // FX co-production
Queer actress Kate Mara and L Word Generation Q fave Sepideh Moafi star with Brian Tyree Henry in this suspense thriller that follows a class of FBI agents at three points in time as they attempt to grapple with massive changes in the criminal justice system. Moafi plays Hour Nazari, a lesbian who becomes a data specialist with big ambitions and Mara is Ashley Poet, a former nurse who specializes in undercover work.
Conversations With Friends
2022 // Limited Series // 12 Episodes
The latest Sally Rooney adaptation haf a lot going for it, including Sasha Lane as Bobbi, the ex-girlfriend / best friend / slam poetry partner of the lead character, Frances, but unfortunately is often just as annoying as its characters. According to Refinery 29, “The dynamics of gender and sexuality underscore the show, which centres on Frances, a 21-year-old bisexual woman whose antithetical desires are the catalyst for an examination of romance and dissection of monogamy.”
Dopesick
2021 // One Season // 8 Episodes
Based on Beth Macy’s non-fiction book, this acclaimed limited series tackled the opioid crisis from multiple angles: The Sackler family who got rich lying about a highly addictive drug, the Purdue Pharma salespeople trained to exploit doctors and shortchange patients, the D.A.s and other government employees who dared to build a case against Purdue and, finally, the residents of a small coal mining down in Virginia that became ground zero for the epidemic. In that town we meet Betsy (Katelyn Dever, who earned an Emmy nomination for her role), a closeted lesbian coal miner whose on-the-job injury leads to a prescription that leads, soon enough, to addiction.
East Los High
2013-2017 // 4 Seasons // 61 Episodes
Ser Anzoategui (Vida) made their small-screen debut playing Daysi in this show about a group of interconnected friends at a high school in East LA. The first season has a coming out arc that ends pretty brutally, but it’s a show that tackles a lot of social issues and was Hulu’s first with an all Latino cast and crew.
The First
2018 // One Season // 8 Episodes
Paul Schiraldi / 2018 Hulu
Lisa Gay Hamilton plays Kayla Price, a former mission commander and a lesbian, in this show about the first human mission to Mars. Her wife is played by Gay for Pay Queen Tracie Thoms, of course. Kayla is part of the main ensemble but her sexuality doesn’t come up very often.
The Girl From Plainville
2022 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
This Hulu docuseries traces the very bizarre case of Michelle Carter, who was prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter after her internet boyfriend killed himself following some encouragement via text message from Carter. Elle Fanning’s stand-out performance as Carter, who was bisexual (which is addressed in the series) is amongst many elements giving this psychological complicated story some heart without dwelling heavily in sensationalism.
The Handmaid’s Tale
2017 – // 5+ Seasons // 60+ Episodes
This brutal Hulu TV show is dripping with artistry and performed by a magnificent cast, capable of communicating entire worlds in a line and also with silence. Lesbian characters Moira (Samira Wiley) and Emily (Alexis Bledel) get bigger stories in later seasons as we delve deeper into a dystopian nightmare gradually unraveling at its fundamentalist seams. Eventually, Moira’s sexuality becomes a bit of an afterthought as she focuses more on activism and mothering June’s child while June goes bananas. It’s not a pleasant world to witness, yet it remains a seductive watch. Every moment of dark humor is hard-won, like freedom itself.
Harlots
Hulu/ITV // 2017 – 2019 // 3 Seasons // 24 Episodes
I declared Harlots the most accurate portrayal of indoor-market sex work ever represented onscreen in Season One — surprisingly more resonant to me as a former sex worker than any contemporary portrayals — and its extra queering in Season Two made it moreso and then some. If Season One was about sex work, Season Two is about the reality that what’s done to sex workers is inextricable from what’s done to all women — the lessons about power, violence, solidarity and struggle in stories about sex work are ones that the larger conversation about gender ignores at its peril. Season Three I would prefer not to discuss, thank you.
High Fidelity
2020 // One Season //10 Episodes
Although Rob’s relationships with women aren’t central to the plot, Zoe Kravtiz’s character is a smart, wry, endearing hot bisexual mess on this truly delightful re-imagination of the original film (which starred John Cusack as Rob), which was based on a Nick Hornsby book. Updated for the current era with a diverse cast of clever, passionate and musically-obsessed hipsters. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after merely one short season.
How I Met Your Father
2022 – // 2+ Seasons // 26+ Episodes
In this spin-off of How I Met Your Mother, the framing device is Sophie (Hillary Duff in the present, Kim Catrall in the future)’s story of meeting her son’s father, Jesse. Jesse’s adopted sister, Ellen (Tien Tran) is a farm-owning lesbian who’s just moved to New York City looking for love following her divorce with her wife. Her character was “criminally underused” at first but stepped closer to the spotlight as the season progressed.
Little Fires Everywhere
2020 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
This brilliant adaptation of the bestselling book adds some queer elements that weren’t explicitly present on the page for the characters of Izzy and Mia Warren (played by Kerry Washington, who produced the series with co-star Reese Witherspoon). Set in an affluent Ohio suburb in the ’90s, Little Fires Everywhere is a searing investigation of class, race and the idea of “good white people.”
Letterkenny
2016 – // 11+ Seasons // 75+ Episodes
Valerie describes this quirky Canadian comedy as “full of quick-witted, fast-talking folks with very specifically Canadian humor that somehow seems universally hilarious.” Though many of the women are canonically queer, the on-screen proof of that is not always central.
Light as a Feather
2018-2019 // 2 Seasons // 26 Episodes
Light as a Feather started out as a fun campy horror/teen drama that happened to have a gay character in its main ensemble, and it was all fun in games through Season One and most of Season Two. It had the Final Destination “cheating death” kind of spook factor, mixed in with some supernatural twin stuff and secrets upon secrets upon lies. Season Two gave the queer lead, named Alex of course, a girlfriend, but the end of Season Two took a bit of a turn re: its queer characters.
Love, Victor
2020 – 2022 // 3 Seasons // 28 Episodes
Carmen wrote of this LGBTQ Hulu TV show: “Love, Victor has always led with its sweetness! Even when grappling with serious themes (one of Victor’s love interests has had an alcohol addiction, this season another gay character is almost involved in a hate crime, a different member of their friendship circle has a mom who struggles with clinical depression) the angst level never moves much beyond ‘way harsh Disney Channel.'” And Season Two ends on a gay cliffhanger for perpetual high school popular girl Lake making eyes with Lucy, the ex of the school’s biggest jock, and picks back up in Season Three exactly where you want it to.
Mrs. America
2020 // Limited Series // 9 Episodes // FX co-production
Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash, Cate Blanchett, Tracy Ullman, Rose Byrne, Uzo Abuba and Melanie Lynskey are just some of the wildly talented women at the forefront of this history of the feminist movement in the 1970s and its fight against conservative activist Phyllis Shalafley (Cate Blanchett), specifically. Bria Henderson plays Black lesbian early Ms. magazine editor Margaret Sloan-Hunter. In episode five, Ari Graynor shows up as Brenda Feigen, a feminist activist and attorney who falls for Jules, a lesbian photographer portrayed by the one and only Roberta Colindrez. In Episode 7, we briefly glimpse Midge Costanza and Jean O’Leary, a lesbian couple who pushed for inclusion in the feminist agenda and within the Carter administration.
The Other Black Girl
2023 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
This adaptation of the bestselling thriller finds a young publishing aspirant, Nella, the only Black gril in her office, thrilled when a second Black girl is hired. But her relationship with the new girl, while promising at first, eventually turns suspicious and is the ticket to unveiling some larger forces at work. Nella’s queer best friend, Malaika, is the show’s unsung hero and a breath of fresh air.
Only Murders in the Building
2021 – // 3+ Seasons // 30+ Episodes
(Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu)
From our beloved Jamie Babbit came the Hulu TV show Only Murders in the Building, an immediately buzzy whodunit set in a New York City apartment building where a murder is followed by a homegrown true crime podcast hosted by nosy neighbors Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez). In Season One, we had a lesbian cop, but in Season Two Mabel ends up enchanted by a lesbian art gallery owner played by noted agent of chaos Cara Delevingne.
Pam & Tommy
2022 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
The story of how Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson’s sex tape got leaked and basically created the celebrity sex tape industry at a revolutionary time in the history of the internet is truly a wild one, weaving between Pam and Tommy’s chaotic romance and the tale of the handyman Tommy fucked over who stole the tape, Rand Gauthier. Rand’s ex-wife, Erica, a former porn star, is played by Taylor Schilling, and lives with her hot girlfriend.
Reasonable Doubt
2022+ // 1+ Seasons // Onyx Co-Production
Kerry Washington’s the EP of this new legal drama with an all-Black writers room starring Emayatzy Corinealdi as Jax Stewart, “the most brilliant and fearless defense attorney in Los Angeles who bucks the justice system at every chance she gets.” Tiffany Yvonne Cox (Good Trouble) plays Autumn, “the listener and caretaker of Jax’s friends” who’s happily married to her wife and has been best friends with Jax since tenth grade.
Reboot
2022 // One Season // 8 Episodes
Hannah (Rachel Bloom) tells Hulu (it’s meta!) that she wants to reboot classic sitcom Step Right Up… but make it edgy. What she doesn’t tell them in the original pitch is that the original showrunner was in fact her father, with whom she has a contentious relationship, and that Step Right Up was his way of re-telling his own story in a less-horrifying manner. And, as Heather wrote in her glowing review, “basically every single woman on this show is, in some way, gay! Surprisingly gay! Hilariously gay! Subversively gay!” It’s light and fun and full of surprises. This is one of Hulu’s best LGBT shows for sure!
Saint X
2023 // One Season // 8 Episodes // not renewed or cancelled yet
“I’ve just always felt I was mean to be a leader. A commander, even. I can’t explain it.”
Saint X is many things, “good” is not one of them, but it has some things going for it. Emily Thomas (Alycia Debnam-Carey) moves to a Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn 15 years after her older sister died on a Caribbean island during a family vacation. Authorities said it was an accident but the Thomases believe otherwise, and of course all of this is now resurfacing in Emily’s present-tense life. Her best friend, Sunita (Kosha Patel), is a gay lady!
Shrill
2019-2021 // 3 Seasons // 22 Episodes
Aidy Bryant stars in this adaptation of writer Lindy West’s memoir, in which she navigates the world as a young journalist in a fatphobic world, including working at an eccentric Seattle newspaper with a very weird person named Ruthie played by our favorite weirdo Patti Harrison. Her best friend, Fran, is a black British lesbian with all the self-confidence Annie herself lacks, and her romantic storylines eventually land her in a delightful relationship with Emily (ER Fightmaster).
This Way Up
2019 – // 2 Seasons // 12 Episodes // Channel 4 Co-Production
This cute comedy centers on Aine, an Irish woman living in London who returns from rehab to re-make her life. Her sister, Shona (Sharon Hogan), realizes she is bisexual and dates a co-worker, Charlotte (Indria Varna) in Season One. Soooo… it’s not a big storyline but also don’t you want to see Sharon Hogan be gay for a second??
Utopia Falls
2020 // One Season // 10 Episodes
It’s hundreds of years in the future and New Babyl, the last living colony on earth, has divided into different sectors for specific industries, from which 24 candidates are chosen to compete in The Examplar performance competition. Six of these candidates are followed by the show’s narrative, including sexually fluid Brooklyn and dancer Sage.
Tiny Beautiful Things
2023 // Limited Series // 8 Episodes
This adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things (which was a compilation of her Dear Sugar advice columns ) stars Kathryn Hahn as Claire, a writer who finds herself heading up an advice column while her own life falls apart. In a deviation from its source material, Claire’s husband, Danny, is Black, and their daughter, Rae, is queer and biracial. “The problem with this series,” Drew wrote in her review, “is it wants inclusivity without acknowledging how that changes its central narrative.”
Woke
2020 – 2022 // 2 Seasons // 16 Episodes
Keef Knight is a Black cartoonist on the up-and-up who avoids controversial material in his work — but after being traumatized by an encounter with the police, he gains the ability to see and hear inanimate objects talking to him and is increasingly aware of the racial microaggressions that infiltrate his life. He eventually befriends Ayana (Sasheer Zamata), a lesbian reporter who calls him out.
Wreck
2023- // 1+ Seasons // 6 Episodes // BBC Three
Hulu picked up this British comedy horror about a young gay teen who gets a cruise ship job to investigate the disappearance of his sister on said ship. On said ship he works with Vivian (Thaddea Graham), a lesbian who works on the ship after fleeing her homophobic family and Rosie (Miya Ocego), a trans woman who works as a Cher impersonator. Kayla loved the show for its portrayal of a gay guy/lesbian friendship, the relationship between Vivian and her eventual love interest Lily, and its “stunning horror.”
Other streaming TV lists:
25 Best LGBT TV Shows on Peacock
Ahh, Peacock — the last in a long line of streaming services to appear and make us all wonder, “do we need this?” Well, you should know that surprisingly enough, Peacock’s slate of original content is extremely lesbian-inclusive — Peacock has queer characters in nearly all of its original and co-produced tv shows and movies. However, these shows rarely get a second or third season pickup. Anyhow, let’s dig into the best Peacock shows with lesbian, bisexual or queer women characters or trans people!
Queer as Folk
Dramedy, 2022
Unlike the deeply white, cis and able-bodied original characters, all of the new QAF’s mains are people of color or trans or disabled or all of the above, including Char, a non-binary Black masculine-presenting person and their partner, Ruthie, a trans woman who’d grown up with the series’ star, gay party boy Brodie. Queer as Folk gave us groundbreaking and incredibly hot sex, a Craft-inspired drag show, a sex party catered towards people with disabilities and a joyful portrait of chosen family coming together in the face of shared trauma. Stream Queer As Folk.
Bel-Air
Drama, 2020-
This re-imagining of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a drama was Peacock’s biggest initial investment, and it’s delivered some mixed results while also leaning hard on the charisma of its lead. But we love it! The new Ashley Banks, a pre-teen when the show begins, has a gradual discovery of her queerness that begins in Season One, and it’s really cute! Stream Bel-Air.
We Are Lady Parts
Comedy, 2020
(Photo by: Laura Radford/Peacock)
“The storylines of We Are Lady Parts echo stories that we’ve told about ourselves. They fill an often undervalued aspect of representation: offering a reminder that inside each of us, is all of us.” writes Natalie of this critically acclaimed series that finds geeky biochemical engineering Ph.D. student Amina Hussein as the unlikely lead guitarist of Lady Parts, an all-female Muslim punk band. Ayesha is a queer Muslim woman and the band’s drummer. Stream We Are Lady Parts.
Girls 5Eva
Comedy, 2021-2022
A one-hit-wonder girl group from the 1990s reunites to give their pop star dreams another shot, but this time they’ve gotta balance spouses, kids, jobs, debt, aging parents, and shoulder pain too. Lesbian comic Paula Pell is a freshly divorced lesbian dentist in this delightful comedy that also stars Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps and Renée Elise Goldsberry. Stream Girls 5Eva on Peacock.
One of Us is Lying
Thriller, 2020-2022
Based on a buzzy YA thriller, a disparate group of students find themselves under suspicion after online gossip scourge Simon suddenly dies while they’re all in detention. Simon’s best friend, Janae Matthews, is the unlikely outsider who finds her way into this clique, and who comes into her own as queer and non-binary. Stream One of Us Is Lying on Peacock.
Her Story
Drama, 2016
Laura Zak’s Allie and Jen Richards’ Violet.
When Her Story debuted in 2016 there was nothing else like it. Starring Jen Richards, Angelica Ross and Laura Zak, this understated webseries follows two trans women dating in Los Angeles, confronting transphobia and a trans misogynistic lesbian culture. “This isn’t just a new frontier, this is a bright and wonderful one. This is the kind of trans TV show that we’ve been waiting for,” wrote Mey. Stream Her Story.
The Real Housewives of New York: Season 14
Reality TV, 2023
Fashion genius Jenna Lyons joins the series for this reboot of the New York franchise, wherein we have the opportunity to relate deeply to the experience of being the only lesbian in a group of straight women who are always yelling at each other about cheese and cell phones and airplane flights. All Jenna wanted to do was get a tan, you know?
Saved By The Bell
Comedy, 2020-2022
This underrated gem of a reboot featuring a new, diverse Bayside where the original students are grown up administrators and parents features Alycia Pascual-Peña as Aisha, football team quarterback and budding wrestling champion who comes into her bisexuality. Trans actress Josie Totah plays trans character Lexie, the queen bee of Bayside. Carmen wrote that the reboot “ultimately drives home the importance of trans and queer communities, and our joy, especially for teens.” Stream Saved by the Bell.
Leopard Skin
Limited Series Drama, 2022
A botched heist is the entry point to a messy, lurid, bizarre and atmospheric journey that never quite manages to make sense, but does include some compelling sexual antics and Carla Gugino as a Mean Queer Psychic Domme. It’s hard to say no to that. I couldn’t tear myself away to be honest. Stream Leopard Skin.
New Amsterdam
Drama, 2018-2023
As medical dramas go, New Amsterdam doesn’t necessarily have anything extraordinarily new to offer, but it’s got heart and some endearing characters and some progressive ideals about the value of public hospitals and innovative ways to make medical care accessible. Also: Lauren Bloom as a messy genius bisexual head of the Emergency Medicine ward. Stream New Amsterdam on Peacock.
The Undeclared War
Limited Series Suspense, 2022
It’s 2024 and Saara Parvan is a student getting work experience in the malware department of GCHQ in the run-up to the British general election when a security breach on her first day thrusts her into the middle of a data war with Russia with worldwide implications. She has a romance with an American from the NSA brought in to consult with the case, Kathy Freeman (queer actor Maisie Richardson-Sellers), which is a highlight of this surprisingly compelling thriller. Watch The Undeclared War on Peacock.
Vigil
Limited Series Thriller, 2021
A crew member is found dead on the nuclear submarine HMS Vigil and the Scottish police send Detective Amy Silva (Surrane Jones) onto the ship to blend in with the crew on board and investigate, while her girlfriend Kristen Longacre (Rose Leslie) pursues leads on land. You want to see these two women kiss, right? Of course you do! Stream Vigil on Peacock.
Brooklyn 99
Comedy, 2013 – 2021
(Photo by: Vivian Zink/NBC)
A comedy packed with talent, set in a New York City police department, following the exploits of Det. Jake Peralta and “his diverse and lovable colleagues.” Most relevant to us here, of course, is Stephanie Beatriz as Rosa Diaz, who comes out as bisexual in Season Five. Watch Brooklyn 99 on Peacock
Limetown
Thriller, 2019
What do you get when you combine Rehka Sharma, Jessica Biel, Sherri Saum, Marlee Matlin and Kandyse McClure with the mysterious disappearance of hundreds of people at a neuroscience research facility in Tennessee, besides a really weird sex dream? LIMETOWN. Biel stars as Lia Haddock, a lesbian journalist and podcast host whose uncle was amongst the 326 who disappeared from a Utopian experiment fifteen years ago. Stream Limetown.
Poker Face
Mystery, 2023-
Poker Face, a “delightfully absurdist Murder Show with the best guest stars,” is not the queerest show on Peacock, although its protagonist Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) doesn’t really seem straight, either. It follows the inverted detective story format popularized by Columbo, but Charlie’s not a cop, she’s just a person with a supernatural ability to detect liars. Each week is a new case with a new cast, and the guest stars are just delightful (Cherry Jones, Chloe Sevigny, Stephanie Hsu, Clea Duvall, etc). The episode with the most explicitly queer women was a frustrating one, but trust me, you’ll love this show! Stream Poker Face.
The Girl in the Woods
Thriller, 2021
The Girl in the Woods mashes together dystopian YA and supernatural-horror tropes in a story about a small town disrupted by monsters and the powerful teen girl who teams up with a couple weirdos to stop them. There’s also a queer love triangle, a queer and messy backstory between our titular girl in the woods and her ex, and grief and trauma and friendship and love, infusing a familiar supernatural story with some freshness. Read more in Kayla Kumari’s The Girl In The Woods” Delivers a Complex, Queer Horror Hero and stream The Girl in The Woods.
Rutherford Falls
Comedy, 2021 – 2022
Two lifelong friends, Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms) and Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding) find their friendship tested when a conflict begins in their small town over its colonial legacy and the indigenous community native to the area. Non-binary actor Jesse Leigh is non-binary character Bobbie Yang, a high school student and Nathan’s personal assistant. Vulture wrote that the show “skillfully braids discussions of serious sociocultural issues with character-based comedy in ways that seem neither forced nor overly didactic.” Stream Rutherford Falls on Peacock
Intergalactic
Sci-Fi, 2021
It’s 2143. Climate change has destroyed most of the planet and most humans are now living in structured cities controlled by a pseudo-democratic government called the “Commonworld.” Harper (Savannah Steyn) is a “sky cop” who ends up onboard a prison ship during a mutiny when she’s framed for a crime she didn’t commit, and well, things get very wild from there. There’s a bit of a slow-burn queer romance involving a butch lesbian lead character, Verona (Imogen Daines) that has its ups and downs! Stream Intergalactic.
Chucky
Horror, 2021 –
A 14-year-old gay teenager purchases an iconic Chucky doll at a garage sale only to find the doll is possessed by the soul of a serial killer who is ready to start murdering people in Hackensack, New Jersey. There’s lots of queer stuff in here — Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly) is pansexual and we also get Chucky’s nonbinary child Glen/Glenda, played by nonbinary actor Lachlan Watson. Stream Chucky on Peacock.
Punky Brewster
Comedy, 2020
In this reboot, Punky’s a freshly divorced photographer with three kids. Her best friend, Cherie, is a social worker who convinces Punky to foster a kid and now they’ve got four kids and an ex-husband and a dog and most importantly, Cherie is queer now, and her girlfriend is played by our very own deeply deeply beloved queer actress Jasika Nicole. Stream Punky Brewster
The Best Man: The Final Chapters
Drama, 2022
Photo by: Matt Infante/Peacock)
The Best Man: The Final Chapters is an eight-episode conclusion to the beloved Black rom-com film series The Best Man, now expanding into its third decade. In The Final Chapters we get to know LJ (Eric Scott Ways), the eldest child of football superstar Lance Sullivan (Morris Chestnut), now in his late teens. Lance always hoped that LJ would follow in his cleats, but the smart, fashion obsessed teen has other plans. They come out as nonbinary and watching the adults of The Best Man crew adjust is a little paint-by-numbers, but it’s also so rare to see a Black family embrace their trans kid on television, which ultimately makes it sweet and worthwhile. — Carmen, Stream The Best Man: The Final Chapters
The Traitors
Reality TV Show Competition, 2023-
Queer icon Alan Cumming hosts this unscripted competition series described as “a nail-biting psychological adventure in which treachery and deceit are the name of the game” in which 20 contestants compete in a series of challenges to earn a cash prize — but three contestants coined “the traitors” are devising a plan to steal the prize. Amongst these contestants is Andie Thurmond, a non-binary Director of Music Services from Reno, Nevada!
November 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Apple TV+, MGM+, Lifetime and Peacock
Welcome to the beginning of the darkest time of year, when often there is nowhere else to be than the little dip in the sofa where you often find yourself seated to watch something glorious and gay on the television set. We are here with a plethora of options you could potentially enjoy if you like lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters. These are of course simply what we have identified thus far, who knows what else will come onto our radar as the month progresses but we will all keep in touch about it!
Netflix
Six Feet Under (Seasons 1-5) – November 1
My favorite show of all time is coming to Netflix!!!! There is pretty minor queer women content that doesn’t show up until mid-season, but uptight gay undertaker David Fisher is central and iconic throughout and Brenda Chenoweth matters to me deeply.
Nyad (2023) – November 3
Nyad is the true story of competitive swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Benning), who at the age of 64 is setting out to swim from Cuba to Florida, a 110-mile swim. Drew says it’s “a joy to witness [Jodie] Foster” step fully into her dyke energy” as Nyad’s best friend, Bonnie Stoll.
Selling Sunset: Season 7 – November 3
This show is about selling sunsets to people who have enough money to buy mansions with swimming pools in the hills of sunny southern California, where we will see “Oppenheim Group agents navigating explosive office politics, evolving friendships, a tricky housing market, and jaw-dropping new listings.” Most importantly to us here is that Chrishell Stause is gay and will be present for this event.
Escaping Twin Flames: Season One – November 8
A three-part docuseries telling the story of the Twin Flames Universe, which is basically a cult led by a couple in Michigan who have convinced their followers that they know the secret to finding their Twin Flame and thus achieving happiness forever! Prime Video did a series about Twin Flames last month, and there is some truly fascinating stuff in here from a queer perspective, specifically the turning point in the cult’s evolution when they shifted towards intergroup matchmaking, which meant convincing a solid chunk of their almost-entirely female membership that they are, in fact, men.
Mutt (2023) – November 16
Over the course of 24 hours, a trans man named Feña experiences the extremes of human emotion when he bumps into his ex-boyfriend and then a whole host of people who disappeared when he transitioned have suddenly returned to his life. Drew wrote that in a world full of films that don’t portray the trans experience very well, this is the rare film that does.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: Season One – November 17
The Scott Pilgrim Takes Off animated series — hotly anticipated by the queer nerds who have helped the movie achieve cult status — brings back all the original characters and actors of the 2010 film, which was based on based on the graphic novel series. So this will be an adaptation of an adaptation. Returning cast include queer actor Aubrey Plaza returning as Julie Powers and Mae Whitman returning as the “bifurious” ex-girlfriend of Ramona Flowers, Roxie Richter. The American-Canadian-Japanese anime will have eight episodes.
Rustin (2023) – November 17
Produced by the Obama’s production company, this film we are all very excited about is based on the true story of gay activist Bayard Rustin and the work put in with Martin Luther King, Jr, to organize the 1963 March on Washington.
The Dads (2023) – November 17
This short film directed by Luchina Fisher and EP-ed by Dwayne Wade and Jon Marcus follows five Dads from different backgrounds coming together for a fishing trip in Oklahoma with Matthew Shepard’s father with one thing in common: they love and want to support their transgender kids.
Prime Video
Pretty Hard Cases: Season 3 (Freevee) – November 29
Adrienne C. Moore and Meredith MacNeill star as Kelly and Sam, two very unlikely partners, in this CBC comedy’s final season. Queer actor Karen Robinson is returning as their beleaguered unit commander and Tricia Black as a homicide detective Tara Swallows.
Max
Rap Sh!t Season Two – November 9
In Season One of this hip-hop comedy from Issa Rae, Miami rappers The City Girls (KaMillion and non-binary actor Aida Osaman) acheived viral fame and had to reckon with the meaning of that success. Queer actor Jonica Blu Booth plays a stud, the self-declared “Duke of Miami,” who joins her estranged high school friends on their path towards success.
Hulu
Black Cake: Season One Premiere – November 1st
Based on the bestselling novel, Black Cake spans decades and takes place in Jamaica, Italy, Scotland, England and the U.S.. In present day California, a widow loses her battle with cancer, leaving her two estranged children, Byron and Benny, with a flash drive containing stories about her own journey from the Caribbean to America that will change everything they thought they knew about their family. Benny is a lesbian who hadn’t spoken to her mother for eight years after feeling discarded following her coming out.
A Murder at the End of the World: Limited Series Premiere – November 14
I am unclear if they play a queer character in this, but non-binary actor Emma Corrin is starring as a young amateur detective in this series from Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. Their character is tasked with catching a killer ravaging a remote retreat before more people turn up dead. We’ve also got Joan Chen, Raul Esparza and Clive Owen, so it should be a good time! But will it be a gay time? I suppose we shall see.
Peacock
Periodical (2023) – November 19
Ahem. “Periodical covers everything from the people who use their period blood for facials and ‘free bleed’ while running marathons, to the ones who want to forget it exists. The film uncovers the shocking truths, challenges taboos and celebrates the untapped potential of this nutrient-dense blood.” Megan Rapinoe is involved!
Apple TV+
The Buccaneers: Season One Premiere – November 8
A group of young Americans explode into the “tightly corseted London season of the 1870s, kicking off an Anglo-American culture clash as the land of the stiff upper lip is infiltrated by a refreshing disregard for centuries of tradition.” Sent over the ocean to secure husbands and titles, the girls learn so much about themselves and each other and most importantly, trans actress Josie Totah plays queer character Mabel Elmsworth, who is spotted kissing Honoria Marable (Mia Threapleton) in the trailer.
For All Mankind: Season Four Premiere – November 10
Unfortunately Jodi Balfour will not be returning in a regular capacity as NASA astronaut-turned-President Ellen Waverly, but she will appear for a moment just to wrap up her storyline.
MGM+
Beacon 23: Season One Premiere – November 12
You know that feeling when you are in the farthest reaches of the Milky Way and a government agent and a stoic ex-military man find themselves trapped inside a beacon that serves as a lighthouse for intergalactic travelers? Me too, and I’m so glad it’s finally going to be represented on screen! Lena Hedley has a lot of tattoos and wears a muscle tee throughout this trailer and does eventually end up, for a brief moment, kissing a woman and then topping her in outer space?
Lifetime
You’re Not Supposed To Be Here (2023) – November 4
Pregnant lesbian couple Zoe (Chrishell Stause) and Kennedy (Diora Baird) are struggling with work-life balance and thus accept Kennedy’s boss’ invitation to go on a little babymoon getaway in the woods. But they get out there and shit gets SINISTER. Lifetime movies are usually also available on Hulu, unsure when or if this one will be!
October 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Disney+ and Paramount+
Welcome to the most spooky season of the year, when you can eat candy corn on the couch while enjoying a plethora of options upon your television set starring lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters from networks such as Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+, Max and Paramount+ With Showtime!
Netlix’s October 2023 Content For Girls, Gay and Theys
Everything Now: Season One – October 5
This British show created by 22-year old Ripley Parker centers on Mia (Sophie Wilde), a queer 16-year-old just out of eating disorder recovery who’s returned to school to see that her friends have changed since she left. To keep up with their bed-hopping and drinking, she creates her own bucket list of potentially thrilling and terrifying experiences. I’m very excited for this one!
The Fall of the House of Usher: Limited Series – October 12
Roderick and Madeline Usher have built their pharmaceutical company into a massive empire of wealth, privilege and power (despite their star drug contributing to an addiction epidemic) — but when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dropping dead, secrets begin angling towards the light. Mike Flanagan’s latest is a modern take on the Edgar Allen Poe story and is chock-full of queers — Roderick’s six offspring are, as per them dot us, “committing to being some of the worst rich gays you’ve ever met.” Amongst them is lesbian actor T’Nia Miller as Victorine, a lesbian medical researcher dating a surgeon and Camille (Kate Siegel), a PR Agent who has threesomes with her assistants.
Big Mouth: Season Seven – October 20
In Season Seven, our dysfunctional crew is leaving middle school for high school, where they’ll face new friends, new adversaries, and new Hormone Monsters.
Elite: Season Seven – October 20
Elite seems to be returning to its original spirit, which is to say that they’re dropping queer women like flies but there remains plenty for the straights and gay men! However; Nico, a trans male character introduced and seriously mishandled in Season 6, is back for Elite’s seventh trip around the sun. Sara, who flirted with a lesbian relationship with Mencia in Season Six, is also returning, but we all remember how that turned out, so! Also I guess this season is going to be about everybody dealing with their trauma, including Omar, who returns to Las Encinas for an internship.
Surviving Paradise: Season One – October 20
This reality show drops twelve contestants in a luxury villa only to discover that in fact they’ll be camping in the woods without any lavish amenities, and will have to fight their way back into the villa through friendships and alliances in pursuit of a $100,000 grand prize. If you have seen the trailer to this program I think you will have no choice but to agree with me that there is a lesbian or non-binary person present.
Prime Video’s October 2023 For The Queers
Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe – October 6
This fascinating three-part documentary follows a new age YouTube-centered movement (aka cult) lead by a bananas young Michigan couple who claimed the ability to enable their followers to find their “twin flames,” just like they had. There are myriad LGBTQ+ themes throughout the series. There’s the lesbian couple recruited early to be the model of Twin Flame’s success. There’s a trans woman struggling to understand her attraction towards a Cowboy-ish suitor. And, eventually, there’s a turning point in the cult’s evolution when they shifted towards intergroup matchmaking, which meant convincing a solid chunk of their almost-entirely female membership that they are, in fact, men.
Hulu’s LGBTQ+ TV and Film for October 2023
Goosebumps: Season One Premiere – October 13
Trans actor Miles McKenna plays one of the five high schoolers who are at the center of this adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, but I haven’t been able to confirm if his character is also trans! The series will find said group of buddies embarking “on a shadowy and twisted journey to investigate the tragic passing three decades earlier of a teen named Harold Biddle.”
Living for the Dead: Season One Premiere – October 18
It’s the hotly anticipated gay ghost hunting series produced by our very own Kristen Stewart and the creators of “Queer Eye” in which five “fabulous” queer ghost hunters travel the country, helping the living by healing the dead. They will explore some of the world’s most haunted locations and push boundaries to bring acceptance to all !
Paramount+ with Showtime’s September 2023 Gay Stuff
Citizen Ruth (1996) – October 1
Laura Dern stars as a poor, drug addicted pregnant woman who unexpectedly becomes a lighting rod in the abortion debate. Swwosie Kurtz plays a delightful lesbian abortion-rights activist and spy.
In the Heights (2021) – October 1
There’s a lightly expressed lesbian relationship between two characters played by Daphne Ruben-Vega and Stephanie Beatriz in this adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical set in Washington Heights.
Monster High 2 (2023) – October 5
Our beloved Clawdeen Wolf, Draculaura and Frankie Stein are entering their sophomore year at Monster High, where they’ll face even bigger challenges than last year, including new students, new powers, and a threat to their friendship/the world. Frankie Stein is a nonbinary genius who’s been Frankenmonstered together from an assortment of famous historical body parts. Heather found the first Monster High movie very delightful!
Disney+’s Queer October 2023
Loki: Season Two Premiere – October 5
This successful Marvel series centered on the genderfluid bisexual god of mischief, Loki, wil find in Season Two its titular character working with Mobius M. Mobius, Hunter B-15, and other members of the Time Variance Authority to navigate the multiverse in order to find Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes.
Max’s October 2023 Gay Action
Our Flag Means Death: Season Two Premiere – October 5
Legendary around here for Vico Ortiz’s role as non-binary pirate Jim, Meg wrote of the first season that it has “so many queer relationships, so many exes and love triangles, so many beautiful stories playing out and interweaving in ways that feel familiar and fresh all at once.” In Seaso Two, Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and his mentor-slash-ex-boyfriend Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) will continue to navigate (mis)adventure at sea.
Doom Patrol: Season 4B Premiere – October 12
The second and final half of Doom Patrol debuts this October, in which the Doom Patrol will meet old friends and foes as they race to defeat Immortus and re-possess their longevities, which will require facing their deepest fears and deciding if they can let go of the past to reclaim their future. Diane Guerrero returns as lesbian character Kay Challis/Crazy Jane.
50 TV Shows With Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Characters Cancelled After One Season
There are 210 television programs in our database of TV shows featuring lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters that only lasted for one (1) mere season on this earth. Of those, around 45 are limited series — shows like Little Fires Everywhere, Mrs America, Tales of the City and The Bisexual — that never intended to exist past their first season, which leaves us with 170 TV shows with queer women and/or trans characters that were cancelled after one season — shows that got born, crawled into the world, won us over with their queer storylines, and then got cancelled. We have around 730 non-limited-series TV shows in our database, which means around 20% of the queer-inclusive shows we’ve tracked are cancelled after one season.
Statistically speaking, this doesn’t necessarily mean that queer-inclusive shows are cancelled after one season more often than shows that don’t have LGBTQ+ characters, although it’s difficult to determine what numbers to compare our numbers to (and our science is imprecise — “shows Autostraddle tracks” isn’t necessarily a quantitative body we can compare to others quantitative bodies). We have patches of information like that 58% of network shows are cancelled before a second season in, and that Netflix cancels 11% of the shows it releases in any given year. That 67%
But the queer-inclusive cancellations tend to hit our community hard, especially when their networks so consistently fail to promote their shows to queer audiences or advertise with queer media and often intentionally obscure their LGBTQ+ content from promotional materials. Not a single one of the shows on this list has advertised their show on Autostraddle.com — and in fact, Netflix and Prime Video have never directly purchased advertising from our website. We rarely see networks make obvious financial investments in promoting their queerest shows, in mainstream media or with queer media. We often see queer content obscured in marketing materials due to some kind of internalized network homophobia, leaving queer media and audiences in the dark until we simply watch the entire show ourselves and initiate the gay word-of-mouth ourselves.
This list focuses on shows cancelled after one season, but when it comes to shows with LGBTQ+ women and/or trans leads, we’re especially prone to getting an axe after season two or three, like One Mississippi, The L Word: Generation Q, Take My Wife, Vida, Lip Service, Work in Progress, Warrior Nun, Batwoman, Pose, Gentleman Jack, Faking It, Betty, Dickinson, Feel Good, Sense8, Trinkets and Hightown.
Meanwhile, the list of shows with a lot of queer women’s content with long runs is a pretty short one:The L Word, Orange is the New Black, Wentworth, The Fosters and Transparent.
Often the shows that get cancelled after one season are objectively bad, or didn’t exactly win over LGBTQ+ audiences to begin with, like Heathers, Skins (US), Katy Keene, Q-Force, The Purge or Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists. But sometimes a show gets ripped out of our hands and we’re a little bummed about it.
Here are just some of the many shows cancelled after one season.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (2023) – Paramount+
This musical re-imagining of a more diverse Rydell High in the 1950s was not just cancelled, it was removed from the Paramount+ platform within weeks of its cancellation, thus denying its young cast and ambitious writers and directors any potential residuals.
Gotham Knights (2023) – The CW
You deserve a better show, bbs.
Harper Row was a “streetwise, acerbic and often underestimated blue-haired bisexual and a gifted engineer who can fix anything.” Now she is cancelled.
The Watchful Eye (2023) – Freeform
This weird little show about a nanny discovering the building where she’s now employed by an affluent Manhattan family is full of mysteries and deadly secrets had a few queer women in its ensemble. But now it’s over forever
Willow (2022-2023) – Disney+
I think I’m gonna like it here.
Willow was very beloved by our TV Team! Despite receiving very positive reviews from critics, including us — Heather said Willow gave us “the lesbian Disney Princess we’ve been waiting for” and Nic said it had “multiple queer characters to root for” — Disney+ cancelled this series inspired by a film that gave me nightmares for my entire childhood after a single season.
A League of Their Own (2022) – Prime Video
Anne Marie Fox/Prime Video
Copyright: © Amazon Content Services LLC
Truly one of the best queer shows in all of recorded history, we suffered twice over here: first, when we were told there’d be a season two, but it’d only have three episodes and that’d be the last season forever. And then, when during the writer’s strike
Monarch (2022) – Fox
This series that was like Empire for country music featured queer musician Beth Ditto as a queer musician and Heather described it as both “a flashy primetime soap that doesn’t make a lick of sense” and “deliciously watchable.” Although it opened with strong ratings, they gradually declined and Fox’s first wholly-owned scripted series — which had its premiere pushed a few times — got the axe.
Vampire Academy (2022) – Peacock
All vampires are queer, that I know for sure.
Peacock was “happy with [Vampire Academy and One of Us Is Lying] creatively but they just didn’t find the requisite audience to justify further seasons.” Also happy with Vampire Academy? Fans who’d tuned in for a queer forbidden romance that really sizzled in its season finale.
Reboot (2022) – Hulu
(Photo by: Michael Desmond/Hulu)
This little comedy about a dysfunctional writers room rebooting a classic sitcom, spearheaded by the unbeatable Rachel Bloom, was so funny and so surprisingly queer! Heather said it delivered “the most hilarious lesbian chaos [she’d] ever seen.” After getting the axe from Hulu, its producing studio tried to find a new home for the half-hour comedy, but did not.
Queer as Folk (2022) – Peacock
QUEER AS FOLK — Episode 104 — Pictured: (l-r) Jesse James Keitel as Ruthie, CG as Shar — (Photo by: Alyssa Moran/Peacock)
A cast of queer people led by queer creatives, telling the stories of queer and trans people of color — the Queer as Folk reboot was a revelation, especially for its central romance between a queer trans woman and her non-binary partner who just gave birth to twins. But now we will never see those twins grow old!
The Imperfects (2022) – Netflix
“If you like messy superpower origin stories, found family feels, comic-book-esque fight scenes, and slowly unraveling mysteries, with a bonus queer, asexual, South Asian woman? Netflix’s The Imperfects is the show for you,” wrote Valerie of this series. Unfortunately, it was only for you for one (1) season!
Paper Girls (2022) – Prime Video
This heart-tugging edge-of-your-seat adaptation of the comic book series about a group of misfit late ’80s paper girls who get caught in a time-hopping adventure had barely begun to touch the outer edges of the queer storyline promised by its source material in Season One. It also spent a great deal of its eight-episode first season building up its complicated premise and establishing characters, and now TO WHAT END? After clearly giving the show an incredibly small budget for a sci-fi franchise — and putting it on a schedule to compete with Stranger Things (which costs $40 million an episode) and The Sandman — Prime Video barely gave this show a month to breathe before axing it!
First Kill (2022) – Netflix
The cancellation of this “sweet (and sometimes bloody) story of firsts — first times, first kills, and first loves” from Netflix did not land well with its already passionate fandom who’d all witnessed its regular presence on Netflix’s weekly Top 10 (peaking at No.3 in its first full week of release). Its showrunner blamed Netflix’s lackluster marketing for the program, and a source told The Daily Beast that its few ads portraying it as “mostly a lesbian love story” may have hindered its reach. Maybe it would’ve been a more successful angle if they’d placed the lesbian love story advertising in lesbian media. But, First Kill was the rare show that had a PR team that actually told us ahead of time the show would be gay and made a concerted effort to secure coverage.
Resident Evil (2022) – Netflix
Panned by critics, this adaptation of the popular video game series apparently didn’t “appear to pull in the franchise’s existing fanbase in a way that earned a Season 2 renewal,” but it did have “a sociopathic lesbian CEO to die for.”
Naomi (2022) – The CW
The CW did a ton of axing this spring and Ava DuVernay’s Naomi, which Natalie described as “here and queer (and absolutely gorgeous),” joined fellow notably queer supernatural titles Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman in getting said axe, after being “in a constant battle to find an audience, especially online.” Unlike the comic upon which it was based, Naomi introduced the audience to all of Naomi’s friends, including her queer pal Lourdes, who had feelings for Naomi.
Pivoting (2022) – Fox
Pivoting is actually a great example of a show we simply missed and didn’t have the bandwidth to cover, but certainly would’ve addressed had its PR team or its marketing materials alerted us to its queerness ahead of time and/or they’d advertised with us! Like so many shows, its trailer intentionally obscures the presence of a gay character. Anyhow, this critically acclaimed comedy about three women re-evaluating their own lives after the sudden death of a friend from high school and starred Maggie Q as Sarah, a doctor who leaves her job and her cheating wife to forge new paths.
4400 (2021 – 2022) – The CW
Shelli wrote that this reboot of The 4400 is “queer, Black and incredibly dope” and boy was it, but it too was cancelled in The CW’s Summer 2022 Chop-a-Thon. In the new series, 440 people from all over the world — and all different time periods — literally fall out of the sky into Detroit, Michigan, and have to figure out who they are and what they’re doing here, including a Black trans man yanked out of his thriving queer Harlem Renaissance community. Queer actress Kausar Mohammed is a computer whiz stealing the heart of cop Keisha Taylor. It’s also a show we discovered on our own — The CW made no visible effort to market the show at all, let alone to LGBTQ+ audiences.
Queens (2021 – 2022) – ABC
QUEENS – ABC’s “Queens” stars Naturi Naughton as Jill aka Da Thrill, Eve as Brianna aka Professor Sex, Brandy as Naomi aka Xplicit Lyrics, and Nadine Velazquez as Valeria aka Butter Pecan. (ABC/Gavin Bond)
This show that Carmen says “was bad in the fun and enjoyable way” starred the one and only Brandy Norwood in a musical drama about the estranged 1990s music group “Nasty Bitches,” now in their 40s, getting a second shot at fame. Amongst them was queer character Jill Da Thrill (Naturi Naughton) and the show has a Black queer woman writer writing a Black queer woman charaacter!
Genera+ion (2021) – HBO Max
My lord this show was so very queer and weird and had such a specific style and fresh point of view. When announcing its cancellation, HBO Max said that it was “very proud to have partnered with Zelda and Daniel Barnz to faithfully and authentically represent LGBTQ youth with such a diverse group of characters and layered stories.” Luckily we had a chance to celebrate the show in the 2021 Autostraddle TV Awards, as it was so sparsely celebrated elsewhere.
The Republic of Sarah (2021) – The CW
Photo: Philippe Bosse/The CW — © 2021 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
In a small New Hampshire town, the citizens band together to declare its independence to dodge a mining company who wants to tear their town up to get to what’s underneath it. Once again the lesbian character is unfortunately a cop! Amy “AJ” Johnson (Nia Halloway) is sleeping with the mayor’s wife. Low ratings and bad reviews sealed its fate.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2021) – Prime Video
The body count at the end of this show’s first season was pretty high so who knows what a Season Two would’ve entailed, but I really enjoyed this absolutely awful series that had lots of queer text and subtext, and a very fun queer villain, Margot (Brianne Tju). But mostly bad reviews ensured that absolutely nobody will know what they did this most recent summer.
High Fidelity (2020) – Hulu
“As Robyn “Rob” Brooks, Zoe Kravitz fully ascended into exactly the kind of actor I’d always hoped she would be,” wrote Carmen in her write-up of Rob as one of her favorite TV characters of 2020, “part ironic smart ass, part quiet rock star swag, and charismatic beyond description. More than that, she’s comfortable taking up space on screen in ways that we haven’t been able to enjoy from her before.” She notes that “over 10 episodes and five hours, Zoe Kravitz never loses her audience” — but Hulu took it right out of our hands and Carmen was NOT HAPPY.
I Am Not Okay With This (2020) – Netflix
A “coming-of-age Black comedy” didn’t market itself as queer, just as a new Stranger Things, so I was genuinely delighted to turn it on and see that this time, the boyish weirdo protagonist with a reluctant smile and hidden depths actually turned out to be queer! Based on a graphic novel, this show was quirky and fantastic and did strong work in portraying the pain of losing a parent as a teenager… and of course was swiftly cancelled after only seven brief episodes.
Teenage Bounty Hunters (2020) – Netflix
Sterling and April in their private Christian school in Teenage Bounty Hunters.
I do feel like this list is quickly becoming me simply complaining over and over again about how streaming networks absolutely refuse to give LGBTQ+ press a heads-up about queer-inclusive shows, let alone market to their readers, but once again we have another memorable scenario in which this happened! Valerie called Jenji Cohan’s tight female-fronted comedy “a Godsend of a Queer Romp” and we were all pretty pissed when it got axed the same day as G.L.O.W.
Party of Five (2020) – Freeform
This reboot of the ’90s classic re-positioned its story to be one of a family struggling to keep it together after their parents are deported to Mexico. Reviews were strong, but the numbers weren’t high enough to earn a second season because Freeform had to pay a licensing fee to an outside studio (Sony Pictures Television) to produce the show. “I’m remiss that Freeform didn’t give Party of Five and Lucia, in particular, more time to grow [a queer] community,” wrote Natalie in an End-of-Year list.
The Vagrant Queen (2020) – Netflix
The Vagrant Queen’s slow burn building between its queer characters finally caught fire in its penultimate episode… just in time for it to get summarily cancelled! The show had strong reviews and built a passionate fanbase, but apparently just didn’t hit its numbers. Elida, who played a queer lead, told Digital Spy, “”I’m proud of what we did. We created a sci-fi show with a Black lead, and it also included LGBTQ+ relationships and it was led by women writers and women directors. Of course I’m proud of that. It is unfortunate that it was cancelled after the first season, but I’m hoping that it’s just one little detour and it’s, in the grand scheme of things, a huge step towards inclusion and diversity and representation.”
Utopia Falls (2020) – Hulu
Hundreds of years in the future and New Babyl, the last living colony on earth, has divided into different sectors for specific industries, from which 24 candidates are chosen to compete in The Examplar performance competition. Six of these candidates are followed by the show’s narrative, including sexually fluid Brooklyn 2, played by queer queen Humberly Gonzalez, and dancer Sage 5. Utopia Falls was cancelled “following the critics’ half-hearted response to the first season.” We were not amongst those critics because again, nobody on their PR team reached out to LGBTQ+ press.
Away (2020) – Netflix
This show was actually very bad, mostly because it was centered on these milquetoast white people instead of the far more interesting characters of color who surround them! One of those characters, Dr. Lu Wang, had a big gay secret, and her storyline was unsurprisingly one of the show’s most fascinating and redeeming aspects. It was incredibly popular on Netflix and the creators intended it to run for three seasons, but Netflix still axed it due to poor critical response and its high cost of production.
The Baker and The Beauty (2020) – ABC
Adapted from Israel’s highest-rated scripted series ever with a mostly Latinx cast, The Baker and the Beauty follows a Cuban-American baker who enters a whirlwind romance with an Australian supermodel — his younger sister Natalie is queer and played by queer actor Belissa Escobedo — and was one of Netflix’s top-ranked shows when it was picked up by the streaming network in 2021. Unfortunately, Fox had already axed it in June 2020.
Pure (2020) – Channel 4 / HBO Max
This British dramedy gave a really nuanced, full-fledged look at OCD through its protagonist, 24-year-old Marnie, who lives with obsessive, unwanted sexual thoughts. and had a really fun lesbian character, Amber, who worked at a women’s magazine with Marnie. Channel 4 said the show “would not be returning” but they were “incredibly proud of the show and the immensely talented creative team who created it.”
Dare Me (2019- 2020) – USA
(Photo by: Rafy/USA Network)
‘Dare Me is one of the most underrated television shows from the past year, and I will seize every opportunity to shout that at people!!!!!” wrote Kayla of this dreamy, creepy thriller following a group of cutthroat cheerleaders in a small midwestern squad, all under the thrall of their new coach Colette. Based on a 2012 Megan Abbott novel, this show kicked the bucket the day USA decided to cancel literally all of its scripted content at once!
Stumptown (2019-2020) – ABC
Adapted from a comic book series, Cobie Smulders starred in Stumptown as “Bisexual Dirtbag PI Dex Parios,” a military vet struggling with PTSD struggling to support her brother and get herself out of debt, while turning to alcohol and sex as a coping mechanism. Stumptown was in fact renewed for a second season, but after suffering some COVID-19 production delays, it was axed from the fall 2020 ABC schedule and yadda yadda yadda, the network dropped it and the studio tried shopping it elsewhere but never did it.
Abby’s (2019) – NBC
“In the year 20BiTeen, fresh on the heels of the year 20GayTeen, in this, the Golden Age of Gay Television, there has never been a queer show like Natalie Morales’ Abby’s, which lands on NBC this Thursday,” Heather Hogan wrote of Abby’s in anticipation of its premiere. “Morales is the first openly queer woman and the first woman of color to play an openly bisexual main character on a network sitcom.” Unfortunately, this moment of glory didn’t last long.
BH90210 (2019) – Fox
BH90210 had an interesting approach to its reboot — the cast were playing fictional versions of themselves, the actors from Beverly Hills 90210 who’d reunited to shoot a reboot of Beverly Hills 90210. So it was very meta on a few levels? But also Gabrielle Carteris and Christine Elise having a thing was like my entire life coming full circle in a way that I apparently found more delightful than others and it was just ultimately a really great later-in-life bisexual storyline!
Everything Sucks! (2018) – Netflix
I’ll tell you what there is probably no cancelled-after-one-season show we have devoted more words to than Everything Sucks! This cute ’90s story was about a bunch of teenagers learning about themselves through the video arts, starring a passionate closeted lesbian Tori Amos fan who falls for that rebellious girl with the obnoxious boyfriend who eventually falls for her right back. Kate and Emaline, may you live on forever in our dreams of what might have been, walking down the lightly-crowded hallways with Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano. “Because we were seeing a much low completion rate of the whole season, we realized that it is very unlikely that we would be able to grow the audience,” said Netflix of the cancellation, “[or to] move a whole new audience through the show and have a large enough audience to justify a season two.” Still, this show was undeniably inexpensive to produce!
Champions (2018) – NBC
Mindy Kaling’s NBC sitcom (which also starred Josie Totah as a talented and ambitious gay theater-kid) boasted one of 2018’s few non-femme non-thin lesbian characters, but only got ten episodes in the sun. Although the show got middling reviews, it was praised for “tackling comedy about gender, race and sexuality with a confidence that is truly refreshing” and it’s also notably rare for a show to launch with both a gay boy and a lesbian character from the jump.
Danger & Eggs (2017)
Trans showrunner/animator Shadi Petosky’s series, co-created with Mike Owens, focused on the adventures of “a young masc lesbian on her topsy-turvy adventures with her anthropomorphic egg friend” and aimed to be overtly rather than subtextually LGBTQ+, with queer voice actors on board like Stephanie Beatriz, Jasika Nicole and Angelica Ross, plus a huge list of guest stars like Jazz Jennings, Tyler Ford and River Butcher. Petosky felt comfortable at Amazon, still in its Transparent prime, but still recalls “there were little arguments, and battles, and suspensions” throughout, and she had to enlist GLAAD to help advocate for what she knew the show needed.
I Love Dick (2017) – Prime Video
Devon, the butch Latinx artist and aspiring playwright living in the trailer behind the house where the protagonist and her husband are having their artists retreat, was a dreamy romantic who captured our hearts with every glance of her yearning eyes. She starts out lighting a joint with her shirt off, later delivers a twangy and romantic coming-of-age story unlike any seen on television before, and later still brings the town’s dedicated citizens and pretentious visiting artists together for some very inventive theater. Devon, Devon, Devon.
Gyspy (2017) – Netflix
Yes, Gypsy not only had a terrible name, it was a pretty terrible show. But… but we couldn’t tear ourselves away from it, just the same, and Season One’s finale opened the door for so many subsequent mysteries we’ll never get the chance to understand or solve. It was sexy and atmospheric and the lead character, Jean Holloway, was bisexual in addition to being the worst therapist in the history of modern medicine. Plus there’s a lot more to Sidney than meets the eye. How much more??? WE WILL NEVER KNOW.
Still Star-Crossed (2017) – ABC
As an astute YouTube commenter noted on a clip of Princess Isabella saying goodbye to her dear “friend” Helena from Venice, “THE SHOW WAS GONNA BE GAY BUT WE WERE ROBBED.” This Shondaland project addressed the Romeo and Juliet story with a racially diverse cast, including Isabella of Verona, played by Iranian-American actress Medalion Rahimi. This made her the fourth-ever regular Middle Eastern queer female character on American television. Alas, it was not to be, with only seven episodes before we experienced the sweet sorrow of parting.
Grandfathered (2016) – Fox
A selfish rich bachelor played by John Stamos owns a successful L.A. restaurant managed by Annelise, a gay lady who we all loved about ten times more than we loved the show itself. Annelise could have very easily become a trope, the super-capable and competent black woman who exists only to manage the lives and provide guidance to the white people around her, but Grandfathered managed to sidestep that and give her her own storylines and life outside the restaurant. Ironically, the audience felt the same way about John Stamos’s character that Annelise did: bewildered and annoyed at the inability of another rich white dude to grow the fuck up. And so the show ended after one season.
The Family (2016) – ABC
(ABC/Giovanni Rufino)
“Willa was always a churn of anxiety and calculation and Alison Pill played her brilliantly,” wrote Ali Davis in our Best/Worst LGBTQ Characters Round-up in 2016. “You could always see Willa thinking, holding back a storm of emotions, and wanting the exact woman she shouldn’t. And which of us hasn’t done that last one? I had huge problems with The Family, but I still hold out hope that one day Willa will get spun off into the series she deserves.”
Marry Me (2015) – NBC
“Kay is just the best,” wrote Heather. “She’s sweet, she’s smart, and she’s funny as hell. And Marry Me didn’t shy away from the sex part of her sexuality. She came out by simply announcing that she got a blast on Boobr and was going to “go get it, get it and forget it.” She identified as a “soft butch lipstick flannel queen,” y’all. She was perfect! Unfortunately, NBC pulled the plugs before it really had a chance to find its footing.
One Big Happy (2015) – NBC
Ellen DeGeneres’s stab at a palatable lesbian sitcom was a resounding flop that seemed to want to balance out the impact of a lesbian protagonist by watering down everything else about the show, like the plot, which involved the lesbian having her straight male best friend’s baby. But Heather found the finale to be “really, truly wonderful.” “For all the nagging I did about this show falling into ’90s sitcom tropes,” she wrote, “it really whacked me in the heart with a brand new thing in the finale.” Alas, six episodes was all she wrote.
The Returned (2015) – A&E
The Returned was an adaptation of a French series by the same name, produced by the same guy who did Lost. Sandrine Holt (The L Word) played Dr. Julie Han and Agnes Brucker (Breaking the Girls) played her on-and-off girlfriend Deputy Nikki Banks. Although the basic concept of this show is oddly common (the dead are back! why are they back!), I still loved it, and felt deeply that we deserved like three more seasons of creepy dark complicated episodes.
Super Fun Night (2015) – ABC
Super Fun Night had a lot of potential — three genuinely weird girls decide to get off the couch and live real lives, because fat girls and nerdy girls and lesbians deserve fun! But then every. single. joke. was at the expense of their identities (how many “omg I’m so fat my outfit broke” jokes does one need, really?) and eventually it all ended up playing into the exact mold it had promised to bust. Flavorwire eventually described it as “nothing more than a freshman attempt at sitcom writing that needed to go through a couple more drafts before being put on the air.” But! Lauren Ash’s Marika, and her cute coming out story, were a rare highlight of the show, and maybe if it had gotten those extra drafts, we could’ve seen even more of her journey.
Go On (2013) – NBC
“Anne gave us a story we don’t see too much — what happens when love ends, as Anne experienced following the death of her partner,” Lizz wrote. “But Anne did so with her signature quick wit and got a cute young girlfriend and was taking real steps towards reconciling the grief she felt towards her late wife with her attraction towards a new woman. Plus honestly I’d watch Julie White roll silverware for three hours, she’s that good.”
Underemployed (2012) – MTV
Unfortunately for the entire world, Sophia Swanson was a kickass character stuck on a lousy show with a bunch of self-interested assholes that obviously got cancelled. But fortunately, Sophia Swanson was an unexpected ray of light on an otherwise-heteronormative world — and, at least for the first few episodes, she was positioned as the story’s narrator. Plot devices bungled by other lesbian storylines were delightfully subverted in Underemployed and for the first few episodes, she was been granted ample screen time to grapple with her newfound sexuality, coming out to her friends and parents, and dating a woman for the first time.
The Playboy Club (2011) – NBC
Friends, I was so excited for this one! A show about a Playboy-branded nightclub in the ’60s had made one of its Bunnies, Alice, a closeted lesbian in a lavender marriage with a gay man. Together, they’d joined the Chicago chapter of The Mattachine Society, one of the earliest LGBT Rights groups in the world, and we were promised exploration of this subplot over the course of the season. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after just three (honestly not great) episodes and we never got to see any of this early history play out.
Cashmere Mafia (2007-2008) – ABC
Cashmere Mafia featured the one and only non-heterosexual lead on the 2007-2008 network television slate, but she burned very briefly — the show that aimed to “follow the lives of four ambitious women, longtime best friends since their days at business school, as they try to balance their glamorous and demanding careers with their complex personal lives by creating their own ‘boys’ club'” only aired seven little episodes before getting the chop.
Wonderfalls (2004) – Fox
A Republican immigration attorney and closeted lesbian who came out to her younger sister — the show’s protagonist — in the very first episode, Sharon also managed a minor romantic storyline in the show’s only season (only the first four episodes made it to air, but the entire first season was released on DVD and later aired on Logo). “While she clearly has flaws, Sharon is a realistic, well-rounded, and sympathetic character,” Sarah Warn wrote of her at the time, “no minor accomplishment considering the only other lesbian characters on primetime network TV this season have storylines that are either boringly and insultingly stereotypical (ER) or non-existent (Two and a Half Men).” The show, often compared to Pushing Daisies, had positive reviews and a passionate fanbase — in today’s TV climate it definitely would’ve been given a longer shot at success, or a different network pickup. The AV Club later declared the show “foreshadowed Bryan Fuller’s yearnings for Hannibal and American Gods,” two current shows to also feature queer women characters.
The Ellen Show (2001) – NBC
The final season of Ellen’s first sitcom pushed the lesbian conversation forward in ways we’d never see again for over a decade, and in some ways, her two subsequent projects seem to settle on a kind of overcompensation for that relative radicalism that prevented them from ever finding their own voice. After many years feeling locked out of the industry, her return to primetime comedy marked the first time a sitcom focused on a lesbian lead character from its inception. Ellen’s big return found her character returning home after her internet startup goes bust to make lots of small-pond jokes and revisit the Billie Jean King and Charlie’s Angels posters covering the wall of her childhood bedroom. Sarah Warn wrote that “the failure of The Ellen Show at that time probably had more to do with the fact that it just wasn’t as funny as it should have been with the creative talent it possessed,” while acknowledging,”looking at the series with 2006 eyes, it’s not as un-funny as the critics back in its day alleged.”
Courthouse (1995) – CBS
Co-produced and written by Gina Price-Blythewood (who also made Love & Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees), Courthouse featured the first-ever black lesbian couple on television. Unfortunately, it only lasted 11 episodes and left behind not a single episode for me to recreationally view with my own eyeballs and apparently their lesbianism was “toned down” before broadcast. Still, I bet it was really something!
September 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Showtime, Max and Starz!
As the school bells ring on the street corner and leaves drift from the branches of trees onto the ground (or not, depending on where you live), we are served a fresh bounty of television programs and films with lesbian and bisexual characters, from networks that overpay their executives and underpay their actors and writers, such as Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Starz, Max and Paramount Plus With Showtime!. This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors who are currently on strike, these series would not be possible, and Autostraddle is grateful for the artists who do this work.
Netlix’s September 2023 Content For Girls, Gay and Theys
Disenchantment: Season 5 – September 1
In its final season, Queen Bean (voiced by queer actor Abbi Jacobson), her elf companion and her personal demon are competing in an epic battle for Dreamland, hoping to save the land from Queen Dagmar’s wicked rule. Wishing them all the best on their journey!
Happy Ending (2023) – September 1
This Dutch film finds Luna and Mink one year into their relationship and Mink unaware that his girlfriend has been faking orgasms this whole entire time. Luna’s friends, appalled by the revelation, propose an innovative solution: a threesome with climate activist Eve (Joy Delima) — but one evening with Eve throws Luna’s whole life upside-down. (ETA I’ve since scene this movie and spoiler alert in the footer1)
Top Boy: Season 5 – September 7
This gritty crime drama produced by noted rapper Drake is about drug gangs operating in the housing estates of East London and it features Jasmine Johnson as Jaq (a role for which she has been nominated for BAFTAs) and British model Adwoa Aboah is Becks, Jaq’s girlfriend.
Sex Education: Season 4 – September 21
Otis and friends have moved forward in life to Cavendish Six Form College, and in the trailer Otis is explaining his work as a sex therapist to a moderately occupied auditorium. Maeve walks by two girls kissing on the street but I don’t know if they will have any lines. Queer character Ola (Patricia Allison) and girlfriend Lily (Tanya Reynolds), aren’t returning, but non-binary character Cal (Dua Saleh) is indeed returning, bless us all! Our beloved Dan Levy is joining the cast to play a writer/professor.
Full seasons of queer-inclusive shows from other networks dropping on Netflix:
- S.W.A.T. (Season 6) – September 1
- Call the Midwife (Season 12) – September 4
- New Amsterdam (Season Five) – September 20
Prime Video’s August 2023 For The Queers
The Wheel of Time: Season 2 – September 1
This is what Prime Video has to say about Season Two: “threats new and very old seek out the young friends from the Two Rivers, now scattered over the world. The woman who found and guided them is now powerless to help, and so they must find other sources of strength. In each other, or themselves. In the Light … or the Dark.”
Wilderness: Season One – September 15
British couple Liv (Coleman) and Will (Jackson-Cohen) appear to have it all — a glamorous life in New York far away from their provincial home town, a widely envied marriage — but it all comes crashing down when Liv learns of Will’s affair with Cara (queer actor Ashley Benson). After coping with heartbreak, Liv moves on to revenge, and plans to execute it on a couples road trip to all the National Parks. Liv is sexually fluid and her best friend, Ash, is a lesbian. The vibes are very much “based on a bestselling thriller.”
Neighbours: A New Chapter (Freevee) – September 18
The long-running Australian soap, following the lives, loves, and challenges of the residents on Ramsay Street in a fictional Mebourne suburb, picks up with a reboot after its 2022 finale. New neighbors include lesbian couple Cara (Sara West) and Remi (Naomi Rukavina) and their two sons. Georgie Stone is returning as transgender woman Mackenzie Hargreaves, a character launched in 2019 after Georgie pitched it directly to the original show’s producer. Chloe Brennan (April Rose Pengilly), a bisexual character from the original series, is also returning, and her character’s girlfriend is returning in a guest capacity!
The Victoria’s Secret World Tour – September 25
So they’re re-booting the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, historically a damaging cultural instrument, as a feature-length documentary film bringing together women creators from Bogotá, Lagos, London, and Tokyo for “a global fashion event, film, and celebration.” This group of creators is overflowing with queer people: queer Nigerian stylist and social media influencer Ashley Okoli, queer musician Wavy The Creator, trans Italian dancer & choreographer Piscis, trans artist & writer Ebun Sodipo and queer artist Phoebe Collings; as well as Eloghosa Osunde, the Nigerian author of the queer novel Vagabounds!
Gen V: Season One – September 29
Set within the world of The Boys, Gen V is set at prestigious superhero-only college Godolkin University of Crimefighting, where students train to become superheroes with big brand deals. As the students compete for popularity and good grades, it’s clear that super powers have a tendency to raise the stakes. Derek Luh and London Thor play “gender-shifting” character Jordan Li, and I am certain from vibes that there is another queer woman in this story.
Hulu’s LGBTQ+ TV and Film for September 2023
The Other Black Girl: Season One Premiere – September 13
Based on the psychological thriller bestselling novel by Zakiya Dalila, this series is the story of Hazel, an editorial assistant who’s relieved when Nella is hired at her all-white publishing firm — finally she’s not the only Black girl at the office. But something is immediately off with Nella, who’s nice to Hazel’s face, but seems to be undermining her work and her relationships, eventually uncovering a larger dark force lurking within Wagner Books. Hazel’s best friend, Malaika (Brittany Adebumola), is queer!
Special Forces: The Worlds Toughest Test (Fox) – September 25
Premiering on Fox on the 25th and landing on Hulu the next day, this reality competition with no prize at all invites willing adults to complete “the harshest most grueling challenges from the playbook of the actual Special Forces selection process.” Not loving the military tie-in here, but, this season takes place in brutally cold conditions in New Zealand and contestants include David Silver from Beverly Hills 90210, Tara Reid, and America’s lesbian sweetheart, JoJo Siwa.
Paramount+ / Showtime’s September 2023 Gay Shows
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Season 4 – September 7
Heather Hogan’s favorite Star Trek, the quirky comedic animated Star Trek: Lower Decks, is focused on the support crew of the USS Cerritos, one of Starfleet’s least important ships, in the year 2380. Tawny Newsome voices pansexual Ensign Beckett Mariner, as she and her crew attempt to keep up with life itself while being attacked by all manner of sci-fi anomalies.
Max’s Lesbian Shows of September 2023
Sam Jay: Salute Me or Shoot Me – September 23
Lesbian comic Sam Jay’s first HBO stand-up special, filmed at Brooklyn Steel, features the newly-engaged comic taking the stage for “a hilariously frank discussion on embracing our differences, the stresses of long-term relationships, and the power of empathy.”
Apple TV’s Lesbian September 2023 Fare
The Morning Show: Season 3 Premiere – September 15
After a sort of bad but also delightful season two that found Reese Witherspoon and Juliana Marguiles bumping boots, we come to Season Three in which we are all pleased to report that Juliana Marguiles is returning! In the trailer, UBA is the subject of a cyber-attack, and Karen Pittman is sighing in the shower, and Jennifer Aniston wants a seat at the table!!!! Also, Tig Notaro and John Hamm are joining the cast.
Starz’s September 2023 Lesbian Action
Power Book IV: Force: Season 2 Premiere – September 1
Well, it sounds like Tommy Egan is on a mission to avenge Liliana’s death and take over the Chicago drug world but with CBI split up, first Tommy and Diamond have to maintain their edge on Jenard as the factions feud in the streets. Lili Simmons plays Claudia Flynn, who is in fact a lesbian, and in the first season was working to get her new luxury drug onto the streets.
1 I have seen the film and I didn’t like the ending
August 2023: What’s New, Gay and Streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Showtime, Max and Disney+!
As we roast alive in the unending heat of this dying planet, it’s time once again to turn to our televisions for comfort, wherein we are regularly served television programs and films with lesbian and bisexual characters, from networks that overpay their executives and underpay their actors and writers, such as Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+, Max and Paramount Plus With Showtime! This month is a unique one for me insofar as the two things I’m the most excited about are kinda gay-boy-centric but I think we can take our joy where we can get it these days you know?
Netlix’s August 2023 Content For Girls, Gay and Theys
Heartstopper: Season Two – August 3
One of my favorite shows of 2023 for how deeply it warmed and delighted my heart (and inspired me to read all the books from the series!) is back for Season Two, in which events will likely involve eating ice cream and definitely will involve going to prom and taking a class trip to Paris. Nick will struggling to figure out how to come out and make his love with Charlie public and Ellie’s making new gal pals at Truman’s sister school, including our favorite lesbian couple Tara and Darcy. Early reviews have declared it “still euphoric and blissfully queer” and “TV’s sweetest teen romance.”
The Big Nailed It Baking Challenge – August 4th
Bisexual comic Nicole Beyer hosts a high-stakes “Nailed It!” spinoff where ten really bad bakers employ instruction from really amazing bakers in the race to win a sweet cash prize.
Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop – August 9th
This limited documentary series promises to “re-contextualize the irrepressible women of hip hop and their role in the genre’s 50 years by reinserting them into the canon where they belong: at the center, from day one to present day.” Iconic emcees include our very own Queen Latifah, Chika and Da Brat.
Depp v Heard: Limited Series – August 16th
I am so extremely very nervous for how this story is going to be told and also that it is being told so soon after the trial concluded. But um, bisexual actress Amber Heard faces Johnny Depp in a court of law.
Prime Video’s August 2023 For The Queers
Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) – August 11
Continuing my “gay boy love story” summer is the much-anticipated adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s delightful Red, White & Royal Blue, a romance between the son of the first woman president of the U.S, Alex Claremont-Diaz, and Britain’s Prince Henry. Rachel Hilson plays Nora Halleran, the 22-year-old granddaughter of the Vice President who is best friends (and exes) with Alex. Furthermore she is bisexual and Jewish!
Harlan Coben’s Shelter: Season One – August 18th
I do not know who this man (Harlan Coben) is, but every time one of his books is adapted into a television series I find myself GLUED TO THE SCREEN. In Shelter, we find teenager Mickey Boltar having recently lost his father in a tragic car accident and therefore made to move in with his (queer, it turns out!) aunt Shira (Constance Zimmer) in suburban New Jersey. He quickly finds himself at the center of a mystery surrounding another new student at his school vanishing. Mickey quickly becomes friends with (also queer!) school outcast Ema, played by queer actor Abby Corrigan.
Hulu’s LGBTQ+ TV and Film for August 2023
D.E.B.S. (2005) – August 1
Angela Robinson’s campy lesbian action comedy has delighted our people for years with its homoerotic group of lady spies in skirts and ties.
Breeders: Season 4 Premiere (FX) – August 1
This British dark comedy’s last season follows two parents who struggle with parenthood in a way that is funny enough for the AV Club to declare its final chapter “smart, wistful and funny as ever.” In the trailer we witness their now-teenage daughter Ava, played by Zoë Athena, experiencing her own “bombshell moment” when she meets and immediately develops a deep crush on charismatic hairdresser Holly (Jessie Williams).
Reservation Dogs: Season Three Premiere (FX) – August 2
Season Three of Reservation Dogs picks up with the group returning to Oklahoma after their unfortunate series of events in Los Angeles. Queer Kahnawà:ke Mohawk actress Devery Jacobs stars as teenager Elora Dana and queer two-spirit actor Elva Guerra plays Jackie in this critically beloved show with an all-Native and very queer writer’s room and crew.
Only Murders in the Building: Season Three Premiere – August 8
It’s unclear if our bisexual queen Mabel (Selena Gomez) will date a woman again this season (as she did last season with Cara Delevingne’s Alice), but she will continue to be on the series as the gang investigates another murder and also Meryl Streep and Ashley Park are joining the cast. We can also expect to see more of lesbian Detective Williams.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022) – August 24
Sasha Lane is Theo, a woman dying from a rare cancer caused by pollution and Jayme Lawson is her girlfriend, Alisha, a skeptical do-gooder, in this film Drew described as “a radical masterpiece” that transposes a “critique of non-violence in climate activism” “into the entertainment of a heist movie and the pathos of a character study.”
Paramount+ / Showtime’s August 2023 Gay Shows
The Chi: Season 6 Premiere – August 4
In Season Six, “big dreams are finally realized but at a cost and everyone will be tested in unimaginable ways as they calculate the risks and rewards of their next big move.” Tyla Abercrumbie will be returning as lesbian character Nina and Miriam A. Hyman as her wife Dre.
Billions: Season 7 Premiere – August 13
The final season of this show about terrible rich people will continue to feature Asia Kate Dillon as non-binary character Taylor. This is the longline:“In season seven, alliances are turned on their heads. Old wounds are weaponized. Loyalties are tested. Betrayal takes on epic proportions. Enemies become wary friends. And Bobby Axelrod returns, as the stakes grow from Wall Street to the world.”
Max’s Lesbian Shows of August 2023
Rap Sh!t: Season 2 Premiere – August 8th
Update: The premiere of the second season of Rap Sh!t has been delayed due to the Writer’s Strike.
Bisexual actor Jonica Booth plays Chastity, a stud and the self-proclaimed “Duke of Miami” who, in Season One, begins managing a rap group formed by her estranged high school friends. In Season Two, “the girls are on tour, tensions are high, and they’re quickly realizing how much they’re willing to sacrifice for success.”
Disney+ Queer Materials for August 2023
High School Musical: The Series – Season Four Premiere – August 9
Fans of this franchise I still know nearly nothing about were thrilled last year when Ashlyn, played by pansexual actress Julia Lester, realized she also liked girls in Season Three. In Season Four, plans for their stage production of High School Musical 3: Senior Year is interrupted when the Principal announces that Disney’s making “High School Musical 4: The Reunion” movie on location at East High. I am confident that all of this makes perfect sense to somebody!
Apple TV’s Lesbian August 2023 Fare
Invasion: Season Two Premiere – August 23
The second season of Invasion promises to be “a bigger, more intense season that drops our viewers into a wide-scale, global battle from the start,” which saw its characters cope with the results of an alien invasion. It also has a lesbian lead character, Mitsuki Yamato, played by Shioli Kitsuna!
18 Juicy Queer Love Triangles From Television
Call me a simple gay, but I sure am a sucker for a really good love triangle. Who isn’t? It’s a classic trope for a reason. And the queer ones are always the best ones, so I figured I’d revisit some standout examples from television through the years.
As tends to happen when I write lists like this, I started way overthinking the definitions of “love triangle” and “queer love triangle.” Initially, I set out to only include love triangles that didn’t involve cis men at all, but that didn’t feel right — or fair to bisexuals! So in the instances of queer love triangles that feature cis and (ostensibly?) straight men, I stuck to ones in which the two women involved have a romance together at some point. You would think this would be obvious, but it meant ruling out a love triangle like Riverdale‘s Jughead/Betty/Toni, because even though Betty and Toni are both bisexual (Toni, explicitly so, and Betty a little more nebulously but in a manner I’d still consider canon), they never have a thing together, thus sparking my realization that perhaps the definition of “queer love triangle” is not simply “a love triangle featuring queer characters” but a love triangle in which queerness is acted upon within that triangle and fully at the surface. Meanwhile, I also couldn’t bring myself to include Cheryl/Toni/Jughead, because while Cheryl/Toni happens and Toni/Jughead happens, there is never really tension between who Toni might choose. It was more like Toni/Jughead naturally ended and then Toni/Cheryl got together. There’s queerness there, but it doesn’t have the trajectory of a love triangle! Few shows do love triangles (which at this point have so thoroughly transcended that particular geometry to look something more like love…helixes?) as well as Riverdale, which is also full of lesbian and bisexual characters, but I just couldn’t quite pinpoint a combination that worked for the purposes of this list!
After spending probably too much time crafting my own definition of and “rules” for this queer love triangle list, I inevitably will deviate at some point, because I’ve never been particularly good at sticking to definitions, even the ones I construct myself. If you’d like to argue with me over what “counts” and doesn’t count as a love triangle, by all means, do so! I’m highlighting the character combinations that feel like queer love triangles to me. And that’s my longwinded disclaimer!!!!
Niko/Mel/Jada, Charmed
I meeeean, three witches of color in a love triangle together? This is my catnip, this is my religion, this is my anthem.
Lauren/Bo/Dyson, Lost Girl
Most of the time, I’m like GET OUTTA HERE DYSON! But truth be told, I do like the tension of this triangle, even if broody Dyson has to be involved. I’m now fondly recalling a simpler time on tumblr when my friends and I would photoshop his face onto vacuums. Take me back!
Ryan/Sophie/Montoya, Batwoman
I know this is controversial, and I’m sorry!!! Sometimes love triangles are long drawn-out things, and other times, they are…let’s call them isosceles love triangles? What Sophie and Montoya had was brief, but it was real, and it intercepted Ryan/Sophie in a dramatic way!
Villanelle/Eve/Hélène, Killing Eve
Yes, they COUNT! Wives who stab each other belong together, I’m always saying. Both of these deadly women are obsessed with Eve! It is a fact.
Rose/Luisa/Susanna, Jane the Virgin
This is not REALLY a love triangle for reasons that are extreme spoilers, but I’m counting it since it still plays out like one! Because I am Me, I was always rooting for the ill-advised ship of Luisa/Rose and in fact have lost many precious hours (days?) of my life to consuming fan-made literature and art about them, but it sure was fun when the show explicitly about love triangles started introducing lesbian ones (again…sorta…there’s definitely a soap opera twist to this one). Also, I kept trying to figure out a way to get Petra and JR on this list, but they never felt like they were in a love triangle really! Jane was so done with Rafael by then.
Dani/Sophie/Finley, The L Word: Generation Q
So, even though this particular love triangle was not my cup of tea (I don’t get Sinley, I’m sorry!), I’d be remiss not to include them on this list. Although, I do think it should have been a rule on Generation Q that if you were in a love triangle, you also had to have a threesome. Which brings me to…
Alice/Nat/Gigi, The L Word: Generation Q
A love triangle that had a threesome together is a love triangle I enthusiastically endorse. That’s my political platform!
Tina/Bette/Jodi, The L Word
Sure, there were probably a lot of love triangles I could have selected for the original The L Word, but this remains a favorite! Sorry to her haters and to mine, but Jodi’s introduction into season four of The L Word remains one of my favorite arcs, and the Bette/Jodi sex scene IN Jodi’s art installation is top tier — emphasis on top since I do believe the only reason these two didn’t work out is because they’re top4top.
Tasha/Alice/Jamie, The L Word
Okay, yes, one more L Word universe entry. This love triangle was a doozy! What can I say, I’m addicted to emotional pain in my queer romantic storylines. 🥰
Idina/Hattie/Ida B., Twenties
One of the many love triangles on this list that screams MESS!!! And it’s no surprise Hattie is at the center of this particularly steamy three-sided polygon. Autostraddle EIC Carmen aptly pointed out that once upon a time there were TWO television shows airing on THE SAME NIGHT that featured love triangles comprising three queer Black women (Twenties and the aforementioned Batwoman) and WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!!!!!!
Rue/Jules/Elliot, Euphoria
Here’s another show where “triangle” doesn’t really geometrically cut it when considering the shape of all the various intersecting and complex relationships, but this particular combo does count as a love triangle imo!
Lana/Kalinda/Cary, The Good Wife
Now, did this love triangle actually go anywhere? Not really! But Kalinda Sharma remains one of my favorite queer characters of all time, and I was equally invested in both of these relationships.
Emily/Sue/Austin, Dickinson
I am a big fan of this hyperspecific trope: a brother and sister who are both in love with the same woman, who loves them each (in different ways) as well. I mean, hello, I am marrying the author of Mostly Dead Things.
Forrest/Billie/Ivy, The Lake
Here we have another, albeit narratively distinct, iteration of the queer love triangle that involves siblings!
Spencer/Ashley/Aiden, South of Nowhere
Throwing it way back with this particular triangle! In the five years later special webisode for this series, it is revealed that this love triangle makes a baby together?! Ashley is pregnant as a result of Spencer donating an egg and Aiden donating sperm! That’s a beautiful love triangle development right there!
Amy/Karma/Liam, Faking It
Whewwwww this love triangle was MESSY! In a good way! It had so many twists and turns that I genuinely didn’t see coming!
Kat/Adena/Coco, The Bold Type
Adena has to decide between Kat and Coco on more than one occasion, and it’s DRAMA every time!
Sam/Brittany/Santana, Glee
I will be a Brittana shipper til the day I die, but I’ll take a little drama in the form of a love triangle even when it comes to them. Also, “Trouty Mouth” lives in infamy.
What are your favorite love triangles from television?
July 2023: What’s New and Gay on Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Starz, Apple TV and Peacock
Well, put your sense of self away, Pride Month is over and it’s time for all our favorite streaming networks to compete for the honor of who can do the least! It’s time to dig into where we can find lesbian and bisexual characters on Netflix, Prime Video, Max (it is very weird to call it that and I don’t like it), Peacock, Starz and Apple TV!
Netflix’s LGBTQ+ Content for July of 2023
Survival of the Thickest (Season 1) Netflix Original – July 13
In this A24 series, Michelle Buteau stars as Mavis Beaumont, a recently single stylist attempting to rebuild her life after “putting all of her eggs in one man’s basket.” She works with her friends and relatives to solve her problems with a “body-positive attitude, cute v-neck, and some lip gloss.” Tasha Smith plays Marley and Christine Jones plays Callie and they are kissing in the trailer, so!
Prime Video’s July 2023 Queer Content
Good Omens: Season 2 – July 28
Based on Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s novel, the second season of Good Omens goes beyond its source material by digging into the incredibly homoerotic alleged friendship between angel/book dealer Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and fast-living demon Crowley (David Tennant). Technically as angels and demons these characters have no gender, and there is a lot of Discourse about the nature of their relationship. Maggie Service and Nina Sosanya return to the show in new (gay!) roles — Maggie Service playing record store owner Maggie and Nina Sosanya playing neighboring coffee shop owner Nina. When a picture debuted of Maggie and Nina on the Good Omens Instagram, calls of LET’S GO LESBIANS were heard all over the land!
Max’s Girls, Gays and Theys for July 2023
V for Vendetta (2005)
V for Vendetta is a dystopian political action film from the Wachowskis starring Natalie Portman. In 2006, A*terE*len’s Sarah Warn called it “One of the most pro-gay films ever.”
Brandi Carlile: In the Canyon Haze – Live From Laurel Canyon- July 1
Our beloved Brandi Carlile performs “lushly reimagined songs” from her album “In These Silent Days,” in this concert special, bringing “her signature flair to a showcase of her unparalleled vocal talents” and nodding “to the artists who shaped the singer-songwriter’s voice.”
Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York: Docuseries Premiere – July 9
This docuseries tells the story of a serial killer preying on gay men in the New York City amidst the AIDS crisis and hate crime surge of the early 1990s, when the “criminal justice system,” the police, and media undermined any potential investigation or action that would protect this marginalized populace. As you can imagine, lesbians are amongst the activists involved in the response to this ongoing terror.
Harley Quinn: Season 4 – July 27
We don’t know much about the fourth season of this beloved animated series that follows the misadventures of Harley Quinn and her girlfriend Poison Ivy, but we know one thing: it’s happening.
Starz’s Queer TV Show of July 2023
Minx: Season Two – July 21
In Season Two of this delightful series formally housed at the network formally known as HBO Max, Minx is taking off and raking it in — Doug and Joyce sell Bottom Dollar, Joyce gets famous, and, as per Collider, “the misfits of Bottom Dollar find themselves thrust into the mainstream” at which point they “are confronted with introspection and start questioning their evolving identities and true desires amidst this newfound triumph.” In the trailer, Bambi and Shelly make out and also after doing some work Bambi says to Shelly, “I think that’s it, should we have sex now?” and well, I can’t wait!
Hulu’s Lesbians and Bisexuals for July 2023
Wild Things (1998) – July 1
This movie in which Neve Campbell and Diane Richards make out in a swimming pool is terrible and iconic.
Chloe (2010) – July 1
This erotic thriller finds Julianne Moore hiring a sex worker played by Amanda Seyfried to test her husband’s fidelity but then stuff happens between Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried, obviously.
Death on the Nile (2022) – July 1
This adaptation of Agatha Christie’s classic novel finds Hercule Poirot aboard a Karnak traversing the river Nile, attempting to solve some murders! Unlike the original novel, this version features Mrs. Bowers and Marie Van Schuyler as members of a secret lesbian relationship with each other.
What We Do in the Shadows: Season Five Premiere (FX) – July 14
According to Out Magazine, Season Four highlighted “its characters’ queerness in new and delightful ways.” Pansexual Nadja of Antipaxos will be recovering from the effects of a previously undiagnosed supernatural hex and reconnecting with a family from the Old Country.
A Little White Lie (2023) – July 14
Kate Hudson stars as an English professor organizing a literary conference in this indie comedy about a middle-aged nobody man who ends up as a featured guest at said literary conference after accepting an invite that clearly confused him with a reclusive novelist who shares his name. Aja Naomi King plays lesbian poet Blythe Brown, who clashes with said man early in the conference.
The Donor Party (2023) – July 28
Fresh out of a messy divorce and unfruitful online dating experiments, recently single Jaclyn has decided to get pregnant and live her dream of being a Mom by any means necessary, enlisting her friends to pull off “the ultimate sperm heist.” Her friend Molly invites “three good prospects” for Jaclyn to seduce to a birthday party for her husband Geoff. According to Movieweb, “naughtiness abounds” when “Amandine (Bria Henderson), a lesbian with eyes on Geoff’s sister, encourages Jaclyn to get down and dirty.”
Apple TV+’s July 2023 Queer Action
The Afterparty: Season 2 Premiere – July 12
Once again Tiffany Haddish is called upon to investigate a murder reported by Aniq (Sam Richardson). Aniq’s now dating Zoë (Zoë Chao) and he accompanies her to her sister Grace’s (queer non-binary actor Poppy Liu) wedding to her rich crypto investor husband, Edgar, and then Edgar turns up dead as a doornail. The series blends a variety of styles as each character gets their own episode to tell their story of the murder. Anna Konkle plays Edgar’s weird queer adopted sister Hannah, who gets her own Wes Andersonian episode.
Peacock’s July 2023 Lesbian TV Show
Real Housewives of New York City (Season 14) – July 17 (Bravo)
Jenna Lyons of J.Crew fame is joining the Real Housewives of New York City cast, apparently due to a commitment she made on an episode of the Dyking Out podcast recorded at the Wing in 2021, after being told she hadn’t “done enough” to represent gay women. The trailer looks pretty juicy! I am confident Bravo Dyke will be all over it. The show premieres July 16th on Bravo and will be on Peacock the very next day.
17 LGBTQ+ TV Shows Removed From Max, Disney+, Showtime and Hulu
Finding queer content on television has never been easy, but it’s getting even harder now that streaming networks like Max, Disney+, Showtime and Hulu have begun cutting costs by completely removing various television shows and movies from their platforms altogether. Here are some of our gayest losses.
12 Dates of Christmas (Max)
This completely bananas dating show that shoehorned a Christmas theme into its little chalet of chaos had lesbian and gay contestants in Season Two, truly good luck figuring out how to watch this online!
Big Shot (Disney+)
A college basketball coach finds himself leading a girl’s high school team (obviously there is a lesbian) in this comedy you will never see
Camping (Max)
Curious about Bridget Everett as a butch lesbian named Harry in a cruel comedy where everybody is gay by the end? Well, you know what they say, “curiosity killed the cat.”
Diary of a Future President (Disney+)
We’ll never know now if she will be a president in the future
Dollface (Hulu)
If you want to see Shay Mitchell in a queer role you will have to do so somewhere else sorry
Genera+ion (Max)
Perhaps the greatest wound inflicted directly into the soul of our generation was the removal of this small gem of a super-queer Gen Z ensemble show.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount+)
Those kids sang and danced for their lives and now nobody will ever see what they did!
Legendary (Max)
HBO Max ditched this voguing competition show but great news: you can watch it on Roku and Tubi.
Love Life (Max)
A rom-com anthology series with lesbians in both seasons and in the second season the lesbian is played by SNL legend Punkie Johnson sounds pretty fun but unfortunately it is not available to watch at this time.
The L Word: Generation Q (Showtime)
Liz Morris/SHOWTIME.
I mean we have discussed the injustice here!!!!!
Marvel’s Runaways (Hulu)
THIS SHOW RULED I’M SO SAD
Masters of Sex (Max)
Photo: Warren Feldman/SHOWTIME
Annaleigh Ashford plays a sex worker named Betty in this TV show about Masters & Johnson’s sex research but unfortunately you can’t watch it
Mrs. Fletcher (Max)
Kathryn Hahn as a middle-aged divorced Mom exploring her fluid sexuality and taking a writing class from Jen Richards sounds pretty fun, doesn’t it? Well, you can’t watch it.
Snowpiercer (Max)
A train goes round and round and round and now POOF it’s gone
Work in Progress (Showtime)
Cancelling this brilliant queer comedy was one thing but scrubbing it from Showtime altogether was an injustice.
Westworld (Max)
ok
Willow (Disney+)
Disney+”s Willow has “multiple queer characters to root for” but you can’t.
Y: The Last Man (Hulu)
This was in development for much longer than it was on actual television!
The History of LGBTQ+ Reality TV Dating Shows From ‘NeXT’ to ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’
The Ultimatum: Queer Love is perhaps the highest-profile reality dating show focused on queer women and non-binary people of all time — and it’s also one of the only ones. Historically, reality dating shows have focused on heterosexuals, despite the fact that gathering a bunch of horny bisexuals in one party house and plying them with alcohol while demanding constant, private confessionals is TV gold, as proven by Are You The One? Season Eight. While Love is Blind has co-opted lesbian dating rituals to create its bizarre reality TV experiment, dating shows rarely feature actual lesbians, and are historically bastions of traditional heterosexual courtship.
But over the years, a few brave shows have ventured into the murky waters of reality television dating shows for queer, lesbian and bisexual women and/or trans people of all genders. Let’s talk about some of them!
Date My Mom
MTV // 2004 – 2006 // Unavailable to stream
The triumphant mating call of, “I’m here, I’m queer and I’m ready to Mom Date!!” can be heard echoing through the generations from this entry in MTV’s 2000s Dating Show Frenzy in which the Mom of a teenager meets their potential dates and decides who’s best for her child. Although usually focused on heterosexuals, Date My Mom had a five gay or lesbian episodes per season quota, thus offering its viewers something we rarely received on television back then: a parent so supportive of their daughter’s sexual orientation that they wanted to help her find a girlfriend. “To the moms who did it with their daughters, we let them know that this is awesome that you’re stepping up for your child,” a casting director told The Village Voice in an interview about the challenges of casting its LGBT episodes. “To this day, we still all appreciate those parents.”
NeXt
MTV // 2005-2008 // You can stream some of the gay episodes here
Many MTV shows of the 2000s that are impossible to track down online would feature a few lesbian contestants across their runs, including Parental Control, Dismissed, Exposed and Room Raiders, but NeXt has maintained the most prevalent spot in the public imagination. NeXt wasn’t a queer dating show specifically, but it was immediately inclusive of gay and lesbian daters, including 13 lesbian segments across its six-season run. Contestants went on five dates and were permitted to declare “Next!” to start over with someone new as soon as their present date lost their luster. The daters earned cash for every minute of dating they survived, and whomsever made it to the end could choose a second date or their accumulated lump of cash. Like many MTV dating shows of the era, NeXT was mostly cast with actors and often scripted. The series remains iconic for its stilted intros in which contestants delivered attempts at sassy pick-up lines and three horrifying bullet-pointed facts about themselves. An added delight of the queer episodes was the thirsty twentysomethings on the bus being able to flirt with each other while waiting for their big moment.
A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila
MTV // 2007 + 2008 // Unavailable
The depiction of bisexuality in this absolute trash reality show haunts us to this day, beginning with the absolute horror of the premise, in which 16 lesbians and 16 men aren’t told ’til the end of the first episode that Tila is bisexual and will be choosing from the lot of them. Before dating Courtenay Semel or marrying Casey Johnson or becoming a Neo-Nazi who claimed to have only been “gay for pay,” Tila Tequila was a MySpace queen often spotted in Maxim and Playboy, and when this show debuted in 2007, we were all compelled by forces larger than ourselves to tune in. Personally, I shut it off after ten minutes because I was too offended to go on… but then I happened to catch the rest of the episode at the gym and…I got sucked in. Everybody got drunk and sloppy. Tila and many of her female suitors endorsed an unchecked butchphobia popular in mainstream and queer media at the time, which made it incredibly satisfying that she ended up with hot-as-fuck butch firefighter Dani Campbell as her final girl. In the end, though, she chose the male suitor, although they obviously didn’t last, and Tila returned for a second season.
A Double Shot at Love with the Ikki Twins
MTV // 2009 // Unavailable
Tila Tequila was the host of this spinoff that again found 12 heterosexual men and 12 lesbians competing for a shot at love, this time with bisexual twins Rikki (Erica Mongeon) and Vikki (Victoria Mongeon), models who’d appeared in Playboy and a Hooters calendar, among other similar gigs. After this season, MTV canned the concept in favor of having a bunch of girls compete for a date with the Jersey Shore boys.
Naked Attraction
Channel 4 (UK) // 2016 – present // watch on Channel 4
From the very first episode of Naked Attraction, this British show was inclusive of bisexual, pansexual, trans and/or queer contestants, who narrow down their group of potential dates to a handful of winners by seeing portions of their naked body, from bottom to top.
The Bi Life
E! (UK) // 2018 // Watch on Hayu
Courtney Act hosted “the UK’s first ever bisexual dating show” that featured bisexual people living together in a Spanish villa, exploring the dating scene of Barcelona and supporting each other through it all.
Ex on the Beach
MTV // 2018 – 2023 // Stream on Paramount+
A group of single social media and reality TV stars gather in a luxurious Malibu villa for a dating show with a twist they somehow do not expect, even in latter seasons: their exes are gonna creep out of the ocean. Everyone wears designer swimwear, gets drunk, participates in challenges, digs into each other’s secrets, hooks up and votes each other off the show. Queer women started showing up in Season Three with bisexual reality TV / pop music entrepreneur Aubrey O’Day. Season Four — which eschews a tropical locale for winter in New Zealand — features noted lesbian Staten Island firefighter and Challenge contestant Nicole and a parade of her exes in a environment already queered by a drag queen, a bicurious former Nickelodeon actress, a trans beauty influencer and a bisexual Real World guy.
Game of Clones
MTV // 2019 // Stream on MTV
In Clone Wars, reality television stars are given the rare and fascinating opportunity to date clones of their celebrity crushes, and amongst them are some lesbians. Nicole of The Challenge and Ex on the Beach is presented with seven Ciara clones and will date them all to determine which clone will win her commitment-phobic heart forever.
Are You The One? Season 8
MTV // 2019 // Stream on Hulu, Paramount+ or MTV
The absolute apex of queer reality television, Are You The One? mashed up 16 singles in an alcohol-infused house and through games and socials, challenged them to determine whomst amongst the other singles had been determined by a mysterious overlord to be their soulmate. Guessing correctly as a team wins some kind of money. But in Season 8 of this successful MTV program they decided to improve the show’s quality tenfold by casting an entirely bisexual group of singles. Every man, woman and non-binary person in the house could potentially match with anyone else in the house. It was a beautiful moment in television history that I for one will never forget.
Singled Out 3.0
Roku // 2020 – 2021 // Stream on The Roku Channel
The original Singled Out was an absolute mainstay of every ’90s sleepover and an irresistible late-night double-billing on MTV with Loveline. The Singled Out gameshow put Playboy model Jenny McCarthy (now a notorious anti-vaxxer) and Chris Hardwick (of The Nerdist) on the map as hosts guiding a lucky girl or boy through weeding out 50 potential dates without seeing them, the pool decreasing as the picker cycled through their preferences amongst presented funny categories. The show was rebooted as a YouTube series in 2018 with an “urban contemporary hip-hop theme” that involved a whole thing with Catfishes. Then, finally, a third reboot arrived in 2020, produced by MTV for the Roku Channel. Hosted by KeKe Palmer and Joel Kim Booster and presented in mini-episodes by the Roku Channel, this new iteration featured bisexual and lesbian contestants in its two seasons of minisodes — even once featuring a lesbian couple looking for a third to join their relationship!
Dating Around
Netflix // 2019 – 2020 // Stream on Netflix
The producers of this Netflix show wanted a queer-inclusive cast of folks who wouldn’t ordinarily be on reality TV — people of all ages who could portray a realistic look at what dating is like in the age of apps and all that. “It is a little window into many people’s lives, of many different backgrounds and orientations, as they go on many first dates,” wrote Vulture in “Netflix’s Dating Around is a Secretly Great Reality Show.” Episode 6 featured Mila, who met five women for drinks, dinner and dessert.
12 Dates of Christmas
HBO Max // 2020 – 2021 // Unavailable
Tragically wiped from HBO Max’s platform, 12 Dates of Christmas invited contestants to a romantic holiday-prepped chalet in the snowy mountains of somewhere to face a rotating cast of suitors with whom leads enjoyed dates like sledding, building gingerbread houses, riding horses through the snow and cuddling in bedazzled glamping tents. The winner gets to accompany the lead on a trip home to meet the family for Christmas, except it’s also definitely not Christmas, it’s March, and everybody is just pretending that it’s Christmas. Season Two featured three leads: a gay man, a lesbian (the stunningly beautiful Amanda Grace Jenkins) and a straight man.
Love Trip: Paris
Freeform // 2023 // Stream on Freeform
Caroline, Rose, Lacy and Josielyn
On a surface-level Freeform’s Love Trip: Paris seems like just another heterosexual dating show: four twentysomethings who’ve been unlucky in love move to Paris where love is somehow truer and they’re given the opportunity to meet and date a rotating roster of local men… and women, because three of the four contestants are queer. We’ve got: 29-year-old Lacy; a chatty, sexually fluid “mental health podcaster” who loves crystals, open-hearted 26-year-old Mexican-American bisexual trans woman model Josielyn and finally Caroline, a bubbly 26-year-old genderqueer personal trainer from New York who proudly asserts “my best friend is my cat.” This show has been highly overlooked and I highly recommend it!
The Ultimatum: Queer Love
Netflix // 2023 // Stream on Netflix
Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
The Ultimatum: Queer Love is notable for many things, including introducing the world to Mal, who is a king and deserves the world. Six couples who are facing an ultimatum — one person is ready to marry and the other isn’t — gather together to try out dating each other, rather than the person they came with. After a three week “trial marriage” they’re able to trial marriage with their original partner and then at this point they are obviously 100% ready to decide on the next steps of their relationship. I love television!
Love Allways
Paramount+ // 2023 // Stream on Paramount+
Truly breaking the mold with a cast of Gen Zers, this program sees two ‘dating coaches’ employed to help singles of all genders in their pursuit of Lexi, the show’s bachelorette. The dating coaches are vaguely competing against each other to see which coach’s “team” wins Lexi over? It’s sort of like watching a bunch of TikTok drafts from a 21-year-old, or like a loosely organized pool party. But it’s fascinating to see what a dating show looks like when most of the contestants are too young to drink!
June 2023: What’s Gay and Streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Max, Prime Video, Paramount+, Apple TV and More!
Well it’s Pride Month and you know what that means: people making television and cinema for the LGBTQ+ community! Honestly I had expected them to make more television and cinema for the LGBTQ+ community than they apparently intend to do this specific June, but that is fine and we will model through it. Okay, let’s get into what’s out there with lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters on your teevee sets.
Netflix’s Streams in Gay for June 2023
Valeria (Season 3) – June 2
This Spanish comedy-drama has a lesbian character, Nerea, who’s still looking for the right forever girl and employing a dating profile to help her get there.
Never Have I Ever (Season 4) – June 8
It’s senior year for Devi, Eleanor and our lesbian friend Fabiola. The trailer however is really just about Devi so it’s anybody’s guess what’ll happen with Fabiola in the final season of Never Have I Ever!
Human Resources (Season 2) – June 9
The second and final season shows the daily workplace lives of the various creatures of Big Mouth, including the pansexual Sonya Poinsettia (Pamela Adlon) and various recurring and guest characters. Our fave Keke Palmer plays Rochelle the Love Bug.
Glamorous (Season One) – June 22
Marco Mejia (non-binary actor Miss Benny) is a gender non-conforming queer man stuck in place until he is given an opportunity to work for makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Kim Catrall) — a position that enables him to figure out what he wants and who he is as a queer person. Madolyn’s assistant, Venetia (Jade Payton) is there to initiate him into queer Brooklyn nightlife, and then there’s also Britt (Ayesha Harris), a fellow designer, who learns that her crush on her colleague is requited after they match on a dating app.
Also coming to Netflix in June:
- Grey’s Anatomy (Season 19) – June 17
Hulu’s LGBTQ+ Content for July 2023
As part of Hulu’s “Pride Never Stops” campaign, Hulu will be livestreaming Pride Marches in Los Angeles (June 11) and Houston (June 24), as well as a “Pride Across America” ABC News Live event on June 25th.
Drag Me to Dinner (Season One) – March 31
This “glamorous, messy, faux competition show that no one takes too seriously” sees beloved drag queens pair up to host fabulous dinner parties. Drag king Murray Hill hosts the show that also stars Neil Patrick Harris, Bianco Del Rio, Haneefah Wood and David Burtka. Beloved Jinx Monsoon and Ben DeLaCreme will battle Jackie Beat and Sherry Vine in the series premiere.
Jagged Mind (2023) – June 15
Billie (queer actor Maisie Richardson-Sellers) is plagued by blackouts and strange visions that eventually result in her reliazing she’s stuck in a series of time loops and that possibly her new girlfriend Alex (queer actor Shannon Woodward) is responsible for this bizarre circumstance.
Linoleum (2022) – June 30
Jim Gaffiganplays an aspiring astronaut and the host of a failing children’s science TV show in this film in which his relationships with his wife and his gay teenage daughter (Katelyn Nacon) start to strain as surreal events begin unfolding all around them.
Also coming to Hulu in June:
- Queen Sugar (Season Seven) – June 1
- Vida (Season 3) – June 1
Prime Video’s June 2023 LGBTQ+ Offerings
With Love (Season 2) – June 2
Trans actress Isis King plays trans nonbinary oncology resident Sol Perez in this dramedy from Gloria Calderón Kellett that follows “siblings Lily and Jorge Diaz as they navigate big life changes and rely on their equally big family to get them through.”
The Lake (Season 2) – June 9
This already very queer show gets even more queer this season when Billie (Madison Shamoun) returns to the lake for a one-week vacation only to be immediately smitten by a tree planter named Forrest (Jhaleil Swaby) and a “fierce climate activist” named Ivy.
Paramount+’s Gals, Gays and Theys for June 2023
iCarly: Season 3 Premiere – June 1
Carly, Spencer and Freddie will be navigating the next chapters in their twentysomething lives in this show I have never seen that does have a Black queer character named Harper.
Love Alllways: Season One Premiere – June 2
This pansexual Gen Z dating show gives pansexual bachelorette Lexi Paloma the chance to find her perfect human at the age of 20, narrowing down her pool of contestants of all genders until “some start falling for one another, causing a spiral of drama, betrayal, passion and jealousy.” Read more about Love Allways here.
Queens of the Universe: Season 2 Premiere – June 2
Drag queens from all around the world compete in this singing competition in pursuit of world domination! WORLD DOMINATION!!!!!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Season 2 Premiere – June 15
Queer actor Melissa Navia plays Lt. Ortegas, and told Variety that she is playing the androgynous original character as queer and furthremore, Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) is bisexual.
HBO Max’s Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Characters for June 2023
The Idol: Season One Premiere – June 4
There was a shit-ton of behind-the-scenes messiness around this show eventually directed by Euphoria’s Sam Levinson that thus far has earned mostly negative reviews from its two-episode premiere at Cannes. Rolling Stone declared it “more toxic and way worse than you’ve heard,” so! It’s also chock-full of LGBTQ+ actors, like Lily-Rose Depp, Dan Levy and Hari Nef. Some fans are theorizing that BlackPink’s Jennie’s character, Anys, will be queer.
Swiping America (2023) – June 15
Four New Yorkers, including Black masc lesbian CEO Ash go on a cross-country road trip to try dating in different locations!
The Stroll (2023) – June 21
This documentary traces the history of the Meatpacking District in New York City, told from the point of view of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Kristin Lovell, who once worked it herself, brings her friends back together to recount “the violence, policing and gentrification that lead to a movement for transgender rights.”
And Just Like That….: Season 2 Premiere – June 22
Miranda and Che Diaz are really getting up to it in the trailer and promotional images for the second season of the Sex and the City reboot we had a lot of feelings about. Also we have Charlotte’s non-binary child Rock! Most importantly I simply hope we will learn why Che Diaz is wearing Kendall Roy’s jacket.
Apple TV+’s June 2023 LGBTQ+s
The Crowded Room: Season One – June 9
This psychological thriller is set in New York City in 1979 and stars Zendaya’s boyfriend Tom Holland as a murderer. When the trailer for this dropped, Heather noted, “it definitely seems like he’s going to murder Sasha Lane and this woman she’s kissing in the trailer whose face looks like that emoji with the boba eyes and happy unshed tears.”
8 Guesses Why Kendall Roy and Che Diaz are Suddenly Sharing a Closet
Yesterday, And Just Like That dropped its season two poster, and while everyone else was celebrating Carrie’s return to bonkers fashion form, I was simply stunned silent to realize that Che Diaz is wearing the exact same Gucci dragon letter jacket that Kendall Roy wore to warm up in for his 40th birthday party.
And friends, I couldn’t help but wonder, why are these two suddenly sharing a closet?
Here are my eight best guesses.
1. Che is planning to attend an asshole’s birthday party.
Kendall’s 40th birthday party was described, by Kendall himself, as an asshole’s birthday party. We all know Aidan Fucking Shaw is returning to the SATCverse this season, and we also all know that he is the world’ biggest asshole. Passive-aggressive, suffocating, aborting-shaming, nicotine patch-pushing, toxic masculinity disguised as nice guy realness, apartment buying prick. Perhaps Che is on their way to Aidan’s birthday and this Gucci coat is simply the outerwear rich New Yorkers wear to asshole parties? Like the way all queer women have that red and black plaid shirt now, and the tee from Target that says “Live, Laugh, Lesbian.”
2. Kendall Googled “how to use a strap-on.”
Earlier this season, Kendall asked Hugo if he wanted Kendall to pull out a strap-on, a hilarious suggestion because there’s no way Kendall Roy has the know-how or dexterity to use a strap-on. But if he Googled it, surely one of Che Diaz’s podcasts would come up in the top results. Maybe he traded them a jacket for a pep talk?
3. It makes sense, dramaturgically.
Can’t argue with that.
4. Cherry Jones simply swiped it.
Photo by Jemal Countess/WireImage
Maybe one of the day sNan Pierce was doing some of her WASPy hijinks (saying “I don’t like this, it’s horrible. It makes me feel like I’m in the middle of a bidding war,” while expertly conducting a bidding war, for example), Cherry Jones peeped that jacket and stuffed it into one of those ludicrously capacious bags that are always hanging around on set, and then passed it off to her good friend Sara Ramirez, whom she met when they both won Tonys the same year.
5. HBO found a new way to cut costs.
Maybe there’s just big cardboard box in the costuming warehouse that says “HBO Sundays” and that’s where they both grabbed it from. If HBO had money, surely they’d be paying their writers; since they’re not, I can only assume they’re broke and engaging in the age-old practice of hand-me-downs. I’d love to snag just one watch out of that box; I could retire off the price of one of the timepieces the Roy boys wear on Succession.
6. Che and Kendall met at improv class.
C to the H E.
7. Che and Kendall met at the WOKE MOMENT button store.
They also sell “the revolution will be televised” and “hey what’s up hashtag the resistance” tees.
8. Che and Kendall met at a Word Salad convention.
Now, please share your own theories with me on why Kendall and Che are both wearing this jacket!