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:
LGBTQ+ Movies To Stream on Netflix With Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Characters
What are the best lesbian and trans movies are on Netflix? This is probably a question you have typed into a search box before. Perhaps you typed that into a search box really recently, like ten seconds ago, and that’s why you’re here, now, with all of us, wondering about the best streaming lesbian movies on Netflix, or the best lesbian bisexual queer and trans movies on Netflix. In this case we are using “lesbian” as an adjective referring to romance and other activities between two women.
Most recent update: 1/1/2024
The Best Lesbian and Trans Movies On Netflix
Blockers (2018)
This absolutely delightful contemporary twist on the raunchy teen sex comedy finds three teenage girls (including one lesbian) looking to lose their virginities before they go away for college and three sets of parents trying to stop them. Mey wrote that Blockers is “shockingly sex-positive, feminist and gay.”
Carol (2015)
#12 on the Best Lesbian Movies of All Time // our review of carol
I mean, it’s Carol! You know Carol. Cate Blanchett is Carol with a terrible ex-husband and lots of fur coats, Rooney Mara is Therese who wants to be a photographer and works in a department store.
Do Revenge (2022)
This delightfully dark homage to ’90s teen flicks is a colorful, slick comedy starring Camilla Mendes as mean girl Drea who, after seeing her video sexts leaked by her boyfriend, teams up on an intricate revenge plot with Eleanor (Maya Hawke), a lesbian transfer student dead-set on punishing the girl who bullied her at summer camp as a pre-teen.
The “Fear Street” Trilogy (2021)
“What makes The Fear Street Trilogy go from a solid good time to a grand cinematic event is its understanding that intelligence and fun are not antithetical,” writes Drew in the Lesbian Movie Encyclopedia. “Like The Slumber Party Massacre Trilogy, Fear Street doesn’t make us choose between campy horror and an engagement with reality. It’s proof that “good politics” are also good storytelling.” The first installment of this series based on the Christopher Pike movies does the unthinkable: it lets its queer heroines live.
Badhaai Do (2022)
“Despite its blind spots, Badhaai Do is the movie I always wished Bollywood would make, the sweet and silly story I was desperate to find beneath the cheerful cruelty of Dostana,” writes Anamika Gopalan. “The smallest moments in the film were electrifying — Sumi holding Rimjhim’s hand at the doctor’s office, Rimjhim putting her arm around Sumi’s shoulders, Sumi blowing kisses up to Rimjhim on the balcony — I was watching two Indian women fall in love, and for 150 minutes the world felt open and full of possibility.”
The Half of It (2020)
our review of the half of it // #17 on the Best Lesbian Movies Of All Time List
Alice Wu’s lesbian take on Cyrano de Bergerac follows Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), a shy, Chinese-American 17-year-old who splits her days taking care of her grieving father and writing essays for her peers for extra money. She forms an unexpected bond with the crush of a sweet football player who hires her to write her love letters. “It may not be a “love story” in the traditional sense, but it is about love,” wrote Malinda Lo in her review. “It’s about young people discovering what it is, what it isn’t, and what it could be. It’s about searching for your other half and finding that the other half might be within you. And yes, it’s about a queer Asian American girl — still a revolutionary subject for a mainstream film.”
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
our review of ma rainey’s black bottom
Based on August Wilson’s Tony-award winning play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom sees Viola Davis as the titular character, a Black queer blues singer and one of the most successful Black women of the era. In her hands, Carmen writes, the triumphant and emotional film “becomes a complex portrait of a queer Black woman hurricane whose footprints loom over the last 100 years.”
Mars One (2022)
In this Brazillian family drama from writer/director Gabriel Martins, Eunice (Camilla Souza) — a college student ready to leave home and even more ready to explore her sexuality — is one of four protagonists. Writing about Eunice’s relationship with her girlfriend Jo in her rave review of the film, Drew wrote “their hotter than cute meet cute at a club, their dinner with Jo’s wealthy family, the way they love each other in the sort of impassioned yet insufficient way college students love. It all just feels so real. ”
The Mitchells vs The Machines (2021)
our review of the mitchells vs the machines
“The Mitchells is a genuinely hilarious animated film, full of cutting cultural jokes, visual gags, smash cuts, bonkers animation, and frolicking dialogue,” writes Heather of this delightful story about a family driving cross-country to drop off their daughter, Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) for film school. Although Katie’s queerness isn’t the focus of the film, it’s an essential element of her very relatable character.
Mutt (2023)
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.
Nimona (2023)
“One of the most interesting things about the film is how both Nimona and Ballister want revenge for what happened to him, but she wants it because she wants to watch this tyrannical heteronormative world burn, whereas he just wants this terrible world to accept him,” writes Heather. “They both learn a lot about themselves as their hijinks find them working seamlessly, side-by-side, and also find them often at odds, motivationally and ethically, because they want the same thing for vastly different reasons.”
Nyad (2023)
“Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s NYAD is a rousing masterpiece of a sports movie,” writes Drew. “Focusing on Nyad’s Herculean swim from Havana to Key West, the film is a thrilling tribute to its stubborn protagonist and the power of queer friendship. Annette Bening captures Diana in all her prickly complexity and Jodie Foster as Bonnie, Nyad’s best friend and coach, gives her best performance since the 90s.”
Passing (2021)
“Passing has me in such a chokehold, I still don’t know where to start. There’s the craft of the storytelling, the questions it presents about understanding race — for once! — from a Black gaze. It’s singular in its grab and should be on the short list for any awards season conversation. But more than anything, I can’t stop thinking about the way that Tessa Thompson looks at Ruth Negga.” – Carmen Phillips
Prom (2020)
This Netflix adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, produced by Ryan Murphy, follows a handful of out-of-work Broadway actors as they insert themselves into a small Indiana town to advocate for a teen to attend the prom with her girlfriend. It left Valerie with “a happy, joy-filled, unruly heart.” It wasn’t a critical favorite, but we as a community had a very nice time!
Ride or Die (2021)
“This is easily my favorite two and a half hour lesbian murder drama about bourgeoisie class betrayal with a Norah Jones needle drop. Based on the popular manga Gunjō, Ryūichi Hiroki has made the bonkers, gratuitous lesbian movie I’d hoped Benedetta would be. ” – Drew Gregory
All The Other Bisexual, Queer, Lesbian and Trans Movies On Netflix
Anne+: The Movie (2022)
The 90-minute dramedy follows the titular Anne as all the happy endings from her beloved crowd-funded two-season Dutch webseries Anne+ come unraveled. The film “simply does not care that straight people exist, as characters or as audience members,” writes Heather Hogan in her review, praising its “low-stake storytelling” and “queer-acted and queer-directed sex scenes.”
Beauty (2022)
Netflix barely promoted the existence of this film, probably because it’s not very good! Described as the story of “a young singer on the brink of a promising career who finds herself torn between a domineering family, industry pressures and her love for her girlfriend,” it is very clearly intended to be about Whitney Houston. Niecy Nash plays her mother.
Bruised (2022)
“If you’re anything like me and your main reasons for seeing Bruised were to see Halle Berry fight and make out with girls, you won’t be disappointed,” wrote Carmen in her review of this film in which Berry plays an MMA fighter grabbing one last shot at redemption when the son she left behind returns to her life. “But you might walk away wishing it had stuck to just those two things.”
Chloe (2009)
A doctor played by Julianne Moore hires an escort named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to test whether or not her husband is cheating on her, but then finds herself drawn into a dangerous little attraction with Chloe.
Deadly Illusions (2021)
“If Netflix had wanted my attention on Deadly Illusions any earlier than when I got very sad around noon on Thursday, what they should’ve told me is that the lines between STRAIGHT and GAY will start to blur. Because my friends, they do. This is like, high camp, but also a gay movie for straight people? This is heterosexual camp. This is fan fiction but about two characters we’ve never heard of except one of them is Charlotte from Sex and the City.” – Riese Bernard
Duck Butter (2018)
“Duck Butter was a lot like a Naima and Sergio’s failed experiment: the sex was good but the delirious lesbian mumblecore didn’t leave a lasting impression.” – Heather Hogan
Elisa & Marcela (2019)
“Not the art film its showy Black & White cinematography and more creative flourishes seem to be aspiring for, but nevertheless an enjoyable period romance. Based on the true story of Spain’s first same-sex marriage, Isabel Coixet replaces an average looking queer woman and her androgynous love with two beautiful high femmes. It’s a bit silly and a bit long, but hey the sex scenes are great.” – Drew Gregory
Familia (2023)
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, Mariana, brings her new girlfriend to the lunch. Mariana’s pregnant, but refuses to disclose the identity of the father.
FanFic (2023)
“The movie is a delight when it’s showing Tosiek’s exploration and discovery,” writes Drew of this Polish sweet, gay, trans coming-of-age story, “less delightful when it’s telling us about it. It has similar problems in its approach to mental health.”
Happy Ending (2023)
After a year of secretly faking orgasms with her aimless artsy boyfriend, Luna pitches a threesome to her boyfriend, Mink, and they seal the deal with a climate change activist, Eve — an experience that turns everything upside-down.
I Care A Lot (2021)
“If you don’t like to watch movies about horrible people doing horrible things, you’ll probably want to skip J Blakeson’s I Care A Lot,” recommends Kayla in her review. But, if you do like those movies, “then you might have fun with this cynical, clinical movie steeped in the horrors of capitalism and greed.” I Care A Lot is wicked and callous, but vivid and sharp, with a heartless lesbian protagonist played by Rosamund Pike and her girlfriend/partner played by the VERY hot Eiza González.
The Perfection (2019)
“This recent Netflix horror movie would be offensive for a multitude of reasons if it wasn’t so incoherent. Instead it’s just an absolutely wild, incredibly shallow thrill ride with a queer woman romance(??) at its center.” – Drew Gregory
Let It Snow (2019)
“The inclusion of a queer romance in a film like this is exciting enough on its own. But what makes it all the more exciting is both Hewson and Akana are queer in real life! Hewson is non-binary and gay and Akana is bisexual. They’re both so good in their roles, bringing their charm and authenticity. ” – Drew Gregory
Moxie (2021)
A 16-year-old is inspired by her Mom’s Riot Grrrl and zine-making past to strike back against INJUSTICE, misogyny and toxicity at her high school. Josie Totah plays a trans girl frustrated that her classmates and teachers won’t use her name. There is a subtle lesbian storyline that emerges quietly without much fanfare, which is fine — what’s less fine is that this film is centered on a white cis straight protagonist who is surrounded by women of color with far more interesting stories to tell. Read our review of moxie.
Someone Great (2019)
“At its core, Someone Great is a comedy about getting high and drunk with your girls and listening to some great pop music and growing up a little in the process.” – Carmen Phillips
So My Grandma’s a Lesbian (2020)
This Spanish comedy follows a young Spanish lawyer whose plans to marry some rich Scottish dude from a conservative family are put into jeopardy when her 70-year-old grandmother, Sofia, comes out and announces her intention to marry her best friend. Good for them!
To Each Her Own (2018)
Although this French film got bad reviews, Sally informed us that she in fact has seen it and furthermore; liked it. I trust Sally so here we are. The plot is described as “Just as Simone works up the courage to tell her conservative Jewish family she’s a lesbian, she finds herself attracted to a man.”
Wendell & Wild (2022)
“This is an animated kids movie about how private prisons are way more evil than literal demons. How could I not love it??,” wrote Drew of this stop-motion adventure. “Not only does this give us a goth Black girl lead — it also has a Latino trans boy at her side. This isn’t just inclusive children’s entertainment — it’s inclusive children’s entertainment that actually engages with the realities of the people it represents.”
The Valley of a Thousand Hills (2022)
This South African drama tells the story of a woman in a conservative village community who must choose between the husband her father chose for her or her secret true love, a woman.
Wine Country (2019)
Paula Pell plays “a lesbian antique shop owner from Portland with a new set of knees and thirst for love” in this film Heather described as ” improv funny and physical comedy funny and sight gag funny and punny funny — and a story about how sometimes our little personality quirks can only be distilled into their truest form and made manifest as our lurking anxieties and insecurities and maladaptive coping mechanisms when we’re in the company of the women who love us best and most.” Also, Cherry Jones is in it!
Your Place or Mine (2023)
This rom-com from Alline Brosh McKenna (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) sees Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) and Peter (Ashton Kutcher) as best friends forever who swap houses for a week — him taking care of her son in LA, her spreading her wings in NYC — to discover themselves et cetera you know how it is with heterosexuals. Tig Notaro has a side role in this film as Debbie’s sardonic lesbian pal, although her queerness is never directly addressed.
You People (2023)
This movie is so objectively, unsettlingly, depressingly terrible, that I considered not even telling you that it existed at all. But alas, it does. Ezra (Jonah Hill) is a white Jewish guy and Amira (Lauren London) is Black and their families are very different and now they all have to meet and see who gets along! Ezra’s best friend and coworker, Mo, is a masc lesbian played by Sam Jay, and his sister, Liza (Molly Gordon) is also gay.
85 LGBTQ+ Owned Businesses and Queer Shops To Support This Holiday Season!
If you’re looking for LGBTQ-owned stores to put your hard-earned money where your gay mouth is, boy do we have the thing for you! This list highlights just some of the many stores produced by lesbian, queer and bisexual women and trans people of all genders, as that is the target audience of our website. I originally wrote this post in 2016 and updated it for 2023… there are a billion new queer-owned stores out there now, so this is by no means all-encompassing — but it’s a start!
Criteria for inclusion:
- Store must have a website/storefront independent of etsy/society6/etc. (We have many other guides that are focused on etsy sellers!)
- Store must be an independent entity, rather than merchandise for a specific musician or celebrity or magazine. (Except for our own obviously)
- Store must offer products you can order online and have delivered to your home for you to hold in your hands.
- The store must be active — as in, appears to be mostly or recently stocked, has social media accounts that have been active within the past year, etc.
If your business is on this list and you’d like to inquire about advertising, hit up em [at] forthem [dot] com. If you wanna join our A+ marketplace and offer discounts to our members, hit up nico [at] forthem [dot] com. We offer discounted rates to queer-owned businesses!
The Autostraddle Store
The merchandise wing of the best website in the history of the internet features apparel, enamel pins and other cool shit featuring illustrations and designs from independent queer artists. All profits come right back here to fund the words we write and the things we do.
All She Wrote Books
Somerville, MA
All She Wrote is “an intersectional, inclusive feminist and queer bookstore that supports, celebrates, and amplifies underrepresented voices through our thoughtfully curated selection of books spanning across all genres.”
Ash & Chess
Richmond, VA
via ash and chess on instagram
Ash & Chess is a joyful, eye-popping stationary shop run by a queer and trans couple in Richmond, VA. They “create greeting cards and art prints that are bold, retro color palettes and they often use their artwork to make a political statement and to uplift the queer community.” You can also buy patches, t-shirts, candles and more!
Automic Jewelry
via Automic Gold
Automic makes “radically wearable” jewelry for people of all genders and bodies. They hire size-inclusive, non-cis and non-white models and don’t photoshop a thing. All pieces are made from reclaimed gold and put in recyclable packaging.
Babeland
New York, NY & Seattle, WA
A+ members get $25 off orders of $125+
In 1993, sex-positive lesbian feminists Claire Cavanah and Rachel Venning, disappointed by the lack of female-friendly sex shops in Seattle, decided to launch their own. They succeeded! With locations in Seattle and New York; Babeland’s selection of sex toys and educational resources remains an industry standard. And we get a 20% commission on every Babeland sale made through our affiliate links!
barb
This “community of non-conformists, game changers, and everyday heroes changing the face of hair and beauty” sells products for short hair of all textures and apparel to go along with it.
Bella Books
The “premiere publisher of vibrant and irresistible fiction for and about lesbians” offers over 5,000 lesbian books and e-books in their online store, making it the largest website for lesbian readers. Founded in 1999 with the help of Naiad Press owners Barbara Grier and Donna McBride, Linda Hill has been the president of Bella Books since 2005.
Black Market Vintage
Brooklyn, NY
This “curated love story” of a shop (the brick-and-mortar is in Bedford-Stuyvesant) grows out of a commitment from the queer couple who owns it (Kiyanna Stewart & Jannah Handy) to “build a collection that mirrors multifarious Black cultural expression, rooted in our love for Black people, Black culture and our own lived experiences.” As cultural historians, their store is stocked with vintage posters, literature, clothing, art, houseware/decor, furniture and other delightful ephemera.
Black Queer Magic
via bqmny
VBM, LMSW is a self-taught jeweler who offers “handmade jewelry and workshop facilitations to aid in the adornment and reclamation of Black LGBTQ bodies” through BQMNY LLC. They work in a variety of materials, including custom-made crystal jewelry.
Bluestockings Cooperative
New York, NY
Bluestockings is New York’s only queer, trans and sex worker run bookstore. The bookstore is organized with categories that make sense to us all: “Intro to Intersectional Feminism” “Gender Studies” “State Repression & Resistance.” Its online store is fully stocked with the latest releases in the topics nearest & dearest to your heart as well as with stationary, notebooks, tarot decks and more.
Bold Strokes Books
Since 2004, Bold Strokes Books has been devoted to producing a diverse collection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer general and genre fiction. The company is run by Len Barot with Senior Editor Sandy Lowe. Len is perhaps better known by her pen name, Radclyffe, with which she has published some of the most beloved titles in lesbian romance.
Both & Apparel
Finnegan Shepard, the trans founder of Both&, works in conversation with their community to ethically and sustainably produce evidence-based designs that exist outside of the traditional binary fit and sizing system, with small-batch, research-informed capsule drops that are accessible to all humans including transmasculine or gnc-identified people.
Bowtie Behavior
via Bowtie Behavior
Robbie Williams founded Bowtie Behavior in 2014 when unable to find bowties for her friend’s bridal shower that were both affordable and fit with her personal style. She made her own, got a lot of positive feedback, and thus Bowtie Behavior was born, with an “intent to create pieces that are bold and flavorful.”
Brownie Points
Founder Rinny Perkins is known for their 70s-inspired collages and zines, and their shop celebrates showing up as your true self and staying honest about dating, sexuality and mental health. They aim for sustainability in all of their products and packaging.
Brujita Skincare
via Brujita Skincare
This Latina LA-based brand “celebrates the misfits that the natural beauty market left behind.” It sources most of its ingredients from Mexico City, making sustainable, organic and unrefined masks, cleansers, hand care, healing balms, lip balms and more. You can take the Brujitas Skin Quiz to find out what products are best for you.
Carmen Liu Lingerie
Intimates by and for trans folks and non-binary people like bras, bralettes, panties, tucking/flattening underwear. Carmen Liu Kids offers briefs, journals, workbooks and tees for trans girls and non-binary children with the aim of providing “children with the stepping stones to finding themselves, in a supportive, validating experience.”
Charis Books and More
Decatur, GA
Located in Decatur, Georgia, the South’s oldest independent feminist bookstore has been “celebrating radical and independent voices in the heart of the south since 1974!” You can support Charis with personalized Charis merch, too: hoodies, tees, mugs and totes.
Chromat
(Photo by Sean Zanni/Getty Images for Chromat)
Chromat is high fashion lingerie with a tomboy femme twist and has attracted fans such as Beyonce! Becca McCharen-Tran, the experimental brand’s designer, is queer, and the online store has sportswear and swimwear, too. This past fall, they collaborated with Tourmaline for a “lifesaving” swimwear show.
Coco & Breezy
Corianna and Brianna are twin sisters who grew up in Minnesota and always had a passion for fashion. Together they founded Coco & Breezy, a “cutting edge eyewear brand based in New York City that aims to reach new fashion heights and introduce fashion connoisseurs all over the world to their unique sense of style and original accessories.” Prince, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and and Rihanna are fans, and their online interface enables you to try on their frames virtually.
Collarbone Jewelry
A+ members get 15% off purchases of $75 or more
Cat Luck uses brass, bronze, base metals, raw stones and whimsical charms to handcraft a fashion jewelry collection that speaks to all walks of life. CAT LUCK brings together forged, minimalist, geometric, and personal pieces for humans of all gender expressions.
Common Dear
Oklahoma City, OK
via instagra
This bright, energetic online and IRL retail space is curated with women-owned, 2SLGBTQIA+-owned and BIPOC-owned brands that care about empowerment and making the world a better, more equal place for everyone. They stock the most delightful sweaters I have ever seen and assorted apparel, home goods, candles, accessories and so much more!
Common Heir
Common Heir is a QWOC-owned clean beauty company for people looking to cultivate beauty in the world and transform traditions with clean, plastic-free, high-performance skincare. They sell serums, a facial sculptor and candles.
Culture Flock
Springfield, MN
Since 2013, the Culture Flock founders have been “designing and creating colorful and inclusive apparel, goods, and accessories for friends of every shape, size, color, gender, and orientation.” With a brick-and-mortar store in Missouri, their online store has collections focused on homebodies, activists, zodiac lovers, star-gazers and artists.
Dapper Boi
Dapper Boi got its start with a kickstarter to begin manufacturing slim-straight, androgynous jeans. Founded by Vicky and Charisse Pasche, “partners in business / crime / life,” Dapper Boi wants to “create an androgynous clothing line that is fashionable, functional, affordable and accessible to all.” They sell pants, button-ups, hats, socks, jackets and everything you could imagine putting on your body!
Doll Parts Collective
Seattle, WA
via Doll Parts
Located in Seattle and launched during the pandemic, Doll Parts is “all about color, unique design, original pairings, and working with existing materials.” They offer “vintage clothing and housewares, handmade goods, and other sustainably sourced products.”
Dom + Bomb
Spokane, WA
This Black-woman and queer-woman owned size-inclusive fashion brand is “fighting fatphobia and the gender binary through fashion” with shirts, hats and accessories. They also offer tailoring and personal styling by appointment.
Domestic Domestic
Little Rock, AK
“We bring to you fine products with attention to quality, function and design,” boasts the website for Heather Smith’s Arkansas-based boutique. “Nothing is added without reason. The objects we curate tell a story and have a history. They’re potential heirlooms, unique in type, simply determined to be the best damn stuff on the market.”
Early to Bed
Chicago, IL
Founded by Searah Deysach in Chicago over 20 years ago, Early2Bed was intended to be a sex toy shop that felt “friendly, educational and fun.”
Equal Love
via Shop Equal Love
Puerto Rico based company Equal Love is “a genderless line of natural products with purpose” for “people who want high quality personal care and home products that allow any person to have a healthy and confident lifestyle.” Their exclusive essential oil blend is used across a line of personal care products.
Equator Coffees & Teas
Bay Area, CA
The first-ever LGBT owned business to be named a “Small Business of the Year” by the U.S Small Business Association, Equator Coffees & Teas was started 21 years ago as a coffee roastery by life partners Brooke McDonnell and Helen Russell. It now has become “one of the few fully integrated coffee companies in the U.S.”
Fempower Beauty
This lesbian-owned ethical beauty company specializes in lipstick and aims to “heal the harms of the beauty industry with luxury products that affirm and uplift.” Their products connect beauty with mental health and positive affirmations, and they also sell accessories and bags.
Find Yr/Self Boxes
Focusing in mental health-focused self-care boxes, this queer-owned company supports the universal need of good mental health with curated packages for situations including depression, post-partum and being desperately in need of sleep!
Flavt Streetwear
FLAVNT Streetwear is an independent clothing brand based in Austin, Texas created with “the goal of creating clothes that promote confidence and pride.” They sell binders, stickers and sweats and run fundraisers for organizations like Black Lives Matter as well as individual trans people who need money for surgery.
For Them
Founded by queer non-binary actor / producer / entrepreneur Kylo Freeman, For Them is a business pretty close to our hearts because they literally own us now but we liked them before that obviously! An honoree in the Fast Company 2022 Innovation by Design Awards, For Them binders were created to compress without sacrificing the wearer’s health or comfort. Their binders have a weightless feel with a rotatable neckline, a bounty of color options and a unique customization survey that ensures customers get the right binder for their body. The Binder MAX, debuted this year, offers more compression. You can also get a For Them gift card that’ll enable your loved one to do the survey to get their ideal binder!
Freck Beauty
On her super hip and playful vegan + cruelty-free line of products, inspired by founder Remi’s unique vision and diverse East LA neighborhood: “Freck stands for those who care about ingredients, respect the process and seek self-expression without rules. This community born from a single offbeat idea for a freckle cosmetic has flourished into a movement of trailblazers and rule-breakers who thrive on individualism and always find the courage to experiment.”
Galaxy Brain Designs
Galaxy Brain Design is a queer-, woman-owned small business selling art, gifts, + home goods for folks that love a wikipedia deep dive, boozy brunch, or therapeutic breakthrough! They primarily make about queerness, mental health, and “what it means to be a good person in a broken society.” Major motifs include plants, space, and other natural elements,
Girls Will Be Boys
GWBB Girls Will Be Boys is active loungewear inspired by today’s modern tomboy. They focus on making high quality apparel that boldly fits all shapes and sizes.
Good Light
via goodlight
Developed by David Yi, Good Light is a “personal care brand that believes in beauty beyond the binary” with “efficacious, yet gentle personal care products” including pimple patches, water cleansers with clean, dreamy style.
Good Vibrations
multiple locations in California & Massachusetts
A+ Members get $25 off orders $125+
Since the first store opened in San Francisco in 1977, Good Vibrations has been providing “high-quality products, education, and information that promotes sexual health, pleasure and empowerment.” They were one of a handful of pioneers building a sex toy store that wasn’t hiding — clean, well-lit, sex-positive and easy to browse. Now Good Vibrations has eight stores, a wholesale private label and an innovative online store. Plus, they give Autostraddle 20% back on every purchase you make!
Haute Butch
Selling “fierce dapper stud style” and “tomboy-style clothes,” Haute Butch features suits, vests, watches, belts, footwear, briefs and so much more at their online store. Karen Roberts, a U.S. Navy veteran, opened her store in April 2012 with a focus on becoming “a clothing, footwear and lifestyle destination for butch women, studs, bois and trans men who prefer ‘menswear’ inspired finishes.”
Hella Thrifty
Avid thrift shopper and 80s/90s fashion blogger Dannie Cherie started Hella Thrifty to exchange and share unique thrift finds — but now the company has its own 80s/90s inspired original collections including tees, jackets and hats!
Hey Mavens!
Hey Mavens sells lingerie in seizes from XXS to 10X that celebrate individual expression and diversity with products in bold colors and unique prints.
Hinterland Empire
Portland, OR & Occidental, CA
“Seeing a gaping hole in the world of clothing for adventurous, badass human beings, we created Hinterland,” said lesbian couple Jolene and Trinia, who set out initially “to design empowering, irreverent imagery and print that onto American-made clothing.” Now Hinterlands is equally devoted to making and selling really great coffee and related accessories.
House of Intuition
Los Angeles, CA
Lesbian couple Marlene Vargas and Alex Naranjo opened their first HOI in 2010, selling crystals and candles. Now, they’ve got six locations selling magic candles, beauty products and all the crystals a queer could ever dream of — and for the holidays, sign-specific and purpose-specific gift boxes will fit right under your tree.
Humboldt House
Chicago, IL
This feminist store with a kickass team in Chicago features “a carefully-curated selection of locally found furniture and goods, as well as the work of local jewelry designers, ceramic artists, and apothecary makers” with an eye on self-care and daily rituals.
Humankind Swimwear
via instagram
Founded by lesbian entrepreneur Haily Marzullo, this company aims to make quality gender-neutral swimsuits and athletic gear for a variety of bodies and sizes.
Jen Zeano Designs
Wife-and-wife team Jen and Vero started Jen Zeano Designs in 2014, the same year they got married, launching the store with a Pink Latina Power Tee. The brand celebrates Latina community & culture through tees, sweats, accessories, bags, stationary, drinkware and kids stuff with collections including Feel Your Feelings, Artesana Costias Curiosas, Latina to Latina, Growing Through It and Latina Power.
Kards Unlimited
Pittsburgh, PA
Established in 1968, this Pittsburgh novelty shop has been passed on from the married couple who founded it to their daughter and then to an employee of 15 years. Cards, pins, coloring books, stickers, socks, mugs, games, books, cards, puzzles!!!
Kirrin Finch
via instagram
Kirrin Finch, started by Brooklyn-based lesbian couple Kelly and Laura Moffat, sells kickass menswear-inspired shirts, oxfords and bow-ties using sustainable fabrics and practices.
Lockwood Shop
Brooklyn, NY
via instagram
Starting out with one shop in Astoria in 2013, Lockwood now has five stores in NYC and a bustling online shop, filled with “unique decor, stationery, clothing, kid’s gifts, and affordable lifestyle goods, focusing on local makers and up-and-coming brands.” This includes the cutest slippers ever, Mr. Mets prayer candles, face masks, Legally Blonde coloring books, Latkes & Lights candles, pizza rat felt christmas tree ornament, touchscreen gloves, a Reductress Play the Patriarchy game, I MEAN the list goes on. You can even make a custom gift box for your beloved. Their store is SO CUTE I could not pick a photo to use.
Loyalty Bookstores
Washington DC
Founded by Black Queer bookseller Hannah Oliver Depp, Loyalty Bookstores in Silver Spring and Washington DC aim to “be the mid-Atlantic’s neighborhood spot for wonderful books and unique stationary, gifts and programming” and center Black, PoC and queer voices.
Las Ofrendas
Las Ofrendas is a social enterprise featuring handmade accessories, apparel, games stationary and home goods designed or curated by their founder, tk tunchez, highlighting Latinx, BIPOC and queer art.
Lucky Skivvies
via Lucky Skivvies
Luky Skivvies is a gender neutral boxer brief and loungewear brand created for all bodies, with sizes ranging from small to 3XL.
Makoma the Brand
via Makoma the Brand website
Makoma the Brand aims to “create one-of-a-kind, contemporary designs using a combination of African prints and classic silhouettes.” Everything is ethically made and was founded by Judith, who is also the co-owner of Brooklyn-based hair salon / barber shop Chokmah Hair Lab.
Mestiza
Chicago, IL
Established in Chicago in 2004 by artists/entrepreneurs Lorena and Sugeiri, Mestiza offers ” unique selection of jewelry, clothing, accessories, housewares, stationery, and handmade local artisan goods” and a “selection of unique Latinx products that celebrate their traditions and culture.” This Millennial Lotería: El Puzzle is a must-have!
Mi Vida
Los Angeles, CA
Noelle Reyes founded her LA-based store in 2008 “with the purpose of providing the surrounding the surrounding community a shopping experience that compliments their lifestyle, incorporating cultural elements into fashion and functional art.” They sell shirts, pins, hats, jewelry, incense, oils and so much more!
Minna Goods
Minna is a textile brand that sells blankets, textiles, rugs, wall hangings and more while striving to “bridge the gap between ethically made goods and contemporary design.” Sara Berks launched her company in 2013, when she got tired of doing graphic design and wanted to start making things with her own two hands.
Minus Moonshine
Brooklyn, NY
This “magical land of beverages and potions” are made for adults who want to participate in alcoholic-esque revelry, but without the alcohol itself! With a brick & mortar shop in Brooklyn, this trans-owned store sells non-alcoholic beers, spirits, wines, seltzers and mixers.
Mud Witch
Queer Japanese/Mexican Artist Viviana Matsuda’s pottery studio makes unique, hand-thrown, brightly-colored ceramics: candle holders, mugs, vases, planters and bowls. You should follow her on instagram because every one of her products sparks immediate joy!
Muka
This small Hamilton, Ontario-based company consists of four artists and life-long friends with big dreams who founded MUKA in 2018 to “build a more inclusive and creative future in fashion for people of intersectional identities,” selling pins, stickers, t-shirts and other accessories.
Nicole Zizi
The NICOLE ZÏZI STUDIO™ is a brand with a new perspective on streetwear with a focus on eco-conscious, sustainable, innovative and gender-free premium streetwear. All the garments are hand-made garments with ethically produced fabrics.
Nik Kacy Footwear
Los Angeles, CA
via instagram
Nik Kacy couldn’t find “masculine-of-center” shoes in their size and that’s what inspired them to launch their own line of luxury footwear for people of all gender identities. They also sell harnesses and holsters.
Noto Botanics
Los Angeles, CA
Gloria Noto’s eponymous line of serums, oils, cleansers, mists, moisturizers, creams and lip + cheek sticks are designed for all genders and skin types. Everything is vegan, cruelty free and eco-friendly. “Learning what ingredients were clean and beneficial for multiuse, multi-gendered folx is what makes Noto stand out,” Noto told The Cut.
Octopied Mind Inc.
Established in 2018 and queer, woman and indigenous-owned; founders Jill and Sarah want every piece they produce to be a conversation starter, meticulously crafted with purpose and passion. Their fun totes, blankets, hats, mugs and stickers are perfect for weirdos who experience emotions like being Dead Inside and having Sunday Scaries.
One DNA Apparel
Ypsilanti, MI
Headquartered in my beloved Ypsilanti, Michigan, this Black and queer-owned business sells gender-neutral apparel. Their super-wearable and very cozy premium tees and sweats are made from organic and recycled fabrics.
Pa’lante Para
via palantepara
This “clothing brand created by a queer Latina who gets it” aims to “make space for affordable, trendy and forward thinking para options for Latinx and multicultural-based sororities.” Their Para Everyone designs are “made for everyone to rock, regardless of affiliation.”
Pals Socks
The Pals Socks story begins in 2007, when then-girlfriends Hannah Lavon and Ashley Connors started “Hooray Hoopla,” a gift shop that specialized in “kitschy-cool paper products” and got popular selling mismatched animal mittens. The “Vs. Stuff” line put Predators and Prey on a set of hands and let them duke it out. Thus, Pals Socks were born, and the mismatched animal buddies have been a hit. Now they collaborate with artists and are always releasing new fun things for the feet!
Portrai.Me
via PortraI.Me
Portrai Me is “a visual art project that creates ‘portraits’ of people’s personalities through the various motifs in their lives.” They aim to produce one-of-a-kind artworks at accessible price-points, starting at just $59 each.
Peau De Loup
Lifelong tomboys Adelle Renaud and Erin McLeod founded Peau De Loup in Vancouver and set out to “redefine feminine etiquette in womenswear by creating functional, well-made, timeless apparel.” You can get their super-cool ethically-sourced-and-produced signature button-ups (so much plaid, y’all!) and accessories online.
The Phluid Project
Launched in March 2018, the Phluid Project aims to “amplify the rising voice of today’s youth, which rejects binary gender norms, and favors an inclusive world that allows individuals to wear what makes them feel good — that is, what best reflects who they really are inside.
PlayOut
Abby Sugar and Sylvie Lardex launched PlayOut in 2011, offering two styles of underwear — boxer-briefs (the ‘boyshort’) and the trunk cut — for all genders. Now they sell tunics, pants, skirts, crop tops and all sorts of “gender-free apparel.”
A Rainbow In Your Cloud
Black autistic visual artist Amina Mucciolo’s shop exudes rainbow bubblegum poppy excitement with affirming tees, masks, hoodies and iPhone cases.
re-inc
Founded by legendary women’s soccer players Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath, Meghan Klingenberg, and Christen Press “with the mission of inspiring us all to boldly reimagine the status quo,” re-inc’s shop sells t-shirts, scarves, hats, mugs, hats, tumblrs and more, emblazoned with their logos and inspiring messages.
Reparations Club
Los Angeles, CA
Reparations Club is a bookshop and creative space “curated by Blackness” in Los Angeles. The Black-owned and women-owned business curates an incredible list of books as well as selling vinyl and gifts like puzzles, games, honey, sage sticks and tarot decks.
A Room of One’s Own
Madison, WI
via instagram
This Madison-based bookstore, named after the Virginia Woolf essay, has been a thriving space for the local feminist community since 1975. It offers a variety of books and gifts, with plenty of women’s studies and LGBT fiction.
Sabor a Libertad
Sabor a Libertad is the project of a graphic artist in San Juan, Puerto Rico, aiming to make clothes that represent them and other QTPOC Puerto Ricans. They sell a ton of cute original graphic tees in bright, fun colors in both Spanish and English like Aro Pride, Straight Was the Phase, La Futura Es Inclusiva and They Kiss Them.
Sapphire Books Publishing
Founded by Christine Svedsen in 2010, Sapphire Books is dedicated to promoting and publishing “stories that accurately and respectfully reflect the diverse lives of the lesbian community.”
Show & Tell Oakland
Oakland, CA
This concept shop, gallery and gathering space in downtown Oakland specializes in sustainable and socially responsible apparel, accessories and gift items. Alyah Baker started her store to share products she couldn’t find in big box retailers, things that “reflected [her] love for BIPOC and LGBTQIA community.” In their store and online they sell t-shirts, body salves & cremes, jewelry, candles, prints and yoga mats from a diverse group of makers.
Smitten Kitten
Minneapolis, MN
Smitten Kitten opened in 2003 in Minneapolis, MN, hoping to bring “quality, body-friendly sex toys” to a store they’d enjoy shopping in themselves. Smitten Kitten is always on the city’s “Best Of” lists and promotes a sex-positive environment and a curated inventory of non-toxic, ethically produced and marketed products. Not just sex toys, though — they’ve got cute buttons, greeting cards, bandanas and so much more.
Souk Bohemian
Atlanta, GA
Artists Morgan Ashley Bryant and Vanessa Coore Vernon partner with local and global artisans to bring aspirational ready-to-wear pieces, home goods, small-batch jewelry, and handmade accessories with minimal palettes and global aesthetics.
South Street Art Market
Philadelphia, PA
via southstreetartmart on instagram
The queer-women-owned South Street Art Market sports goods from 130+ indie artists in their store and online. From kitschy nostalgia to nerdy indulgences to the dark arts, their store includes Sick Sad 90s Pin Packs, Mystery Zine Bundles, Dolly Parton earrings, Unicorn Sculptures, Back to the Future Light Switch Plates and so so much more!
Stealth Bros & Company
This luxury medical storage company creates Dopp kit supplies for travel and at-home personal storage for medical/personal necessities for the transgender, diabetic, TTC and other persona/medical communities in an attempt to revolutionize the way we see and feel about sharps disposal.
Stuzo Clothing
via Instagram, photo by mariyastanglphoto
This queer-owned, women-owned, Black-owned and Latin-owned gender-free brand is “designed to invoke thought and emotion.” DapperQ described them as “a line of androgynous, athleisure, and Cali-casual-cool style.” They sell t-shirts, candles, hats and other gender-free apparel “designed to invoke thought and emotion.” Celebrities like Lena Waithe and Jada Pinkett Smith have been spotted in Stuzo attire.
Style is Freedom
This “Tomboi Lifestlye Brand” from designer Toni Branson sells snapbacks, beanies, sweatshirts, tees, wallets, slides and more. they collaborate with artists and have so much fun stuff this season, like a Wakanda Tomboi tee and the “Elephant in the room” collection.
Tanaïs
Tanaïs, author and prefumer and the host of perfume podcast MALA, promises “infinite beauty” with her recently-launched brand that ” imagines fragrance, beauty and jewelry as expressions of ritual, adornment and ancestors.”
TomboyX
Founded by lesbian couple Fran and Naomi, Tomboy X sells underwear, bras, joggers, t-shirts, muscle tees, swimwear and so much more with a focus on “empowering our LGBTQ+ community year-round.”
Under the Umbrella Bookstore
Salt Lake City, UT
Under the Umbrella Bookstore is a bookstore and a safe space for queer people of all ages in the Salt Lake City community, selling books across all genres as well as candles, teas, stickers, pins, tote bags, bookmarks, mugs, and jewelry by small queer-owned businesses and artists.
Unicorn Feed Supply
Ypsilanti, MI
The queer woman who opened Unicorn Feed Supply in 2018 wanted an entire store that brought her as much joy as her childhood sticker collection (relate-able), Unicorn Feed Supply is queer as fuck: terrariums, fairy gardens, magical stuff, sparkly things, stuffed animals, novelty socks, knick-knacks, enamel pins, work from local artisans and fun stuff for Pride.
Violet Valley Bookstore
Water Valley, MS
Mississippi’s “Only Queer Feminist Trans inclusive Bookstore” was founded by Jaime Harker, who found while working on her book The Lesbian South that there was a huge community of Southern queers who were “surprised and delighted to find that they were part of a long tradition of activists and writers.” She was inspired to start Violet Valley in 2017, aiming to “make feminist, queer, and multicultural books available to the Water Valley community, the state of Mississippi, and the South.”
We’Moon
The We’Moon: Gaia Rhythms for Womyn astrological and lunar calendar datebook was founded in 1981 and is published in Oregon by Mother Tongue Ink. You can get the datebook and wall calendar in their online shop as well as other related products.
West Side Kids
New York, NY
Since 1981, lesbian couple Alice and Jenny Bergman have been running this neighborhood favorite toy shop with a selection that emphasizes diversity, education, and ethically-made products for curious kiddos.
Wet For Her
Proudly selling sex toys designed by women for women, Wet For Her not only sells dildos, massage oils and harnesses, but also “finger extenders” for purposes which are probably obvious to you.
Wildfang
Portland, OR + Los Angeles, CA
These self-described “modern-day, female Robin Hoods raiding men’s closets and maniacally dispensing blazers, cardigans, wingtips and bowlers” launched their dapper-tomboy brand in early 2013. Their Wild Feminist tees became viral sensations, their smart suiting is beloved in the queer community and their jumpsuits have taken our televisions by storm.
Wiselands
With Midwestern roots refined in Northern California, this queer & employee-owned company creates sustainable skincare using green chemistry and concentrated, renewable ingredients.
Wolfe Video
This legend in lesbian movie culture was launched in 1985 by Kathy Wolfe and it is the largest exclusive distributor of LGBT films. They began as a mail order outlet distributing a Lily Tomlin film and are now an active distributor and releaser of pretty much every film with a lesbian in it, ever! Plus they’re just good people.
Woxers
This QWOC-owned apparel company designed a boxer-brief tailored to women and focused on comfort, health and sustainability. They sell bralettes as well as boxer-briefs in different lengths in a variety of colors and patterns.
Volition Beauty
Founders Brandy Hoffman (the queer one!) and Patricia Santos met working at a different skincare company and joined forces to create the now enormously successful Volition Beauty, featuring clean skincare products inspired by crowdsourced ideas, voted on by fans. And they have a lot of fans! You can also find Volition products at Sephora.
And Finally: More Queer and LGBTQ+-Owned Bookstores To Support
There are so many bookstores owned by LGBTQ women and other trans people that I couldn’t possibly give them all blurbs. Here are some of the many I missed (I chose here only stores that have independent storefronts you can shop online)
- All She Wrote (Sommerville, MA)
- Astoria Bookshop (Astoria, NY)
- Big Blue Marble Books (Philadelphia, PA)
- Black Garnet Books (Twin Cities, Minnesota) (black owned)
- BookWoman (Austin,TX)
- Broadway Books (Portland, OR)
- Burdock Book Collective (Birmingham, Alabama)
- Dog Eared Books (San Francisco)
- Firestorm Books & Coffee (Asheville, NC)
- Foggy Pine Books (Boone, NC)
- The Irreverent Bookworm (Minneapolis, MN)
- Montana Book Company (Helena, MT)
- Omnivore Books (San Francisco, CA)
- The Ripped Bodice (Los Angeles, CA)
- Red Emmas (Baltimore, MD)
- Reparations Club (Los Angeles,CA)
- Rofhiwa Books & Cafe (Durham, NC)
- Tombolo Books (St. Petersburg, FL)
- Tubby & Coos (New Orleans)
- Women & Children First (Chicago, IL)
- Womencrafts (Provincetown)
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 Denim Jackets Worth Adding to Your Closet to Casually Up the Gay
The leaves have changed. The air has gone crisp. We’ve approached peak fall. Let’s make sure that your annual denim jacket is appropriately gay coded.
Denim Jackets That Are Fleece-Lined
1. Gap Oversized Sherpa Icon Denim Jacket (size XS-XXL, $60) // 2. Madewell Trucker Jean Jacket with Sherpa Collar (size 1X-4X, $120) // 3. Carhartt Relaxed Fit Denim Sherpa-Lined Jacket (size XS-XXL, $100)
I’m putting the fleece-lined jackets up on top because between me and you (shhhh!) I’m getting this list of denim jackets up a little late and I’m well aware that if you live on the Canadian border, like yours truly, your cute little denim jacket days are already numbered!
Some of us were forced to trick-or-treating with our costumes stretched over our snow suits as children, alright!?!? But hey, now there’s global warming. So, I guess? Yay?
Denim Jackets That Are Also Trucker Jackets
1. Gap Oversized Icon Denim Jacket (size XS-XXL, $53) // 2. Free People Denim Barn Coat (size XS-XL, $168) // 3. Dickies Denim Chore Coat (size XS-2XL, $85) // 4. Torrid Denim Trucker Jacket (size M-6X, $53)
Now if you’re paying attention, here is where you are going to ask me “Carmen what is the difference between a ‘trucker jacket’ and the ‘trucker jackets with lining’ that you just showed me in the section before?” And babe, I do not know!
It seems that “trucker jackets” are the vibe, the moment (you will see them all over this guide) — and who am I to argue? They are arguably pretty gender neutral.. though, on the face value of the thing, are not all denim jackets fairly gender neutral? Unless you get one of those ones that have a nipped in waist. But who’s to say a hoochie daddy doesn’t want to show off of their waistline! I’m spiraling.
Denim trucker jackets for sure feel gay. There’s something about the extra seam detail drawing from the pockets vertically down to the hemline that give them subtle “I don’t care, I’m here to work” razzle dazzle, and gays sure do love to razzle that dazzle. All I know is that I personally bought that oversized Gap trucker back in September (in XXL if you’re looking for yourself, I wear a size 18) and I have worn it every where, at all times, might as well bury me in it, and I have no regrets.
Denim Jackets That Are Also Trench Coats
1. Ralph Lauren Denim Trench Coat (size 14W-22W, $270) // 2. Los Angeles Apparel Lab Coat in Dusty Blue (One Size, $160) // 3. Anthropologie Polished Denim Trench Coat (size XXS-XL, $110) // 4. NY&Co Belted Medium Wash Denim Jacket (size S-L, $128)
A denim trench is what I believe should be in the updated uniform of mysterious power lesbians who have hard-wired boundaries where their gooey hearts should be, and the women who fall on their knees for them. And yes, this is a self-drag.
Denim Jackets That Have Hoods
1. American Eagle Hooded Denim Trucker Jacket (size XS-3XL, $100) // 2. Macy’s Trucker Hooded Denim Jacket (size S-2XL, $32) // 3. Flannel Lined Denim Jacket (size L-3X, $70)
Every single gay you know wears a hoodie layered underneath a denim jacket. But what if the actual process of layering is just one too many steps for you? What if what you desire is a two-for-one combo? No judgement here. Be slouchy as fuuuuck.
Denim Jackets That Are White
1. Levi’s Trucker Jacket in Steel Hour (size S-3XL, $80) // 2. Dickies Madison Jacket in Light Denim (size S-2XL, $90) // 3. Madewell Trucker Crop Jacket in Glenrich Wash (size XS-2XL, $100) // 4. Madewell Trucker Jacket in Vintage Canvas (size 1X-4X, $124)
Is white still considered unexpected for fall? Do we still follow archaic fashion rules like “no white after Labor Day” when Nothing Makes Sense AnymoreTM
I can’t imagine that we do! But just in case, see my vision. Go with me on a journey. Imagine wearing one of these coats layered over one of your all signature black ensembles and tell me that you wouldn’t feel like you stepped out of The House of Usher as some kinda October glam goth luxury personified? I thought so.
Denim Jackets That Are Black
1. Gap Cozy-Lined Non-Stretch Black Jean Jacket (size M-4XL, $80) // 2. Gap Cinched Denim Jacket (size S-XXL, $53) // 3. Universal Standard Kelsey Denim Jacket (size 00-40, $138)
Gays love black. Gays loves shoving their hands into denim pockets. That is some real 2+2=4 math right there.
Denim Jackets That Are Any Other Color Than Blue
1. Levi’s Trucker Jacket in Washed Brown (size S-XXL, $98) // 2. Free People Opal Swing Denim Jacket in Heart Eyes (size XS-XL, $98) // 3. Levi’s Relaxed Fit Trucker Jacket in Purple (size XS-XXL, $108) // 4. Stretch Denim Jacket in Deep Claret (size 12W-38W, $80)
Perhaps you already own a denim jacket or two, because after all, you are gay. In that situation what you might be looking for is not a denim jacket at all — or at least not in the traditional sense.
And yes, I theoretically could make a “taste the rainbow” joke here, but certainly we all agree that would be too crude, basic, and immature.
Or… ???
15 Creative Ways To Come Out to Your Family, Friends and/or the Entire World
You might think that the best way to come out is to sit down with your loved ones and simply tell them that you are gay or bisexual or trans or queer or pansexual or whatever it is that you are, and you’re probably right about that. However, there are other creative and unique ways our people have found over the years to break the good news to their families, friends, classmates, co-workers, neighbors, doctors, anesthesiologists, adoring public or anyone else. What better day to discuss those ideas than today, National Coming Out Day?
I’ve been hearing and reading your coming out stories for 14 years, and trends have emerged w/r/t ways to come out. For example, many of you have come out to your friends or family while in a moving vehicle. Another popular method is “writing a message on social media,” which is effective and efficient.
We could stop there, but then this post would be very short. So instead, join me as we think beyond the box — or beyond the car, as the case may be.
1. Come Out Via Power Point Presentation
In 2021, we published a compelling and popular piece entitled “I Came Out To My Parents Using a Slide Show, and So Can You!” In the piece, writer Amelia noted that when it came time to mark the occasion of her solidified lesbianism with her parents, she wanted something that felt really authentic to her personality and to the communication styles she had established with her family. She employed music, ambitious graphic design, and a whimsical narrative that delighted not just her family, but also all of us who read the article. I think about this at least once a week.
2. Star in an Ad Campaign For Subaru
This was a big move for Dana Fairbanks. It actually didn’t go very well at the time, but eventually she was able to reconcile her sexuality with her Cylon parents.
3. Let Your Mom Come Out For You
When you think about Kristen Stewart coming out, perhaps you think of the issue of Nylon that I still possess in which she spoke openly of her then-relationship with a woman, or perhaps you think about her saying “I’m like, so gay, dude,” on Saturday Night Live. But I think about when Kristen Stewart’s Mom Jules allegedly went ahead and told The Daily Mirror that she was a huge fan of Kristen’s relationship with her then-girlfriend Alicia Cargile, insisting that “people need to be free to love whoever they want,” which, for Kristen Stewart according to her Mom, meant “loving women and men.” Jules also told The Mirror that Kristen Stewart loves wolves and was raised by them.
4. Share Your Netflix Account With Your Parents
Back in her youth, former Autostraddle writer Nina was shocked to learn that the list of Netflix DVDs she’d been ordering to her home (e.g., L Word marathons, If These Walls Could Talk 2) was in fact accessible to her entire family. “It wasn’t long before my family smelled a rainbow colored rat,” she recalled, “and that rat was pointing its glow sticks at me.”
5. Curate an Entire Comedy Show and Make a Gay Joke About Yourself In It
In 2014, our now-Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya decided to come out to her peers in a basement comedy show in Ann Arbor, where she was attending college. “Standup is a performance, but you’re playing yourself,” she wrote of this choice at the time. “And if you’re a good comedian, you’re playing the realest, most honest version of yourself. For me, the thought of one-on-one conversations with people about my sexuality was much scarier.” That performance was the first time she’d said the words “I’m gay” out loud. She recalls, “I had successfully turned my sexuality into a punchline, which is another way of saying I’d successfully turned it into the most genuine form of expression I knew.”
6. Wear a Gay Shirt
“Who’s All Gay Here?” your shirt will ask. “Me!” you will say! Easy.
7. Attend a Gay Event
Perhaps you’re struggling to admit that you are gay, but how do you feel about admitting you are going on an Olivia Cruise and then letting your family connect the dots on their own? Unfortunately Pride is probably no longer gay enough to qualify as a gay event, I’m sorry. (Once I asked my former boarding school roommate if she wanted to meet up at Pride in the Village because I lived there that summer, and she was gay and had short hair so I figured she’d be going to Pride, and then I spent the whole day hoping she’d ask me how I felt about my own sexuality but unfortunately she was having some drama with her girlfriend and I was really awkward around so many new people (lesbian people with haircuts!!!!!!) and then we were all stoned on the roof and I was hungry and nobody wanted to ask me about my sexuality 😔)
8. Do an Interpretive Dance
In 2022, Jenna Malone announced her pansexuality via one of our people’s most beloved forms of performing arts: an interpretive dance. As Heather described it at the time, “in between promo for her new film, Adopting Audrey, Malone did some stretching, spins, whirs, and jiggles (and other official dance verbs) to honor her evolving understanding of her sexuality.” Unfortunately this dance and its accompanying caption has been pulled from Instagram but I think if you follow your heart, you too can dance about your sexuality.
9. Write an Entire Book
This is definitely a cumbersome method of coming out, as it takes some time, but it’s a good way to come out and also maybe make a few hundred bucks. Alternately you can hook up with Elliot Page and wait for him to write about it in his book.
10a. Post About Your Relationship on Instagram Like It’s NBD
This a beloved and popular move by celebrities, but it works for real people too! You can simply just start posting with your girlfriend or otherwise-identified activity partner like it is the most casual thing in the world. Alternately, you can use a hashtag like #IWasLookingAtHERAndFoundMyJOY (-Rutina Wesley) with a picture of you kissing your girlfriend or a caption like “2 years ago, I got to marry my best friend in front of our close family and friends” (-Candace Parker) accompanying photos of you marrying your best friend two years ago in front of your close family and friends.
10b. Post About Being Gay on Instagram Like It’s NBD
Self-explanatory
11. Go Through a Really Terrible Gay Breakup and Come Out Under Duress
Usually I’ve found the best time for me to reveal something emotionally intimate to anyone, including honestly a therapist, is when I am so profoundly distraught, depressed and despondent that my need for emotional comfort overcomes my fear of vulnerability. Also, it’s difficult for people to be mean to you when you are already so sad!
12. Publish an Article In Your School Newspaper Called “Suffocation: The Secret Life of a Gay Teenager”
If you have a school paper you can publish an anonymous article in it about being a wee lesbian, and then when everybody is buzzing about the essay, that’s when you can start coming out, and it will be really funny.
13. Get an Alternative Lifestyle Haircut
Haircuts have been doing the work for our community for generations.
14. Get a Gay Job
This girl has a gay job
One thing about having a gay job is that you have to come out to everybody who asks you about your job. Usually I circumvent this opportunity by saying I work for a “women’s media company,” which is like, not the whole story or true, but I don’t want be perceived in general, let alone talk about my sexuality with a stranger who is just making conversation. That said, lately every time I admit to a straight cis person that I work for an LGBTQ+ media company, they immediately want to ask me how I feel about trans women playing sports and while I’m hesitant to discuss my own self with a stranger, I am more than happy to share my correct opinions with them on the topic of trans inclusion in sports! So I try to see it as an opportunity.
Also, for the record, being in The L Word counts as a gay job.
15. Try This Special Method
Write “I’m Gay” on a tiny piece of paper, and then stick it into a bottle, and put the bottle in the ocean. It’s called “message in a bottle.” Then when it washes ashore, someone on the beach will pick it up and they’ll know all about it! You can’t control who will pick up your bottle message. It might not be your grandfather, but it might be someone really cute. Other than that issue, this is a foolproof plan with a 100% success rate. You’re welcome!!!!
12 Couples Halloween Costumes For Tall and Short Couples
You’re tall and they’re short, or she’s tall and you’re short, or you’re tall and she is in fact a totally normal and actually significantly above average height for a human woman although in comparison to you she is shorter but not in fact short. These are all situations that could be happening to you or me as you approach this Halloween in search of a Couples Halloween costume for a tall-short or otherwise differently-heighted couple.
Couples Halloween costumes present an incredible opportunity for two humans to size themselves up, consider their interests and passions, and then proceed to decide who they would like to pretend to be, together. Halloween costume season is an opportunity to truly shine as the short and tall people that we are and embrace the inches between you.
So, whether you’re dressing up with a significant other or a friend (friends are obviously also significant, but you know what I mean), here are some costumes that work regardless of height but are especially adorable Halloween costume choices for couples with big height differences.
This post was originally written in 2015 and was most recently updated on October 5th, 2023.
1. Peter Pan & Tinkerbell
Peter Pan is a popular choice for our people because Peter Pan has a special spot in queer hearts. I’ve often resorted to Peter Pan as a default Halloween costume when I’m pulling something together last minute, and famously paired a Tinkerbell dress with a white turtleneck and a bowl cut as a child, making me undoubtedly the spitting image of this noted fairy sprite.
You can get a Tinkerbell costume off the rack, or get creative: either make your own, or pair a green skater dress with wings and a wand. There are lots of Tinkerbell makeup tutorials online to top off the look. A Beautiful Mess has a great tutorial for a Peter Pan costume — there’s plenty of middling pre-made ones to buy, too, or just throw on some green tights, an oversized green t-shirt, tunic or dress; and a hat.
2. Roger Rabbit & Jessica Rabbit
This is a classic that gives you or your girlfriend an excuse to wear a red sequined bodycon dress and those opportunities are really few and far between. There is a whole-ass Roger and Jessica kit on Amazon for $31 if you wanna roll the dice on one-size fits all.
Your Roger Rabbit costume can be DIY-ed, or pieced together with a bow-tie, bunny ears, bunny shoes and red suspenders or overalls.
Jessica needs long purple gloves, that dress and that hair. There’s pre-made Jessica and Roger costumes too. Here’s a very in-depth look at Jessica Rabbit cosplay possibilities and here’s a hair and makeup tutorial. And of course, here’s an iconic couple who did Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit.
3. Carol & Therese from “Carol” Lesbian Couples Costume
Cate Blanchett stands tall at 5’9″, while Rooney Mara stands not quite as tall at 5’3″. Between those six inches lies the story of Carol, It is a bit wild to consider that despite publishing a whopping 53 posts about Carol on this exact website, none of them are about a Carol & Therese costume. However, we did do one post guiding you towards the various sewing patterns that’ll enable you to sew your own, and here’s a post with photos of all of Carol and There’s actual costumes from the film. If you’ve got a faux fur coat or a plaid dress or a tiny Santa hat, this Halloween is your moment.
4. Calvin & Hobbes
I’ve done this one before and I’m confident that at some point in the future I will have a second opportunity to wear my tiger onesie. For Calvin, you just need a Red striped t-shirt, black pants (you have some) and red tennis shoes. Hobbes requires simply a tiger onesie, which you probably have around the house. Who doesn’t, right?
5. Basketball Wives
First of all there are so many hot basketball players with wives to choose from and I’ve already made you a list of the tallest lesbians that surprisingly enough has a lot of WNBA players on it, which is a good place to start for inspo you are gonna need to find yourself an extremely tall WNBA player who is married to a civilian of reasonable height. My suggestions (with links to their jerseys) include: Brittney Griner (6’9″) and wife Cherelle Griner, Elena Delle Donne (6’5″) and her wife Amanda Clifton or Jonquel Jones (6’6″) and her fiancée Nesha (unfortunately you’ll have to be Jonquel in a Suns Jersey ’cause they’ve yet to print a Jones Liberty jersey).
I wasn’t sure about Breanna Stewart (6’4″), since, like Candace Parker and her wife Anna Petrakova and iconic Suns fiancees Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner, she is married to a fellow basketball player. But it turns out that Stewart’s wife, Marta Xargay, is a wee 5’11”, so I think it still works if you’re really set on that.
To be a basketball wife you just have to be hot, so that’s easy — but you certainly could simply wear fan gear for your spouse’s WNBA team.
6. Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog
The most iconic big femme / tiny masc couple costume of all time is of course always and forever Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. There’s plenty of pre-made Kermit and Piggy costumes, but it’s also a fun one to piece together with real clothes. Miss Piggy can do a statement pink dress with a pig nose, ears and blonde wig. Kermit can simply wear all green and/or a tuxedo and a frog hat (as a bucket hat, as a wrap-around hat, or the actual Disney Kermit hat).
7. C-3PO & R2-D2
Both of these characters have lots of detailed pre-made costume options, but they’re pretty expensive for a one-off. You can pull something together for an R2D2 costume with a R2D2 skater dress and R2D2 socks and some silver leggings. Most tutorials are for children’s costumes and involve trash cans, but here’s a more casual one for grown-ups. For C-3PO, you can make do with a snapback, gold leggings and C3PO tee or gold tank.
8. Megan Thee Stallion & Cardi B
Cardi B is 5’3″ and Megan Thee Stallion is 5’9″ and they were recently caught scissoring in “Bongos” and previously made a splash in W.A.P. This post details all the looks from the W.A.P. music video — the lingerie set, the catsuits, the corsets and cage bras and bodysuits — and this one describes several “straight-up Fire” W.A.P. costumes. The matching off-the-shoulder bodysuits with trains are a particularly iconic look.
The wildly-cut bright bikinis, giant fur and feathered hats and accessories of Bongos are detailed here — they’re all couture and custom pieces so doing it yourself will require a lot of improv. But start with color-coordinating a turquoise, hot pink, yellow or red cut-out swimsuit with bangles, audacious hats and those signature nails.
9. Will & Carlton from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
Will Smith towers over Alfonso Ribeiro, who played his cousin, Carlton, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Both of these costumes could be easily put together with a trip to Goodwill or Value World or just rifling through your closet, especially if you lived through the ’90s and have the wardrobe to prove it. Carlton is easy: some boat shoes or brown shoes, a sweater-vest or a cable-knit sweater tied around your shoulders, button-up shirt and pleated khakis.
You can really have some fun with Will ’cause it was the ’90s and he wore some really special outfits. You could experiment with Zubaz pants, Nike Retro Air Jordans, Blocked Pocket Tees and Snapbacks.
10. Xena & Gabrielle from Xena The Warrior Princess
Don’t worry I didn’t forget about Xena and Gabrielle! This is a pair that has been cosplayed ten million times already by the lesbian community and there is no shortage of photos online of various Xena and Gabrielle get-ups. Once upon a time, there were plenty of Butterick sewing patterns for Xena costumes. Here’s a a thorough Xena DIY tutorial with video, and here’s an Instructables Xena costume, and there’s a very basic licensed version. Gabrielle went through multiple costumes throughout the show’s run, giving you a lot to choose from as you embark on an adventure to recreate it!
11. Carson & Greta from A League of Their Own
Abbi Jacobson is 5’5. D’arcy Carden is 5’10”. Basically this is the story of my life, and it’s also the best story ever told and then unfortunately cancelled on television. We’ve got a great explainer on how to DIY your own “League of Their Own” halloween costume. You might need a Greta wig to get the long, dark wavy hair, or a shoulder-length curly light brown wig for a post-chop Carson.
12. Marty McFly and Doc from Back to the Future
This is such a popular costume and cosplay activity that there are more photos online of people dressed up like Doc and Marty than there are of Doc and Marty themselves.
Michael J. Fox, legendary shortie, clocks in at 5’4 while Christopher Lloyd exceeds six feet. I still want to be Marty McFly when I grow up, tbh. Marty needs a red puffer vest, a denim jacket, a calculator watch, Calvins, the Marty McFly hat, throwback Nikes, the Grays Sports Almanac and jeans. You can also make your own hoverboard or get a cheaper version. Doc needs full-body white coveralls, mad scientist wig, goggles and a weird button-up shirt. Here’s how to make Doc Brown’s signature helmet.
What are your favorite height-disparity costumes?
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!
The 60 Most Prolific Lesbian and Bisexual Women Actors
There have never been more out Lesbian actresses, bisexual actors, and queer women actors than there are right now in this very moment. The LGBTQ+ community is plowing head-first onto stage and screen, playing a diverse array of roles, winning awards and headlining cinema films. But whomst amongst them is the most prolific? Who has simply managed to appear in the most things, accumulated the most imdb credits? It’s not who you think! (Besides Jane Lynch, you already knew Jane Lynch would be on this list.)
You won’t see a lot of the most popular lesbian actresses and bisexual actors on this list that you might expect to see — for example, Kristen Stewart and Angelina Jolie both do film, rather than television, pretty exclusively, and tend to be very particular about the roles they take on, so they may be popular, but they’re not quite as prolific. There’ll also be plenty of names you’ve likely never heard before — I hadn’t! — but it turns out have been infusing their gay selves into our lives on a regular basis for the past several decades.
Because history is long and complicated, this list is looking only at living actors. This was all based on IMDB credits, for theater credits I just did the research using a variety of sources. One point was earned for each TV show, film, short, video short, TV movie, Broadway play or West End play in which the actor appeared. Projects that were still in development were not included. Points were not earned for being in music videos, narrative podcasts, or doing voice work for video games, or for appearing as themselves as guests in unscripted appearances in documentaries or on talk shows and game shows or similar. However, one point was awarded for hosting a TV show as themselves (e.g., an award show or a game show), or for being the narrator of a documentary as themselves. If an actor’s resume was 50% or more shorts, their ranking was evaluated with more scrutiny.
Obviously this does mean that actors who appeared on the same television program for multiple years, for example, had a disadvantage, as that only gave them one point while occupying copious amounts of time. It also gave a marked advantage to actors who do a lot of voice work for animated series, which takes less time to rack up more credits.
59 Most Prolific Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Actresses and Where You Can Watch Them Play Gay
59. Diora Baird, 40
(Photo by Erik Voake/Getty Images for Adult Swim)
Actress and former model Diora Baird’s most famous films include Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wedding Crashers and My Best Friend’s Girl. She’s done a ton of smaller parts on TV shows, including Shamelss and Cobra Kai. She has also appeared on the cover of every magazine ever! Baird came out in an interview with The Advocate in 2017.
58. Heather Matarazzo, 41
(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
Matarazzo burst onto the scene in 1995 when she starred as middle school outcast Dawn Wiener in Todd Solondz’s indie darling Welcome to the Dollhouse. She’s also recognized for playing Heather Wiseman on Now & Again, Lily Moscovitz in The Princess Diaries and Tia in Saved!
Matarazzo’s gay roles include notorious Curve writer Stacey Merkin on The L Word, a regular part on the queer Logo series Exes & Ohs and being Phyllis Lyon in the documentary Equal.
57. Haviland Stillwell
(Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images for PASSIONFLIX)
Actress / singer / producer / advocate Haviland Stillwell’s work spans Broadway, film, television and animation — most famously voicing Raquelle in the Barbie: Life is a Dreamhouse series. She’s had roles on TV series including Six Degrees, Eastwick, The Client List, Stitchers, CSI: NY, The Witches of Eastwick, UnREAL: The Faith Diaires and Single Ladies and appeared in feature films like Magic Mike XXL and Selma. Recent voice work includes High Guardian Spice and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.
Haviland plays gay in the webseries Unicorn Plan-It and Easy Abby, queer indie film Freelancers Anonymous.
56. Guinevere Turner, 55
(Photo by Joe Maher/Getty Images)
When it comes to actress/writer Guinevere Turner it’s easier to note the times she hasn’t played gay than it is to list every time she has: she’s all over lesbian TV/Film history, from her iconic ’90s indie Go Fish to writing and appearing in The L Word and co-starring in Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman. Her resume includes a lot of shorts as well as queer films like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Wild Nights With Emily.
55. Stephanie Beatriz, 42
(Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Outfest)
The very funny bisexual actress Stephanie Beatriz recently warmed hearts as the voice of Mirabel Madrigal in Encanto and has a resume full of sitcoms and voice work.
She famously played bisexual cop Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn 99, queered the fuck out of In the Heights, and guested as gay cousin Pilar in One Day at a Time.
54. Jamie King, 44
(Photo by Jon Kopaloff/WireImage)
Actress/model Jamie King is best known for the Sin City film series and blockbusters like Pearl Harbor and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She also starred in the TV series The Hart of Dixie and the Netflix show Black Summer.
53. Fortune Feimster, 43
(Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Comic Fortune Feimster made her TV debut in 2010 on Last Comic Standing and then became a regular on Chelsea Lately and After Lately before snagging roles on TV shows like 2 Broke Girls, Glee, Mulaney, Workaholics and The Mindy Project. She still does a lot of reality competition show hosting and judging, such as Is It Cake? and Nailed It! as well guest spots on various TV shows and voice roles on shows like The Simpsons and Q-Force.
Feimster almost always plays gay: including Rudy in short-lived sitcom Champions, a small role as Alice’s cousin Heather on The L Word: Generation Q, on The Mindy Project and Tales of the City and The Simpsons and Summer Camp Island and Q-Force and Sunnyside and Craig of the Creek.
52. Gillian Anderson, 55
(Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images)
There is truly no shortage of established affection in these parts for the legendary bisexual actress Gillian Anderson, who at some point in The X-Files or Sex Education or The Fall or Hannibal or American Gods made you gay.
Anderson played bisexual detective Stella Gibson in The Fall and bisexual powerhouse Eleanor Roosevelt in Showtime’s The First Lady.
51. Tessa Thompson, 40
(Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
Adored queer actress Tessa Thompson’s breakthrough roles in Mississippi Damned and For Colored Girls led to more: Dear White People, Selma, Creed, Passing, and eventually taking on Valkyrie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Valkyrie is a queer character — something Thompson herself has affirmed multiple times, although Marvel remains hesitant to actually fully go there. “At this point I can’t tell if Tessa Thompson is purposefully playing all her film characters as bisexual, or if it just jumps out when she least expects it, but I really don’t care,” wrote Carmen of Thompson’s role in Men in Black International. She also had guest queer roles on Cold Case and Bojack Horseman.
50. Alyson Stoner, 30
Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic )
Music videos aren’t part of the count for this list, but that’s where queer actor/singer/dancer Stoner made her debut: as a dancer on Missy Elliot’s “Work It.” Around the same time, she became a Disney Channel star and appeared in the 2003 film Cheaper by the Dozen. She hosted Disney Channel’s Mike’s Super Short Show, played Max in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, and showed up in the Step it Up franchise series. These days, Stoner mostly does voice work, on shows like The Loud House, Hamster & Gretel, The Legend of Korra and Phineas & Ferb.
49. Kathleen Monroe, 41
Photo by Desiree Navarro/WireImage
This Canadian actress has appeared in nearly 50 TV shows, including Stargate Universe, Alphas, CSI:NY, Call Me Fitz, FBI, Resurrection, Patriot, Cold Case, Without a Trace and Haven.
Kathleen Munroe played a bisexual recurring role in the beloved queer Facebook Watch series Strangers.
48. Sophie Ward, 59
Photo by Brian Rasic/Getty Images
This British actress snagged her first on-screen credit at the tender age of 11, going on to be known for Young Sherlock Holmes, Book of Blood, Heartbeat, Land Girls and Jane Eyre. More recently, she showed up in the Netflix series A Very British Scandal.
Sophie Ward played gay in the 1995 TV Movie A Village Affair and had a very small queer guest spot in an episode of Agatha Raisin and a very small queer part in The Hunger.
47. Sarah Paulson, 49
Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
Queer actress Sarah Paulson made her Broadway debut in 1993 as Amy Ryan’s understudy in “The Sisters Rosensweig,” and continued doing theater and TV work through the next two decades, including lead roles on American Gothic, Jack & Jill and Deadwood. Her career has really taken off hard in the past 15 years, especially through her work on Ryan Murphy projects, including an Emmy-winning turn as Marcia Clark in The People Vs OJ Simpson, as well as in films like 12 Years a Slave, Carol, Ocean’s Eight and Bird Box.
Sarah Paulson plays gay in American Horror Story: Cult, American Horror Story: Asylum, American Horror Story: Hotel, The Other SIster, Ratched and Carol. Also, I think we can all agree that her character in Ocean’s Eight is gay.
46. Lily Tomlin, 84
Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
Lesbian actress Lily Tomlin had regular roles in so many TV shows: Murphy Brown, Grace and Frankie, The West Wing. She voices Mrs. Frizzle for The Magic School Bus and has played her character Edith Ann in TV, movies, and Sesame Street. Robert Altman cast Tomlin in many of his projects: Nashville, Short Cuts, A Prairie Home Companion, The Player. Then there’s iconic films like 9 to 5 and Big Business.
Lily Tomlin played gay in the indie film Grandma and in Tea With Mussolini
45. Maria Bello, 56
Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
In the mid-90s bisexual actress Maria Bello parlayed her guest spot on E.R. into a regular role and hasn’t slowed down since. Unlike most actors on this list, there’s no abundance of shorts or voice work on her resume — just movies (e.g., Coyote Ugly, A History of Violence, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee) and TV shows (e.g., Prime Suspect, Touch, 73 episodes of NCIS).
Maria Bello played gay in Beef, the first season of Goliath on Prime Video and on Law and Order: SVU.
44. Keke Palmer, 30
Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images
“The biggest key to my consistency is I try to have no ego. A lot of people are like oh I used to be or I did such-and-such and I can’t do that job. I’m very much so like are the people cool? Is the material good? They gonna have lunch? Let’s go. You know?” Keke Palmer has said of her prolificness. “I always keep it to what I’m passionate about, what I connect to. When someone comes up to me and is like, why haven’t I seen you on the big screen in a minute? Well I’ve had three movies that went direct to DVD and you didn’t see any of them. People don’t realize as an actor, the point is to get a job, the point is to work, whether it’s gonna be a big blockbuster or not is no something you can control. All you can do is do your best and do what you love.”
This Emmy-winning singer / actor started acting at the wee age of 11, appearing in movies like The Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Akeelah and the Bee and Madea’s Family Reunion. She starred in her own TV series, Tru Jackson VP, has done live-action work like Star and Scream: The TV Series as well as voice gigs, including the recent The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.
Keke Palmer plays a lesbian role in Pimp and Jordan Peele’s latest horror film Nope.
43. Rosie O’Donnell, 61
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for GLAAD
Lesbian comic / actor / producer Rosie O’Donnell made a lot of money in the ’90s with her talk show, and thus has been able to pick projects she genuinely wants to do going forward, from being a series regular on SMILF to guest and recurring spots on The Fosters, Will & Grace, Bomb Girls, Queer as Folk, Nip/Tuck, Drop Dead Diva, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The L Word: Generation Q. A League of Her Own was her first movie (and she has a cameo in the reboot), and was followed by hits like Sleepless in Seattle, The Flintstones, Now and Then, Harriet the Spy and Beautiful Girls.
Rosie O’Donnell plays gay in Will & Grace, Mom, the A League of Their Own TV series and The L Word: Generation Q. Also we all know her character in the League of Their Own movie was also gay!
42. Jillian Armenante, 54
Photo by Barry King/Getty Images
Since 1991, Armenante has been appearing in truly SO many single episodes of TV shows and films, as well as being a series regular in Judging Amy and a recurring character in Fresh Off the Boat.
Jillian Armenante plays gay in The Sex Lives of College Girls and Strong Medicine.
41. Kate McKinnon, 39
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Lesbian Saturday Night Live icon Kate McKinnon has picked some pretty exciting film and TV projects — Barbie, Ghostbusters, Bombshell, Rough Night, Joe & Carole — and recently left Saturday Night Live to pursue even more of them.
Kate McKinnon has played queer roles in Bombshell, Ghostbusters (if we’re being honest and we are!) and Life Partners; as well as numerous skits on The Big Gay Sketch Show and Saturday Night Live.
40. Raven-Symoné, 38
Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic
Raven started acting when she was a mere four years of age, with a spot on A Different World that led to a three-year run on The Cosby Show. She’s appeared in a whopping 398 episodes of live-action television, with a bulk of those accounted for by That’s So Raven (100 episodes), Raven’s Home (95 episodes), Hangin’ With Mr Cooper (79 episodes) and The Cosby Show (64 episodes).
Raven-Symone played gay in Black-ish.
39. Stephanie Allynne, 37
Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images
This comedic actress and famed wife-of-Tig-Notaro has done a LOT of comedic shorts! She plays gay as Nat in The L Word: Generation Q and co-starred in her wife Tig Notaro’s show One Mississippi.
38. Ione Skye, 53
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Skye’s big break was playing Diane Court in the 1989 rom-com Say Anything, followed up by Wayne’s World and Gas Food Lodging. Since then, she’s done a few TV, film and shorts every year, and recently has been in Camping, Arrested Development, Good Girls and La Brea.
Ione Skye played gay in Carmilla.
37. Drew Barrymore, 48
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Another actor who’s been working steadily since childhood, Drew has recently been producing her own talk show, but is first and foremost a movie star: E.T., Boys on the Side, Never Been Kissed, Ever After, Poison Ivy, Scream, The Wedding Singer, Charlie’s Angels, the list goes on!
Drew Barrymore played gay in Everybody’s Fine, Poison Ivy and Roseanne.
36. Megan Cavanagh, 63
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for TCM
Her very first role was as Marla Hooch in A League of Their Own, so Megan really got her career off to a fantastic start, followed by guest spots on all the important sitcoms of the era and gradual foray into voice work, including many projects in which she voiced Judy Neutron.
Megan Cavanaugh played gay in the short-lived lesbian Logo sitcom, Exes & Ohs.
35. Cherry Jones, 67
Photo by John Shearer/WireImage
Nominated for her first Tony in 1991, Cherry Jones’ Broadway credits include Angels in America, Doubt, and the 2013 revival of The Glass Menagerie. She’s been doing film and TV since the early 80s, too — including a regular role on 24 and delightful turns on Transparent, Five Days at Memorial,The Handmaid’s Tale and Succession.
She played gay in Apple TV’s Defending Jacob, What Makes a Family, The Party and Transparent.
34. Janet Varney, 47
Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images
Comic / actor / writer Janet Varney is the voice of Korra in the Legend of Korra and has been in tons of TV shows since 2004, including You’re the Worst and playing Melina Marquez in the underrated lesbian comedy series Take My Wife. She came out as bisexual in 2018.
33. Jenna Malone, 39
Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
The child of lesbian moms, Jena’s first major role was starring in the film adaptation of legendary lesbian author Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina at the age of ten. Then there were hits like Contact, Air Force One and Stepmom and indies like The Dangerous LIves of Alter Boys and The Ballad of Jack & Rose. She’s well-known for playing Johanna Mason in the Hunger Games movies.
Jena Malone played queer roles in the arthouse films Lovesong and The Neon Demon.
32. Jodie Foster, 61
Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for WarnerMedia
Lesbian actress Jodi Foster has been picky with her projects, but being in the industry since 1969 has still enabled her to rack up quite a few! This actress, director and two-time Oscar winner’s memorable roles include — and are absolutely not limited to — Contact, Taxi Driver, The Accused, Panic Room, The Silence of the Lambs, Little Man Tate and Freaky Friday.
Jodie Foster plays gay in Hotel New Hampshire and Carny.
31. Michelle C. Bonilla, 51
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Since 1995, Bonilla has been working consistently, mainly in 1-3 episode runs on various television series, as well as regular roles on E.R. and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
30. Wanda Sykes, 59
Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Iconic lesbian comic Wanda Sykes had her very own tv show, Wanda At Large, in 2003 and was a regular in several others in subsequent years, such as The New Adventures of Old Christine, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Alpha House, Black-ish, The Other Two and The Upshaws; as well as numerous animated series.
Wanda Sykes plays gay roles in Velma, Q-Force and Broad City as well as in the movies Breaking News in Yuba County and Friendsgiving.
29. Queen Latifah, 53
Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET
Queen Latifah is accomplished in so many realms and in addition to being the first lady of hip-hop she has starred in multiple rom-coms, musical films like Chicago and Hairspray, TV series like The Equalizer, Living Single and Star. She also has 48 producer credits on top of that impressive acting resume.
Queen Latifah played queer roles in Bessie and Set it Off, as well as a small guest spot as Hattie McDaniel in Hollywood.
28. Aubrey Plaza, 39
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV
Beloved bisexual queen Aubrey Plaza has brought her droll attitude to Parks & Recreation, Legion, White Lotus and millennial comedies like Ingrid Goes West and Addicted to Fresno.
Aubrey Plaza has played gay parts in Happiest Season, Addicted to Fresno and the short film/ad She Said She Said.
27. Taryn Manning, 45
Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Turner
Despite being a consistent presence on the list of “actors who are extremely difficult to work with,” Manning sure has gotten a lot of work! Her most recent iconic role was playing Pennsatucky in Orange is the New Black, and she was previously known for Britney Spears masterpiece Crossroads and Eminem biopic 8 Mile.
26. Bella Thorne, 26
Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Bella Thorne, the youngest actor on this list, has — to be honest — been in a lot of mediocre movies, but also good for her for staying gainfully employed while also pursuing a music career! Her biggest TV roles were in Shake it Up, Famous in Love and Scream, and her most notable film appearances are The Duff and Midnight Sun. Although not included in her overall count, she’s been modeling since she was a baby and has appeared in 40+ commercials.
25. Fiona Shaw, 65
Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images
This classy Irish lesbian actor has made her mark onstage and onscreen and has been nominated for and won many awards along the way. You know her from Killing Eve and True Blood and the Harry Potter franchise.
She played gay onstage in The Powerbook.
24. Clea Duvall, 46
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Turner
She made you gay in But I’m a Cheerleader and remained a ’90s and early ’00s teenage dream in The Faculty and Girl Interrupted, then went on to appear in films like Argo and on TV series like Heroes and Carnivale. More recently she wrote the infamous lesbian Christmas movie Happiest Season and wrote/produced The Intervention as well as the recent Freevee series High School.
Clea Duvall has played gay in the films Committed, How to Make the Cruelest Month and But I’m a Cheerleader and the TV shows Saving Grace, American Horror Story: Asylum, Veep,The Handmaid’s Tale and The First Lady.
23. Emily Hampshire, 42
Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images
Canadian actor Emily Hampshire was in our lives in a big way while in Schitt’s Creek and dating Teddy Geiger, and since 1994 has done a mix of voice roles and TV series and TV movies, earning plenty of Canadian screen and TV awards along the way.
22. Niecy Nash, 54
Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Turner
Since snagging her first on-screen credit as “woman at Diner” in Boys on the Side in 1995, the incomparable comedic actress and producer Niecy Nash was best known for her iconic role as Deputy Raineesha Williams on Reno 911! and more recently, playing Desna Simms on Claws. She’s done voice work for animated series and steals the screen in every role she has, including Masters of Sex, When They See Us and Scream Queens.
Niecy Nash is currently playing a lesbian role in The Rookie: Feds and previously played gay in The Mindy Project.
21. Alia Shawkat, 34
Photo by CJ Rivera/WireImage
Like the other youngsters on this list, Shawkat’s acting experience, which starts when she was a mere 11 years old, is a mix of live-action and voice-actor projects. She entered the mainstream as Maeby in Arrested Development.
Alia Shawkat has played queer characters in Search Party, Transparent, Broad City and the movies Duck Butter, The Intervention and May in the Summer.
20. Cassandra Peterson, 72
Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images
Cassandra Peterson has had, believe it or not, a very robust career playing Elvira in a mix of Elvira-focused projects and guest appearances as Elvira. Of her 91 on-screen credits since 1971, over half are videos, TV series and films in which she played Elvira.
19. Sandra Bernhard, 68
Photo by Paul Zimmerman/WireImage
Comic / actress Sandra Bernhard is a gay legend — from her groundbreaking role on Roseanne to her homoerotic friendship with Madonna to later roles in Will & Grace, Pose and The L Word. Her main gig is stand-up and live performance, but she’s managed to do a few roles a year for the last 40, on shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 2 Broke Girls, Switched at Birth and Ally McBeal.
Sandra Bernhard played queer roles in Hot in Cleveland, Roseanne, Pose, American Horror Story: NYC, The L Word and DTLA.
18. Anna Akana, 34
Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage
Akana’s an actor / director / writer / producer who arrived on our gaydars in Stitchers and gay holiday rom-com Let it Snow and has a resume including dozens of TV roles (Jupiter’s Legacy, A Million Little Things) and a ton of shorts (many of which she also wrote and/or directed).
Anna played gay in Let it Snow and Stitchers.
17. Ali Liebert, 42
Photo by Andrew Chin/Getty Images
Canadian actress Ali Liebert arrived in our lives in 2012, playing ’40s butch lesbian Betty McRae in Global TV’s Bomb Girls, but she’d been consistently snagging guest spots and recurring roles in filmed-in-Canada TV shows (including The L Word!) since 2003, and continued to, appearing in Family Law, One of Us is Lying, Van Helsing and more. In recent years, she’s been appearing in and directing Christmas movies for Hallmark, including the queer-inclusive Every Time a Bell Rings.
In addition to Bomb Girls and Every Time a Bell Rings, she played queer roles in Legends of Tomorrow, Lost Girl and Ten Days in the Valley.
16. Nicole Byer, 37
Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Another actor on this list who’s got a ton of voice credits is comic Nicole Byer, who’s blessed animated series including Rugrats, The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib, Woke (a show that blends animation with live-action) and Tuca and Bertie. But you’ve also seen her face in Grand Crew, Home Economics, Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates, Transparent and her very own show, Loosely Exactly Nicole.
15. Karen Robinson, 55
Photo by GP Images/WireImage
This Canadian comedic actress has been all over the television and movie screen since 1994: Mary Kills People, Lars and the Real Girl (2007), A Million Little Things, Frankie Drake Mysteries, Shoot the Messenger and more.
Karen Robinson played gay in Schitt’s Creek and Pretty Hard Cases.
14. Cynthia Nixon, 57
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
After Cherry Jones; Tony, Grammy and Emmy-award-winning lesbian actress Cynthia Nixon has the most Broadway credits on this list with 13 shows under her belt, beginning with The Philadelphia Story in 1980 and including The Heidi Chronicles, Angels in America, Wit and The Little Foxes. But of course she’s best known for Sex in The City, one of nine series on which she’s had a regular or recurring role. Somewhere amid all that she found time to run for governor.
Cynthia Nixon plays gay in SATC reboot And Just Like That…, and on Netflix’s Ratchedas well as playing Eleanor Roosevelt in Warm Springs.
13. Maile Flanagan, 60
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Another prolific comic and voice actress (most known for voicing Naruto Uzumaki in the English dub of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations), you’ve possibly seen Maile’s real live face in Shameless, E.R., The Office, Lab Rats or Grey’s Anatomy. She notably thanked her female partner Lesa when receiving an Emmy for Outstanding Performance in an Animated Program in 2006. They’ve been married since 2008.
Maile played gay in the lesbian webseries 3Way.
12. Dot-Marie Jones, 59
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Since playing the “Muscular Woman” in a 1994 episode of Full House, Jones turned up for a minute on so many era-defining sitcoms: Married… with Children, Roseanne, and Cybill. With recurring roles on shows like Killing It, Glee and Lizzie McGuire, Jones has mostly continued to appear in guest spots on popular TV shows, including a few niche lesbian webseries.
She played a trans man in Glee and played queer roles in UnREAL: The Faith Diaries and the recent gay rom-com Bros.
11. Margaret Cho, 55
Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images
The star of the first-ever sitcom focused on an Asian-American family (All-American Girl, 1994-1995), Margaret Cho’s resume is wide-ranging and fun as hell — animated series, gay indie films, guest spots on queer-inclusive shows and roles in TV shows like Drop Dead Diva.
She’s played gay in the film Fire Island and on TV shows including Good Trouble, The Flight Attendant and High Maintenance.
10. Meredith Baxter, 76
Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Mama Keaton from Family Ties racked up most of her credits in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, appearing in a whopping 50 TV movies, 33 TV guest spots and seven regular and recurring roles on television. She came out in 2009.
Meredith Baxter played a gay guest role on Glee, a lesbian mom on a CBS Schoolbreak Special, a queer part in the internet TV series We Have to Stop Now and a gay part in Other Mothers.
9. Mary Lynn Rajskub, 52
Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Best known for her co-starring role in 24, this artist / musician / actress / comic has done a mix of guest spots and recurring/regular roles on a vast array of TV programs, like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Girlfriend Experience, Veronica’s Closet, The Dropout and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She’s been dating men and women since the 1990s, which she spoke of in more depth in 2012. She published a book called Fame-ish: My Life at the Edge of Stardom in May 2022.
Mary Lynn Rajskub played a lesbian character in Sunshine Cleaning.
8. Bai Ling, 57
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Chinese-born bisexual actress Bai Ling has been working since the tender age of 14 and is now, as per her imdb bio, “undoubtedly one of the world’s most diverse and captivating actresses!” Like many on this list, Bai Ling has said yes to roles really spanning the gamut, from Sharknado 5: Global Swarming to prestigious projects like Oliver Stone’s Nixon to indie films like The Beautiful Country, as well as guest spots on Entourage and Lost and reality TV programs like Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew and But Can They Sing? Her life story is pretty compelling, too: she got into acting as an artist soldier in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and worked in Chinese theater and film before moving to the U.S. in 1991. She’s been openly bisexual for eons.
Bai Ling played a queer part in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me.
7. Holland Taylor, 80
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Critics’ Choice Television Awards
Our Queen Mother Holland Taylor has been in one episode of or played a medium-sized role in… every TV show ever? She won an Emmy for The Practice, and was nominated for Two and a Half Men, The Lot and Hollywood. Other memorable TV roles include The Morning Show, Bosom Buddies, Mr. Mercedes, The Chair and All My Children. We all loved her in Legally Blonde. She was nominated for a Tony for Ann in 2013, one of eight Broadway credits to her name.
Holland Taylor was absolutely iconic in a queer role as Peggy Peabody in The L Word and her character on Two and a Half Men had a little lesbian fling.
6. Mae Whitman, 35
Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
Surprised to see relatively young actor Mae Whitman down here at the top? Me too! But what you might not know is that Mae is a very accomplished voice actress, appearing in voiceover for 40+ shows and movies (as well as numerous video games, which weren’t counted for these rankings). Born in LA to a voice artist mother and manager / set coordinator, Whitman began her career appearing as a wee child in the mid-90s in films like One Fine Day, Independence Day, Hope Floats and When a Man Loves a Woman. She’s also recognizable for her series regular roles in Parenthood and in Good Girls, where she plays the mother of a trans child. She came out as pansexual in 2021.
Mae Whitman voices queer character Amity Blight in The Owl House and played a queer part in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.
5. Wendy Crewson, 67
Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images
You might not recognize this Canadian actress who came out as a lesbian in 2014 but you’ve definitely seen her — she’s had recurring or regular roles in 18 TV shows including Pretty Hard Cases, Saving Hope and Workin’ Moms, guest roles in 25 more and appeared in 43 TV movies. Her mainstream film spots include Air Force One, Room, The Covenant and The 6th Day.
Wendy Crewson played a gay role in the legendary lesbian film Better than Chocolate as well as in An Unexpected Love and Mercy.
4. Carlease Burke
Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
Lesbian actor Carleese Burke has been acting onscreen and onstage since 1986, including recurring roles on Mixed-ish, Dave, Crowded, Heroes and Switched at Birth and guest spots on dozens more. Highlights of her film career include In Her Shoes and The Terminal.
She played a lesbian guest role as Monica’s surprise girlfriend in Shameless.
3. Miriam Margolyes, 82
Photo by Tim Whitby/Getty Images
With 180+ on-screen credits and an award-winning theatrical career, you likely recognize British lesbian actor Miriam Margoyles from her role as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter, or maybe Call the Midwife or Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. She’s been with her partner, Australian academic Heather Sutherland, since 1968.
2. Maria Olsen
Photo by Araya Doheny/WireImage
South African actress Maria Olsen apparently is a consistent fixture in a genre of film around which I hold no interest: horror! Like, TONS of horror movies. Just really an incredible amount of horror movies!!!! They seem to be small niche horror movies? The only movies on her resume I’ve heard of are Paranormal Activity 3 and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
1. Jane Lynch, 63
Photo by Amanda Edwards/WireImage
Surprising absolutely nobody, Emmy winner and 13-time Emmy nominee Jane Lynch has been steadily and unendingly employed at superhuman rates since 1988 and therefore easily tops this list, just like she topped Jennifer Coolidge in Best in Show. A July 2022 Vanity Fair profile notes that, it “used to be, Jane Lynch popped up on your favorite sitcom for an episode or two, and she’d bring a smile to your face,” but that post-Glee, her career picked up with more regular and starring roles, although her “love for working — a lot — has not abated.”
If there’s a show or a movie, Jane Lynch is in it. You know her from Glee, Only Murders in the Building,The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Two and a Half Men, The L Word, Space Force, The Good Fight, Criminal Minds. You’ve heard her voice in dozens of cartoons, including Harriet the Spy, American Dad! and Tucca & Bertie, telling Vanity Fair that voice work was her “main source of income” for much of her career.
Jane Lynch also proof that being an easily clock-able lesbian from any distance does not get in the way of a robust career littered with heterosexual roles or “who is Jane Lynch’s husband?” appearing as a suggested question by Google. She recently appeared on Broadway in Funny Girl and is considered one of the greatest character actors of all time.
There was once a time when Lynch said she “said yes to everything,” continuing, “And luckily, I was getting offered good things and not bad quality, but I just loved showing up every day to go to work. I wasn’t taking it out of financial fear or irrelevance fear, but because I loved it.”
Her gay roles include The L Word, Best in Show and American Dad!
41 Super-Hot Butches and Tomboys of the Early 20th Century
This article was originally written in 2017 and has been re-published for this special holiday, Butch and Stud Appreciation Day.
There’s no day like today to cast our eyes upon some hot butch women and tomboys and otherwise-identified human beings who are unfortunately dead, but fortunately looked good and (in most cases) did cool shit while they still roamed the fields and valleys of this scorched earth. Before Shane McCutcheon was even a glimmer in Ilene’s eye, these people were putting on their top hats and/or trousers and giving the ladies something to whisper about in their journals.
Please note that not everybody in this was a lesbian or bisexual. Nor is everybody on this list a certified masc-of-center, butch or tomboy identified woman. Some of the women included herein didn’t typically dress “masculine-of-center” or exude a “butch vibe” but did for the picture I have included. Back in the day, women obviously had much less freedom regarding what they wore and how they presented, so it’s not always clear from archival photographs what anybody’s “authentic” gender presentation was.
I have included an asterisk before the names of the women who I’m pretty damn sure were lesbian, bisexual, or otherwise into the ladies. This is important in case any of you are into dating ghosts, which makes about as much sense as anything else these days, you know?
*Ella Wesner (1851-1917)
Vaudeville Entertainer / Male Impersonator
Wesner’s popular stage routine included plucky monologues that imparted advice to male audience members on how to treat and/or seduce a lady.
Vesta Tilley (1864-1952)
English Music Hall Performer, Male Impersonator
Vesta made her debut playing a male role onstage at the age of six, by which point her father, a successful performer himself, had already gifted her the custom-tailored suit she’d begged for as a child.
*Maude Adams (1872-1953)
American Actress
Adams is best known for playing Peter Pan on Broadway.
*Cicely Hamilton (1872-1952)
English Actress, Writer, Journalist, Suffragist
*Romaine Brooks (1874-1970)
American painter
Romaine Brooks is best-known for her paintings of women in androgynous or “masculine” attire.
Ella Shields (1879-1952)
Vaudeville Performer, Music Hall Singer, Male Impersonator
Hetty King (1883-1972)
Entertainer/Male Impersonator
Hetty King was an asshole to her lesbian fans, telling an interviewer that she was “sickened” by letters she got from women in which “they declare that they can’t eat or sleep or are going to kill themselves for the love of me.”
Lillyn Brown (1885-1969)
African-American/Native American Singer, Vaudeville Entertainer, Teacher and Actress
*Agnes Smedley 1892-1950
American Journalist, Novelist, Activist & Socialist
*Mercedes De Acosta (1893-1968)
Writer, Lover to the Stars
Selika Lazevski (1890s – Unknown)
African Princess / 19th Century High Society Equestrian
*Beatrice Lillie (1894 – 1989)
Canadian-born British actress, Singer and Comedic Performer
Bea Lillie
*Moms Mabley (1894-1975)
American Standup Comedian
Mabley wore housedresses onstage, but in her off-time she presented butch, in tailored suits.
Kitty Doner (1895-1988)
American Actress and Producer
Kitty’s parents were performers, too, and thus Kitty began performing onstage in male attire while she was a very young girl.
*Alice DeLamar (1895-1983)
American Heiress
When her father died in 1918, DeLamar inherited $10 million, giving her the title of “richest bachelor girl.”
*Nobuko Yoshiya (1896-1973)
Japanese Writer
*Ethel Waters (1896-1977)
American Singer and Actress
*Hope Williams (1897 – 1992)
American Actress
*Dorothy Arzner (1897 – 1979)
American Film Director
Arzner was the only female film director working during her era, which was a tenuous position to be in — it’s why she wore dresses and skirts to work instead of the pants she wanted to wear.
*Eva Le Gallienne (1899-1991)
British-born American Stage Actress
*Marion Barbara “Joe” Carstairs (1900 -1993)
Wealthy British Powerboat Racer
Carstairs wore men’s clothing, covered her arms in tattoos, drove ambulances during World War I, and, in the 1920s, started a womens-only car-hire and chauffering service staffed by women she met working during the war.
*Thelma Wood (1901-1970)
American Sculptor
*Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)
German-American Actress and Singer
*Greta Garbo (1905 – 1990)
Swedish-born American Film Actress
Her 1933 film Queen Christina won critical acclaim and slayed at the box office, but censors were disturbed by a scene in which Garbo dressed like a man in order to kiss a woman she wanted to kiss.
*Anna May Wong (1905-1961)
Chinese-American Movie Star
*Valentine Ackland (1906-1969)
English Poet
Born “Mary” and nicknamed “Molly,” Valentine’s father raised her like a son, and as an adult, she cut her hair short, wore men’s clothing, and adopted an androgynous name in order to be taken seriously as a poet.
*Josephine Baker (1906-1975)
American Entertainer, Activist and French Resistance Agent of African and Native American descent
*Louisa D’Andelot Carpenter (1907-1976)
DuPont Heiress
*Gladys Bentley (1907 – 1960)
American Blues Singer, Pianist and Entertainer
At Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, Bentley performed in her signature tuxedo and top hat, sang racy versions of popular songs in a gravely deep voice, and flirted with ladies in the audience.
*Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003)
American Actress
*Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954)
Mexican Painter
*Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942)
Swiss Writer, Journalist, Photographer and Traveler
Sidenote, this woman is a fashion icon and I am obsessed with her.
*Tiny Davis (1909-1994)
American jazz Trumpeter and Vocalist
*Beverly Shaw (1910-1990)
Nightclub Singer
The successful torch singer / male impersonator bought her own club in North Hollywood, called Club Laurel, which succeeded as a popular upscale gay night spot for 14 years.
*Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)
American Athlete (golf, basketball, baseball, track & field), Olympic gold medalist
In addition to excelling at athletics, Babe was a fantastic seamstress who made her own golfing outfits and won the sewing championship at the Texas State Fair.
*Esther Eng (1914-1970)
Chinese-American Film Director
*Stormé DeLarverie (1920-2014)
Bouncer, Drag King, MC, Civil Rights Icon, Entertainer
via Henrietta Hudson
Lesbian Sex: Your 15 Favorite Ways To Have It
How do lesbians have sex? Well, lesbians have sex in many different ways, so we went ahead and asked over 13k+ queer women, “which of these activities has been a regular part of your sex life within the last year?” and now we’ve got the answers. The data below reflects the most popular answers given by lesbian-identified women in relationships (monogamous or non-monogamous).
The Top 15 Lesbian Sex Activities In Order Of Popularity
1. Clitoral Stimulation – 99%
In 1933, Sigmund Freud famously remarked “Elimination of clitoral sexuality is a necessary precondition for the development of femininity, since it is immature and masculine in its nature.” He was dead wrong. In fact, most women require clitoral stimulation to orgasm. Plus, it’s the only human organ that exists exclusively for pleasure! So unsurprisingly, doing stuff to your girlfriend’s clit is a very popular activity.
2. Fingering (genitals, internal) – 97.2%
Also known as: finger-banging, finger-fcking and, you know, “fcking.”
3. Oral sex (genitals) – 95.2%
We also asked readers for their favorite sex act in an open-ended question, and oral sex easily came out on top. Here’s some tips for first-timers.
4. Frottage/dry humping – 79.6%
Teenagers and lesbians: mastering the fine art of dry-humping since the dawn of time.
5. Nipple play – 73.1%
Research has shown that nipple stimulation activates the same region of the brain as clitoral and genital stimulation.
6. Strap-on play – 58.8%
Strap-on sex is very popular amongst lesbians, and we’re got a great guide for how to Have Strap-On Lesbian Sex. We get a lot of questions from readers about buying a strap-on harness and recommend, if you can afford it, a Spare Parts Joque Harness. We’ve got a few guides to strap-on shopping:
- How to Buy a Strap-On Dildo for Lesbian Sex
- How To Buy A Strap-On Harness for Lesbian Sex
- It’s not just cis AFAB people who enjoy strap-on sex though — check out harnesses for trans women if you’re in the market.
Another 22% of y’all indicated that oral sex using a strap-on is a regular part of your sex life.
7. Vibrators – 55.5%
Lots of lesbians use vibrators during sex — for clitoral stimulation, inside a dildo, for penetration, or for mutual masturbation. If you’re buying a vibrator for the first time there can be a lot of intimidating options out there and hard to know which vibrators are the best — and the most famous and beloved vibrator is probably the Hitachi Magic Wand, which is not technically a vibrator at all, and not necessarily the best for partner sex. (Although they recently came out with a rechargeable edition you might like!) The Womanizer has gotten a lot of positive press as well. Couples vibrators are a thing too, like The We-Vibe 4.
Fun fact: 49% of survey-takers usually use vibrators while masturbating.
8. Dildos – 55%
Dildos are most often used with strap-ons, although we didn’t differentiate in the survey which may have led to confusing answers. These are the best dildos according to our lesbian sex experts. There are pros and cons to double-ended dildos . Dildos come in all shapes, styles (like the pack and play), sizes (including “VERY BIG“), and materials — glass, silicone, stainless steel, stone — many designed for stand-alone usage and many designed specifically for being used with a harness.
9. Spanking – 50%
Among survey-takers who indicated being interested in kink, 58% enjoy spanking their partner and 62% enjoy getting spanked. If you’re looking to get into spanking and other impact play, try this handy guide to spanking safely and effectively.
10. Scissoring – 34%
While many have argued that scissoring isn’t a thing, lesbian scissoring is in fact definitely a thing, in so many configurations: full-body scissoring, acrobatic sitting scissoring and classic scissoring. What can we say about scissoring that you haven’t already said about scissoring? Very little, honestly.
11. Anal play (external) – 31%
You can do a lot with your finger besides inserting it all the way into an asshole. 20% of lesbians also indicated that they regularly participated in “rimming” (oral anal play), aka eating ass.
12. Anal penetration – 25.2%
Anal penetration also was the most frequent sex act cited in our open-ended question “what is your least-favorite sex act?” Even if you’re not into anal, you really should read this review of the Njoy Pure Plug, because it’s hilarious. If you’re interested in trying anal, we have a post for how to have lesbian sex: the anal edition.
13. BDSM – 22.2%
The BDSM acronym represents Bondage & Discipline, Domination & Submission and Sadism & Masochism. Our Bondage 101 post is a great place to start when looking into starting to tie people up. Some of our most popular sex posts have been related to BDSM-related activities, such as Bondage For Beginners, How to Tie Someone Up, Read a F*cking Book About BDSM, Top Five Ways To Consensually Hit Your Sex Partner and What We Talk About When We Talk About Flogging.
14. Other sex toy play – 22%
Of survey-takers who use sex toys, 47% own four or more of them, 75% purchase them in stores and 64% have purchased sex toys online. Sex toys besides vibrators and dildos include kink-lite gear like nipple clamps, butt plugs,
15. Fisting (vaginal) – 18%
Admittedly we were pretty surprised by how low fisting ranked! If you can take it and have the body parts necessary to do so, I cannot recommend more highly the experience of having or receiving somebody’s entire hand inside you. You can get started with this Lesbian Fisting 101 post, or trying out these five tips for aspirational fisters.
This post was originally written in 2015 based on survey data from 2015 and has been updated in August 2023.
Who Is The Tallest of The Lesbians
Once upon a time at a WNBA game at The Crypto Dot Com Arena, we got to talking about how tall various members of the Los Angeles Sparks were, which was a delightful topic for me, a tall lesbian person who loves to guess how tall other people are. Eventually, we left the emotional realm of Los Angeles to discuss a very specific tall basketball player currently playing for a team headquartered in the scorching desert of Phoenix: Brittney Griner.
How tall, I was asked, is BG? I replied, confidently, that she was 6’8″ or 6’9″ and that this made her “the tallest lesbian in the world.” This is almost definitely not true, there are definitely taller lesbian and bisexual women out there — maybe one of you is reading this post right now — but as far as “widely-known famous queer women,” I felt relatively confident that I was correct that BG would easily snag the top spot. As it so often happens, I needed to find out if I was correct, and now here we all are reading a post.
As usual, I must caveat that this is hardly a comprehensive list and it’s just famous people — because obviously I know lots of lesbian and bisexual people over 6 feet tall but we’re limiting the scope here to: actors, athletes and/or models who are famous enough and open enough about their lives for me to be able to confirm both their sexual orientation (queer, lesbian or bisexual) and their height (information usually only accessible for people in specific professions or at specific levels of fame) and for there to be photos of said person that I have legal access to. (There were several international athletes I don’t have pictures for and therefore couldn’t include.)
In the U.S., less than .025% of women are 6 feet tall or over, and the average height of a woman is 5’4″. (Men, on average, are 5’9.”) Currently, the tallest woman in the world is a 26-year-old Rumeysa Gelg, born in Turkey, who stands just over 7 feet.
The six-feet-tall club contains fashion designer Jenna Lyons, actors JoJo Brown, Cathy DeBouno, Saffron Burrows, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Chieffo and Rebecca Root; basketball player Diana Taurasi, soccer player Christiane Endler and volleyball player Kira Katharina Walkenhorst.
Clocking in at 6’1″ we have basketball players Kahleah Copper and Victoria Vivians; volleyball players Valentina Arrighetti and Nicole Branagh.
And that, my friends, brings us to six feet and two inches into the sky, a level of humankind occupied primarily by basketball players and volleyball players!
Alyssa Thomas is 6’2″
Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It’s pretty cool to be 6’2″ but what’s even cooler is being 6’2″, being a forward for the Connecticut Sun and being engaged to your 6’4″ teammate!
Marianne Steinbrecher is 6’2″
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images
Brazillian volleyball player Marianne Steinbrecher is a “wing spiker” on her volleyball team and she won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics.
Natasha Howard 6’2″
Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
Natasha Howard plays for the Dallas Wings and also has a very impressive wingspan.
Jordan Horston is 6’2″
Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images
Carmen took special note of this look in the Also Also Also when Jordan Horston was drafted to the Seattle Storm this past April. Not mentioned, but important: she’s tall!
Laura Jane Grace is 6’2″
Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images
Musician Laura Jane Grace is the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me! and also she is quite tall!
Emma Cannon is 6’2″
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
Very tall basketball player Emma Cannon currently plays for the Indiana Fever!
Dot-Marie Jones is 6’3″
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Dot-Marie Jones is an actor and a tall one at that! Remember Glee? I do, sadly.
Haleigh Washington is 6’3″
Photo by Rene Nijhuis/Orange Pictures/BSR Agency/Getty Images
Bisexual volleyball player Haleigh Meridian Washington won a gold medal with the women’s national team at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, so we have that in common.
Judy Gold is 6’3″
Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
Judy Gold is a lesbian comedian who likes to make people laugh from six feet and three inches into the air.
Candace Parker is 6’4″
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Candace Parker is one of the greatest WNBA players of all time and one of the tallest!
NaLyssa Smith is 6’4″
Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images
The #2 pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft is 6’4″ and she is now playing and tall at the Indiana Fever.
Dewanna Bonner is 6’4″
Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
DeWanna Bonner of the Connecticut Sun is the other half of Tall Basketball Power Couple Alyssa Thomas & DeWanna Bonner.
Breanna Stewart is 6’4″
(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
Breanna Stewart, captain of WNBA All-Star Team “Team Stewart,” is tall and plays for the New York Liberty. The New York Liberty is clearly a hotspot for tall gay people.
Stephanie Dolson is 6’5″
Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
All the way in New York City as a player for the New York Liberty, Stephanie is 30 years old and tall!
Amanda Zahui Bazoukou is 6’5″
Photo by MICHAEL CAMPANELLA/Getty Images
Amanda came all the way to the United States from Sweden to be tall and shoot hops for the Los Angeles Sparks. Now she plays for the Indiana Fever!
Elena Delle Donne is 6’5″
Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Elena Delle Donne plays for the Washington Mystics in Washington DC. If you stacked up 86.4 Elena Delle Donnes on top of each other it would be as tall as the Washington Monument, also in Washington DC.
Ebrar Karakurt is 6’5″
Photo by Ben Lau/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
23-year-old Turkish volleyball player Ebrar Karakurt stands tall and spikes the ball at 6 feet 5 inches!
Jonquel Jones is 6’6″
Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust
Jonquel Jones of the New York Liberty is taller than her wife and the Empire State Building!
Sedona Prince is 6’7
Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for ESPN & CFP
Sedona Prince plays for the TCU Horned Frogs and previously played for the Oregon Ducks and also is a known entity on TikTok.
Brittney Griner is 6’9
Photo by Christopher Polk/WWD via Getty Images
At six feet and nine inches tall, Phoenix Mercury WNBA player Brittney Griner is the number one tall lesbian on this list!!!!!!!!
25 Incredible Nonbinary Actors To Watch
It’s Non-Binary Visibility Day which means there’s never been a better time to appreciate some non-binary people who are in fact particularly visible (and also on strike!) and doing incredible things. I have over 100 nonbinary actors in our database of LGBTQ+ actors, and I’m adding more and more every day. Every now and then we even are blessed with the opportunity to see a nonbinary actor in a nonbinary role! Who knows what the future could hold for us and them if the massively overpaid CEOs of major entertainment corporations could agree to fairly paying their writers and performers!
Bilal Baig, 28
Photo by Nina Westervelt/Variety via Getty Images
Baig is the writer and star of the Max series Sort Of, winner of the 2022 Autostraddle TV Award for “Most Groundbreaking Representation.”
Emma Corrin, 28
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images
After brief turns on Pennyworth and Grantchester, British actress Emma Corrin made it big playing a young Princess Diana in Season Four of The Crown. This August they’ll be starring as a “Gen Z amateur sleuth” in Murder at the End of the World on FX.
Ari Notartomaso, 22
Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
After graduating from Penn State in 2020 with a degree in Musical Theater, Ari Notartomaso’s big break happened this very year when they played Cynthia in the now (crurelly de-platformed) Paramount+ series, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies.
Quintessa Swindell, 26
Fred Duvall / Shutterstock
Best known around here for starring as Tabitha Foster in Netflix’s Trinkets, Quintessa Swindell also played Maxine Hunkel/Cyclone in 2022’s superhero movie Black Adam and the lesbian character Laila in Season Four of In Treatment.
Vico Ortiz, 32
Photo by Mark Von Holden/Variety via Getty Images
Ortiz racked up a lot of indie films (like our beloved Misdirection!) and webseries as well as a series of guest spots on queer-inclusive shows like Transparent, The Fosters, Vida and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay before landing their breakout role as Jim in the HBO pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death. They also have a memorable spot as Tova on The Sex Lives of College Girls.
Alex Newell, 31
Photo by Sergei Bachlakov via Getty Images
Newell made history in June for their role in “Shucked” as one of two nonbinary actors to win acting awards at the Tonys. But of course we all met them for the first time when they played Unique Adams in Glee and went on from there to appear as Mo in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.
Bella Ramsey, 19
Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock
This week, Bella Ramsey was nominated for Best Lead Actress for their performance as lesbian post-apocalyptic survivor Ellie Williams in Max’s hit video game adaptation The Last of Us. Previously, they were in Game of Thrones and starred in 2022’s historical comedy film Catherine Named Birdy.
Poppy Liu, 31
After their delightful screen-stealing role as Kiki in Hacks, Liu played Greta in Dead Ringers and Princess Iron Fan in American Born Chinese. You absolutely must see them as Grace in the second season of Apple TV’s The Afterparty, which debuts this month!
Liv Hewson, 28
Photo by Momodu Mansaray/WireImage
Liv Hewson had major roles in Santa Clarita Diet and Dramaworld before entering our consciousnesses permanently by playing Van in Yellowjackets.
Emma D’arcy, 31
DFree/Shutterstock
In addition to enjoying a Negroni Sbagliato With Prosecco in It, D’Arcy plays Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen in the Max hit Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon.
Cole Escola, 36
Photo by Dominik Bindl/Getty Images
Escola’s a prolific voice actor (Big Mouth, Human Resources, Baby Shark’s Big Show!, Tuca & Bertie), had a very memorable role in Search Party and was a cast member of At Home With Amy Sedaris. They’re also a writer and producer (Ziwe, Hacks, The Other Two), first landing on my radar through their Logo sketch comedy series Jeffery & Cole Casserole.
Sara Ramirez, 48
Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Ramirez began on Broadway and got officially famous starring as bisexual doctor Callie Torres in Grey’s Anatomy. Then they came out as bisexual and then they came out as non-binary and ever since have been playing more queer roles on our teevee screen, like policy advisor Kat Sandoval in Madam Secretary and Comedy Concert Enthusiast Che Diaz on And Just Like That….
Jerrie Johnson, 29
Photo by Shahar Azran/Getty Images
Johnson currently plays lesbian character Tye in the Prime Video series Harlem. They also played a character named Tye in two episodes of Good Trouble.
ER Fightmaster, 32
Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
My personal style icon ER Fightmaster won over the nation as Dr. Kai Bartley on Grey’s Anatomy, after winning over a different segment of the nation in Hulu’s Shrill. They’re a writer on Netflix’s queer-inclusive Survival of the Thickest, which debuted this week.
Celia Rose-Gooding, 23
Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images
Celia Rose Gooding’s big break was playing Frankie in the queer-inclusive rock musical “Jagged Little Pill,” earning a 2020 Tony Award nomination. They currently star as the young Nytota Uhura in the TV series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Jesse Leigh
Photo by: Randy Shropshire/Peacock/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
They starred as Bobbie Yang in the Peacock series Rutherford Falls and Peter Dawson in the 2018 TV series Heathers. They’ll be making their feature film acting debut this year in the indie drama Ctrl Alt Del.
Mae Martin, 36
follow mae martin on instagram
Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage
“Mae Martin is a singular voice in television right now,” wrote Kayla of Mae Martin’s win for Outstanding LGBTQ+ Director/Writer/Showrunner, “and while season one of Feel Good was already impressive, I just think season two is a near-perfect masterpiece.” Mae was a recurring character in the second season of The Flight Attendant, and this year debuted a comedy special on Netflix.
August Winter
Photo by Mark Von Holden/Variety via Getty Images
August had a regular role in Mary Kills People and a recurring spot in Season 3 of Pretty Hard Cases. But recently they made waves playing Melvin in the Oscar darling Women Talking.
Aya Furukawa, 24
Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for ReedPop
After playing Claudia Kishi’s queer sister Janine in The Babysitter’s Club, Aya continued clubbing with The Midnight Club. They’ll also be in Netflix’s upcoming mini-series adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
JayR Tinaco, 34
Speaking of The Fall of the House of Usher — Australian/Filipino actor JayR is also in that specific cast. They’re best known for playing Zayn in the Netflix series Another Life and Xyler in Space Force, as well as their supporting role in Swan Song (2021).
Brigette Lundy-Paine, 29
Photo by Ryan Emberley/amfAR/Getty Images
After rising up as queer character Casey Gardner in Atypical, Brigette is set to star in the upcoming A24 film I Saw the TV Glow with Amber Benson, now in post-production.
Misha Osherovich, 26
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Misha starred in horror film Freaky (2020), horror series The Girl in the Woods and appears in the new Netflix series Survival of the Thickest.
Mason Alexander Park, 28
Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images
Park played Hedwig on the first Broadway national tour of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and they currently appear as the emcee in the West End revival of Cabaret. They have a regular role on NBC’s Quantum Leap as Ian Wright and delivered acclaimed performances as Gren in Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop and Desire in The Sandman.
Ser Anzoategui, 44
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Ser first graced the queer collective consciousness playing Daysi Cantu in Hulu’s East Los High and really captured us forever as Eddy in Vida. This year, they appeared in Lopez vs Lopez, NCIS: Hawai’i and With Love.
Indya Moore
After an acclaimed turn as Angel on Pose, writer/director/model/producer Indya Moore has been doing a lot of voice acting, including voicing Alamzapam Davis in Nimona. You can also catch them in the hotly anticipated 2023 film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
55 Literary Books With Great Lesbian Sex Inside Them
For me, it’s never been the visuals so much as its been stories. Given the choice to go the rest of my life without porn or without surprisingly hot sex scenes in literary novels, I would sacrifice porn. I don’t mean erotica or romance novels — which have their own value, and I value them! — I mean how Eileen Myles has a chapter in Inferno called “My Revolution” and it’s just a whole meditation on the genitals of various women with whom she has engaged sexually, or that weekend-long threesome from Chronology of Water, or how I didn’t have any idea The First Bad Man or The Gin Closet were going to be books with lesbian sex in them and then all of a sudden it was happening. I mean how I’ve never forgotten the first time I read Dorothy Allison writing about “frog-fucking” or struggling to reconcile trauma with desire. Reading authors like Dorothy Allison or Mary Gaitskill or Kathy Acker who are VERY frank and explicit about sex in their work makes me feel like a tiger.
Anyhow, I took to twitter dot com to ask y’all about literary novels you’ve loved for the story but you know, also for the sex. Firstly, it’s worth noting that certain parts of Inferno and Chronology of Water, as aforementioned in this intro, came up in this thread almost immediately, thus affirming my life choices.
This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for 2023.
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, by Audre Lorde (1982)
biomythography // lesbian
“Ginger moved in love like she laughed, openly and easily, and I moved with her, against her, within her, an ocean of brown warmth. Her sounds of delight and the deep shudders of relief that rolled through her body in the wake of my stroking fingers filled me with delight and a hunger for more of her. The sweetness of her body meeting and filling my mouth, my hands, wherever I touched, felt right and completing, as if I had been born to make love to this woman, and was remembering her body rather than learning it deeply for the first time.”
“Lesbian Appetites,” by Dorothy Allison (from Trash: Stories,”1988)
short stories // lesbian
“We wrestled, eggplant breaking up between our navels. I got her shorts off, she got my jeans down. I dumped a whole plate of eggplant on her belly.
“You are just running salt, girl,” I teased, and pushed slices up between her legs, while I licked one of her nipples and pinched the other between a folded slice of eggplant. She was laughing, her belly bouncing under me.
“I’m gonna make you eat all this,” she yelled.
“Of course,” I pushed eggplant out of the way and slipped two fingers between her labia. She was slicker than peanut oil. “But first we got to get the poison out.”
Don Juan in the Village, by Jane DeLynn (1990)
short stories // lesbian
“With my nipple still in her mouth she pushed my jeans down so they encircled my ankles. I was sweating and messy. She was much older than me, almost clinical as she proceeded, which not only aroused me but made me like her better. Somehow things were more in balance than earlier in the evening. I wished she had brought a camera with her so we could have taken pictures of me masturbating to the sight of her naked body — and ever after I could torture myself over what she had done with them.”
Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson (1992)
novel // queer
“Nail me to you. I will ride you like a nightmare. You are the winged horse Pegasus who would not be saddled. Strain under me. I want to see your muscle skein flex and stretch. Such innocent triangles holding hidden strength. Don’t rear at me with unfolding power. I fear you in our bed when I put out my hand to touch you and feel the twin razors turned towards me. You sleep with your back towards me so that I will know the full extent of you. It is sufficient.”
Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure, by Dorothy Allison (1995)
memoir // lesbian // i just wanted to include this quote here because it is one of my favorite things anybody has ever written!
“I told her, Don’t touch me that way. Don’t come at me with that sour-cream smile. Come at me as if I were worth your life – the life we make together. Take me like a turtle whose shell must be cracked, whose heart is ice, who needs your heat. Love me like a warrior, sweat up to your earlobes and all your hope between your teeth. Love me so I know I am at least as important as anything you have ever wanted.”
Rat Bohemia, by Sarah Schulman (1995)
novel // lesbian
Read our interview with Sarah Schulman
“I clenched my teeth. She bit my neck until I thought her teeth would break. Thank God. I like it when it hurts. Vaginal trauma is what I live for. Skeletal friction first and then my skin is the softest skin. When she comforted me, I loved the comfort. When she hurt me, I loved the pain. When she controlled me I loved the capitulation. When she serviced me I loved the intent. Coming out is not the end of insanity, you know. It’s only the beginning.”
“Buscando,” by Claudia Von Vacano (The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading, 1995)
one story in an anthology of fiction, poetry and essays // lesbian
“I am masturbating. I am letting la Sangre crawl down the walls, making her way to my fingers. The fingers push her back to my ovaries, making red blood waves. I pull my fingers out and let the blood ooze gently onto my hand. I cup a handful and let it drip on my flesh. First on my round belly, just a drop enclosed within my navel, then on my nipples. Bruised breasts, going from purple green to tender brown. There is a powerful message in the red fluid that is my blood. It is trickling down through the orifice, the mouth-like opening at the tip of my tit. Instead of milk being sucked out from its deep roots, la Sangre is finding her way in. Buscando y arrancando. There are rough ropes tied in intricate and ornate knots. I am being held by these threads like my flesh is being sewn shut, the needle being held by a hand blurry in my vision. Raises. Roots sucking the water.”
Fall On Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald (1996)
historical novel // lesbian
“I slid my hands under and up her smooth sides, I wanted to be slow to savor but we couldn’t, she gripped me and moved under me. I felt her nipples under my palms and I think I died. Rose gasped as though I’d stabbed her and I felt like a savage robbing a sacred tree, her thigh between my legs. I found her hand and led it to a place I know, I kissed it with the mouth that I keep hidden, then took her inside and sucked her like the greedy tide that can’t decide to swallow or disgorge. I lost track of everything. And even after I finally could stop, I knew that I would never be finished.”
In Another Place, Not Here, by Dionne Brand (1996)
novel // lesbian
“…to appear normal she had slept with men at first. Slept with was hardly the phrase, certainly not fucked. Sex. Yes, she had sex with men until one day she couldn’t have it any more, just couldn’t and returned to the thought of her breasts in the curve of a woman’s, her legs wide to her tongue, her lips warm to her face, the fat of her belly, her hands searching her back, easing her muscles, watering her thighs. She’s thought of the brush and ease of the skin, the melt into the soft and swell of the body. How this is sometimes not done, not spoken, in her room, the beer at their lips, the moment with nothing to say between them. Then sometimes she would fall asleep in the curve of the breasts, in the crook and keen musk of thighs, the slip of the skin. She wants nothing more.”
Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters (1998)
historical fiction // lesbian
“Soon her breaths became moans, then cries; soon my own voice joined hers, for the dildo that serviced her also pleasured me — her motions bring it with an even faster, ever harder pressure against just that part of me that cared for pressure best. I had one brief moment of self-consciousness, when I saw myself as from a distance, straddled by a stranger in an unknown house, buckled inside that monstrous instrument, panting with pleasure and sweating with lust. Then in another moment I could think nothing, only shudder; and the pleasure — mine and hers — found its aching, arching crisis, and was spent.
After a second she eased herself from my lap, then straddled my thigh and rocked gently there, occasionally jerking, and at last growing still. Her hair, which had come loose, was hot against my jaw.
At length she laughed, and moved again against my hip. “Oh, you exquisite little tart!” she said.”
My Mother: Demonology, by Kathy Acker (1993)
experimental fiction // queer
“After she came back, Isabelle and I arranged to meet alone in the church.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you.”
I dug her neck into my teeth. Then I nailed her hands against the floor. Her pincers tore at me. I followed everything inside me. From now on her legs would always be spread open. I stormed her openings as if she was beleaguered fortress.
“Tell me.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
Another memory: Night after night when it was dark I crawled into I’s bed. We held hands and told each other our stories of childhood.
“The school,” she said, “was burning down.”
No. Our cunts.
I don’t remember. Don’t describe what can’t be remembered. What will never be seen. What’s between the legs, I and I. She was discovering the little organ that the cock imitates. My limitations are too painful. I transformed into the sex of a dog, red and unbearable to my own eyes.
It has come.
(For this reason women don’t need Christ.)
Our comings can’t end.”
Valencia, by Michelle Tea (2000)
memoir // lesbian
“I took the brat through the dark streets of the city I had owned first and we sucked from glass bottles, hands twisting the sacks around the necks into paper flowers. We fucked in bathrooms and alleys bold as boys, bent over porcelain sinks that creaked from the wall with the weight of her hand inside me. The rustle of clothes and rats, clink of belt buckles and feet on broken glass. When someone saw us by accident, I let them be embarrassed. Shame was like a dirty tampon pulled from my body and flung in the bucket when I was with Iris.”
Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters (2002)
historical novel // lesbian
“So, I kissed her again. Then I touched her. I touched her face. I began at the meeting of our mouths — at the soft wet corners of our lips — then found her jaw, her cheek, her brow — I had touched her before, to wash and dress her; but never like this. So smooth she was! So warm! It was like I was calling the heat and shape of her out of the darkness — as if the darkness was turning solid and growing quick, under my hand.
She began to shake. I supposed she was still afraid. Then I began to shake, too. I forgot to think of Gentleman, after that. I thought only of her. When her face grew wet with tears, I kissed them away.
“You pearl,” I said. So white she was! “You pearl, you pearl, you pearl.”
Lee and Elaine, by Ann Rower (2002)
experimental novel // queer
“I felt so good, tied to the bed, without choice, chosen, legs and arms spread; I hovered above myself, seeing my fantasy of the student’s experienced fingers opening the teacher’s clothes, unsnapping teacher, spreading her, sliding inside the material; over her breasts, around her shoulders, down to her navel over her belly and down into her bush, which was not as bushy, of course, as it had been when she was a student herself, much to her sorrow. I returned to my body and gazed up at the face on top of me, close, intent, the curly gray hair getting curlier from dampness. I started to thrash.”
The Salt Roads, by Nalo Hopkinson (2003)
novel // queer
“I burrowed my head in closer and tunnelled my tongue into her gully hole. Lisette giggled, then sighed, my girl, and opened her knees wider. The salty liquor of her spread in my mouth. I lapped and snuffled, held her thighs tight as she wriggled and moaned. Pretty soon she was bucking on my face, calling out and cursing me sweet. All sweaty, she was, and she had her thighs clamped to my ears so that my hearing was muffled. My hair was caught beneath her. It pulled, but I cared nothing for that. I reached behind her and squeezed her bumcheeks, used them to pull her closer. She wailed and shoved herself at me, until to breathe at all I had to breathe in her juice. And she pitched and galloped like runaway horses, but I held her, held her down and sucked her button in, twirled my tongue around it. Then even her swears stopped, for she could manage words no longer, and only panted and moaned. The roar she gave at the end seemed to come from the pit of her, to bellow up through her sopping cunny.”
“Her Body, Mine, and His,” by Dorothy Allison (from Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature, 2005)
essays // lesbian // if my ex is reading this, i would like her to know that i think she still has my copy of this book and i would like it back!!
“Frog fucking. Her hands on my hips; my heels against my ass, legs spread wide; her face leaning into my neck; my hands gripping her forearms. Her teeth are gentle. Nothing else about her is. I push up on the balls of my feet, rock my ass onto my ankles, reaching up for every forward movement of her thighs between mine. Her nipples are hard, her face flushed, feet planted on the floor while I arch off the edge of the bed, a water mammal, frog creature with thighs snapping back to meet her every thrust.”
Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis, by Ali Smith (2007)
historical experimental fiction // queer
“Her beautiful head was down at my breast, she caught me between her teeth just once, she put the nip into nipple like the cub of a fox would, down we went, no wonder they call it an earth, it was loamy, it was good, it was what good meant, it was earthy, it was what earth meant, it was the underground of everything, the kind of soil that cleans things. Was that her tongue? Was that what they meant when they said flames had tongues? Was I melting? Would I melt? Was I gold? Was I magnesium?”
Santa Olivia, by Jacqueline Carey (2009)
urban fantasy novel // queer
“Oh, fuck it,” Pilar whispered. She took Loup’s face in her hands and kissed her, hard and deep. The rainwater was cool, but her skin was warm beneath it; and there was no pulling away, only pushing closer. Closer and closer. She pressed Loup against the door, kissed her hungrily, her tongue agile and expert. Pilar’s breasts pressing against hers, nipples erect with cool rain and desire. One leg pressed between her thighs. Her hands slid down to Loup’s waist, under her tank top, craving skin. Loup wound her arms around Pilar’s neck, kissing her back.
It was exhilarating.
Better than fighting, better than anything.”
Inferno, a Poet’s Novel by Eileen Myles (2010)
memoirish novel // lesbian
read our review of Inferno
“Waves of feeling rocked through my chest and cunt. It was too much to ask, to imagine. She was the lesbian. It was hers. Her bed. her room. Her beautiful sunshine going down on the awful medieval filth of me. A horrible dirty twenty seven year old. Too late. I was rotten with men. All that sex an hour ago now made me hopelessly wrong. To have the privilege of a girl. Her smells were all I could hope for. She would eat me?”
Chronology of Water: A Memoir, by Lidia Yuknavitch (2011)
memoir // bisexual
“Whoever was staying in the [rooms next to ours] must’ve gotten an earful. Hours of woman on woman on woman whose regular lives didn’t allow for such wild abandon. Sometimes Hannah’s fist up my cunt Claire’s mouth on mine or me sucking her epic tits. Sometimes Hannah on her stomach me up her ass with a strap on Claire behind me giving me a reach-around — a skill she intuited. Sometimes Claire on all fours me and Hannah filling every hole licking every mouth rubbing her clit making her scream making her entire corpus shiver her head rock back her woman wail let loose gone primal cum and shit stains and spit and tears. I came in Hannah’s mouth, her face between my legs like some goddess in a new myth.”
My Education: A Novel, by Susan Choi (2013)
novel // bisexual
“She made me come so many times that afternoon that had I been somewhat older, I might have dropped dead. Had I been a doll, she might have twisted off each of my limbs, and sucked the knobs until they glistened, and drilled her tongue into each of the holes. Certainly had the windows been open, as would have made sense on that sunny June day, my thundering cries, in the end, would have summoned the neighbors; for Martha, in dismantling me, dredged a voice out of me I did not know I owned; the devastation of my pleasure surged outward and outward again, like an ocean-floor tremor, while that voice I had never imagined was bellowing harshly oh GOD oh GOD OHGODOHGODOHOGOD! — and it was then that Martha finally flung herself onto my shore, and through violent sobs kissed me…”
Women, by Chloe Caldwell (2014)
memoir // bisexual
“She unbuttons my shirt. Underneath I am wearing a lace tank top. What is this shirt, she says, This shirt is going to haunt me. We kiss and kiss and then she turns me around, fucking me from behind with her hand, pulling my underwear to the side. I keep my tank top on. I like fucking you while you still have some clothes on, she says. We laugh after I come. Let’s make you come again, because it’s fun, she says. I ask her if she came and she says, Did it feel like I came? I ask her if she wants to see the new lingerie I bought. She says yes. I leave the bed and walk to my dresser, opening the top drawer, stripping my clothes off and pulling the pink and lacey dress over my head. She lies on her back on the carpet and I lie on top of her.”
Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2015)
memoir // essays // queer
read our review of Dirty River
“You’re so open right now. I could almost fist you,” my lover says. I say “making love” with this one without irony. There are many moments when we make love and kiss, and it’s sacred, it’s hovering spirits inhabiting and flying over our bodies; it’s making love with the psychic incest-survivor crazy who is a grownup after a lot of therapy and medication who I fund, waded in a river and prayed for.
They have four fingers inside me. They have big hands. I am all the way open. The day before my period. New moon in Pisces, and I’ve been crying from the gut all week. All the way love. All the way open to you. It doesn’t hurt. It’s not hard. I am opening. I come a series of high and open. I will keep opening for you. I make this joyful choice.”
Life Is Wonderful, People are Terrific, by Meliza Bañales (2015)
novel // queer
read our review of Life Is Wonderful, People are Terrific
“Having her in bed with me made me realize how alone I’d been. Her body was so soft and warm, she had a round belly and firm tits with dark nipples that I held in my mouth for a long time. She was quiet at first which only turned me on more, but when she whispered in my ear “Will you go inside me?” I almost lost all control. I took it gently, then gained momentum. She was beneath me and I kept watching her face the entire time, the light from a new half-moon shining on her face through my window in the dark. I could feel the moment of pressure inside her against my middle finger and that’s when she cried out, hot liquid all over me, my bed, underneath her. Me next to her, wrapped around each other, kissing for hours. I kept thinking about the Cherrie Moraga poem and all the ways I felt myself open right then with Gabby. It wasn’t the kinkiest or the craziest sex I’ve ever had but it was one of the most intimate and I found myself practically high off her and she let me have all of her.”
Under the Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta (2016)
novel // bisexual
“Slowly she made her way to my chest. We’d never gone farther than the chest. But now she gently removed my nightgown, and then removed hers. She cupped her hands around my breasts, took turns with them, fondling and stroking and caressing them with her tongue. I felt the soft tug of her teeth on the peaks of my chest. Euphoria washed over me.
She continued, leaving a trail of kisses on her way down to my belly. She traveled farther, beyond the belly, farther than we had ever gone. I moaned and surrendered myself to her. I did not until then know that a mouth could make me feel that way when placed in that part of the body where I had never imagined a mouth to belong.”
Paul Takes the Form Of a Mortal Girl, by Andrea Lowler (2017)
novel // lesbian // genderfluid
Note: The protagonist, Paul, is a shape-shifter, and the author uses he/him pronouns for Paul regardless of what shape he’s in. For this excerpt, Paul is in a woman’s body.
“They kissed more, with this dare in their heads, and then Paul couldn’t take doing nothing else, her hands all over him. He slid his hand down her workpants into the slidey packet of her, and felt some kind of jittery bursting in his own self, and she jangled out of her clothes to give his hand a better angle to get inside her and he cupped his fingers up inside her, mouth on her nipple, under her pushed-up shirt. His hands somehow knew what to do and he realized that he’d slid his entire hand inside her without asking. She squeezed his knuckles and he tried to tuck his thumb without hurting her, because of how many lectures on safe fisting, and how different could a vagina be? He wondered if she would break his hand with her throbbing and then he surrendered to the immediate need to suck on something and bent to her clit, where he felt exceedingly peaceful for a long time, sucking and slowly moving his fist, so slowly, until she began to come, or come again?, through which Paul just hung on, which seemed to be the right thing. Afterward she smiled at him and they kissed and Paul felt floppy and amped and disturbed in a way he though might be connected to not having come. Or had he? Things were very sloshy down there and had maybe changed states in some incomprehensible way. Diane was kissing him again, and again this dispelled the thinking and then somehow she had slid between his legs, pulled off his shorts, and was sucking on his girl parts through and then under his hot soaking panties, building to a violent universal bang. Then it was over, and he was just smelling crushed grass and sex and the starry night all over him.”
Abandon Me: A Memoir, by Melissa Febos (2017)
memoir // bisexual
“The first time she asked me to come, she asked in Spanish, the Captain’s first language. It felt like a consummation. Not of love, per se, but a desire stored deep in our bodies. This, we said with our hands and teeth and tongues. This is as close as we can get to it. This is everything, and it is not enough. I understood what she had meant when she wrote that I had taken something from her. I wanted something from her that I could not name. My whole body was a mouth. My heart was a mouth that only she could fill, that she could never fill.”
“Real Woman Have Bodies” by Carmen Maria Machado (from “Her Body And Other Parties,” 2017)
short stories // bisexual
“You’re really beautiful,” she says into my skin. She grinds her pelvis hard against mine, and I moan, and at some point the cold charm of her necklace dips into my mouth and knocks against my teeth. I laugh, she laughs. She takes off the necklace and sets it down on the nightstand, the chain slithering like sand. When she sits up again, the ceiling fan frames her head like a glowing halo, like she’s a Madonna in a medieval painting. There is a mirror on the opposite side of the room, and I catch fragments of her reflection. “May I —” she starts, and I nod before she finishes. She puts her hand over my mouth and bites my neck and slips three fingers into me. I laugh-gasp against her palm.
I come fast and hard, like a bottle breaking against a brick wall. Like I’ve been waiting for permission.”
America is Not the Heart, by Elaine Castillo (2018)
novel // bisexual
“The problem with having somewhat good sex with someone reasonably available—well, reasonably; immoderately and extravagantly available, more like—was that, once had, it was difficult not to want it all the time. It was difficult for Hero to remember that she’d spent months and months filling up her days with something that wasn’t fucking around with Rosalyn, that in fact she’d gone most of her life doing things that weren’t fucking around with Rosalyn, that she had an entire lifetime’s worth of evidence showing that it was possible to think about things that weren’t fucking around with Rosalyn—and yet. Hero found herself ignoring all the evidence in favor of spending her days thrumming, like a machine that had been left turned on and then forgotten about, leaking electricity, draining itself dry, until Rosalyn got within hand’s reach again.”
The Best Bad Things, by Katrina Carrasco (2018)
historical fiction // bisexual
“Her hips are rocking into Alma’s touch. The pale ribbon whispers through each set of eyes. Nell unhooks the corset’s busks, and it falls open like a flower. She pulls off her chemise and is all bared to Alma, her skin pearly in the lamplight, silvery lines on the skin at her hips, on the skin under her navel, tracing toward the dark thatch of hair where Alma’s hand is still busy, still twisting. Alma walks her backward to the bed. Drops to her knees and replaces her thumb with her tongue. Nell moans. Hot musk in Alma’s nose, slickness on her tongue, oh, and it’s good, her mouth dripping spit, Nell’s fingers in her hair, holding her down. Her breaths come thick, fast, and god damn it, she can’t wait any longer. She kneels wider on the floor, the boards’ seams biting into her knees. Pulls her hand from the heat of Nell’s body and works it under the band of her small clothes. Fingers wet with Nell’s juices, Alma’s tongue pulsing in time with her touch, oh, yeah, it won’t take much, her body is wound tight as a watch spring.
“Let me see you,” Nell says, breath hitched. “Let me see your face.”
When Katie Met Cassidy, Camille Perri (2018)
novel // lesbian
read our review of When Katie Met Cassidy
Katie ran her fingers across Cassidy’s taut stomach. “You know how you felt out there on the ranch?” she said. “Like you were out of your element?”
A trail of goosebumps followed the path of Katie’s fingertips upon Cassidy’s skin.
“That’s how I feel with you.” She traced her way down to Cassidy’s hipbones. “I don’t know how to touch you.” She glided her fingertips down the inside of Cassidy’s thigh. “But I want to.”
Cassidy kissed Katie’s neck, took her earlobe into her mouth. She whispered into Katie’s ear, “I’ll show you.”
Roller Girl, by Vanessa North (2018)
novel // lesbian // transgender
“How long has it been since I laughed with someone during sex? Have I ever? It feels good, shameless and free. She bites the side of my breast, her breath wet and hot there, then trailing slowly across to my nipple. My whole body tightens in anticipation as her lips close over my waiting flesh. I shiver, caught in the rush of heat. My limbs go lax as she draws on my nipple, again and again. One hand slides down to cup me through my pants, and instead of pushing it away, I ride her hand as another kind of pressure builds inside me.
“Yeah, rub off on me,” she whispers, “Can you come like that?”
I don’t know, but it would take an act of Congress to keep me from trying.”
Animals Eat Each Other, Elle Nash (2018)
novel // bisexual
“The way I ate her was like a meal, in little parts. Jenny gave small pieces of herself away each time my tongue pressed into her. A little less of her seemed to come back with me. The places where we became one thing together like this, our open membranes raw and bleeding. The cave of her colliding into my mouth, the place where words form. The way our darks connected. I didn’t know what to think about how this felt other than we were here, alive and breathing and fucking, and maybe this is how it was supposed to be.”
Mostly Dead Things, by Kristen Arnett (2019)
novel // lesbian
read our review of Mostly Dead Things
“I kissed her to make myself forget. Forget all about it. Think only about the body how it would open for me, the thing that I needed.
She lay back on my unmade covers, still rumpled from the night before. Had me set the carapace of the cicada on the plane of her stomach, in the fallen divot between her ribs. We watched each other through the open hole of its body. I could hear the live ones screaming again outside in the trees, high and shrill. When my mouth touched the opening to her body, her chest rose abruptly. The cicada rolled forward, ready for flight.”
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, by T Kira Madden (2019)
novel // lesbian
read our review of “Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls”
“I pull her pants down to her knees and push my face into her and taste what I want to taste. I fuck her with my hand. Relax, she says. I’m the one who tops here.
Jane tries to flip me over, but I don’t want her to touch me. As if by reaching inside me she will find the very pith of my fraudulence. I have a UTI, I lie, crushing my hips into her leg.
Sometimes I jerk off thinking of you, she says.
I come when she says this.”
A Song For You, by Robyn Crawford (2019)
memoir // lesbian
“Whitney and I held hands and got close on the dance floor, but once we started kissing, we left. We made it to the car but couldn’t wait long enough to get back to the hotel. I parked the rental car alongside the water, and before long a cop knocked on the window. We were in there naked, but the windows were fogged up so he couldn’t see much and just urged us to move along. Whitney was uncomfortable with her body, but I thought she was beautiful. I used to tell her, ‘God must have put you together piece by piece.'”
A World Between, by Emily Hashimoto (2020)
novel // lesbian
read our review of A World Between
“Eleanor felt twenty again, with a craving like there was nothing else in her life, and pressed Leena into the air mattress as it weaved and waved with the pressure of their bodies. With Leena naked underneath her, she licked and kissed paths all over her skin, relearning the geography that once kept her up at night, gently biting the birthmark on her inner thigh, moving right on past the engagement ring as if it wasn’t even there.”
Detransition, Baby, by Torrey Peters (2021)
novel // bisexual // transgender
read our review of Detransition, Baby
“How long had she been sobbing? She didn’t want to sob, she wanted to kiss the pretty dick resting on the pad of her tongue. For the last month, she had been obsessed with Reese; all she wanted to do was get closer and closer to her. It was to the point that the phrase ‘I want to eat you up’ took on shades of the literal — digestive incorporation being the only act that Amy could imagine getting her closer to Reese than sex. Just an hour before, Amy had watched Reese brush her teeth, her long brown hair hanging loose, and her arm pistoning back and forth so hard as she brushed that her tits waggled side to side under her slinky nightgown. Amy decided it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, topping each of the fifty other Reese actions she’d decided one after another that day was the sexiest vision ever.”
With Teeth, by Kristen Arnett (2021)
novel // lesbian
read our interview with Kristen Arnett
“Sammie knew people always described their orgasms as cresting waves. Invoked the beauty of a starburt, or fireworks all in a row: bang, bang, bang. But for her, coming felt more like finally sitting down for a good meal after starving for weeks. The movement of it—spasms like a jaw clenching and unclenching. Like her pussy wanted to swallow everything and ask for seconds.
She fisted a hand in Myra’s hair and rode out that first big one. If Myra kept swirling her tongue like that, she might come again. Then it would be like having leftovers. Just thinking about that way led to her next orgasm. She yelled a word that almost sounded like fuck, and tightened her grip until she knew there’d be strands of Myra’s hair twined between her fingers when she let go. She almost came a third time, but she was spent, it was done, and when she finally let go and Myra sat up, smiling, she saw blood ringing the other woman’s mouth.”
Skye Falling, by Mia McKenzie (2021)
novel // bisexual
“Back in my room, we lie on the bed and kiss. And kiss. And kiss. I cannot get enough of Faye’s mouth, of the taste and smell of it, of the way her lips feel against mine. I could lie here with her tongue in my mouth for the rest of my life. But after a few minutes of kissing, she climbs on top of me. She sits up, so she’s straddling me, then she pulls me into a sitting position, too. She tugs at my shirt and, as I raise mu arms, she pulls it over my head. This is when I realize I’m still wearing my emergency bra and begin to scream internally.”
You Exist Too Much, by Zaina Arafat (2021)
novel // bisexual
read our interview with Zaina Arafat
“After climbing into bed the night before, I’d woken her up the way I knew she liked, pressing my nose against her neck and breathing deeply until the vibration roused her. I then switched up our usual roles, pulling myself on top of her while at the same time scooting her beneath me.”
Yerba Buena, by Nina Lacour (2022)
novel // lesbian
read our review of Yerba Buena
“Sara took a woman home that night, something she rarely did, though the offers tumbled forth with every night she worked the bar. She was practiced in the art of being just friendly enough, of the gentle rejection, of the absolute no when it was required. But that fantasy—cupping Emilie’s cheek and drawing her closer—wouldn’t let Sara rest. So when a woman stayed late, past the time her friends left, past everyone else, Sara gave in. They had sex on the sofa in Sara’s small living room. The woman came quickly, and Sara felt a burst of tenderness for her—Christa or maybe Christine? It had been loud in the bar when she’d told her—but soon, emptiness came rushing in. That inevitable feeling. The reason no relationship lasted very long.”
Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield (2022)
novel // lesbian
read our review of Our Wives Under the Sea
“Sex with Leah was a key and a lock, an opening up of something I had assumed impassable, like a door warped shut by the heat. Joy in the fact of pleasure, in the fact of my own relief. When we fucked, I felt myself distinct from my previous versions: the frenzied me, the panicked me, the me who had imagined herself poisoned by something she had never even done.”
Body Grammar, by Jules Ohman (2022)
novel // queer
read our review of Body Grammar
“It felt heady and strange to be kissing someone she didn’t know well but was extremely attracted to. Her body hummed as Thayer took off her shirt and peeled down her jeans, then lay there, looking up at Lou. Lou asked what she wanted, and Thayer told her. Lou didn’t know what to do, but she knew how to follow directions. She could put her mouth there and there and there, and she could move her tongue like that and that, and she could do everything that was asked of her, especially if she was asked like that, and it turned out she could it all well, like really well. Thayer smelled and tasted delicious and Lou was so hungry, and as soon as it was over, she wanted to do it again.”
We Had to Remove This Post, by Hanna Bervoets (2022)
novella // lesbian
“Later, during the spell when Sigrid and I didn’t see each other for a while, I would nonetheless evoke that kiss when I was masturbating, and over time my memory of the fantasy has become clearer than my memory of the night itself. In that fantasy Sigrid won’t stop staring at me. She uses every excuse to touch me, deliberately pressing into me as she leans over to grab another beer off the tray. In the fantasy, I reach out and put a hand on her thigh; she, in turn, shakes her head and flushes red, and then I get up to go to the restroom and she follows me. She tugs at my shoulder to turn me toward her and I push her up against the wall. We’re blocking the hallway to the restrooms, which is too narrow as it is—by the time our lips touch I’ve usually already come, and if not, I switch to a different memory, an image from a few weeks later: We’re in my bed and Sigrid is straddling me, “Deeper, deeper,” she cries, her face contorted with pleasure and yet vaguely mournful, and the memory of that grimace—ugly and hot at the same time—tends to get me there right away.”
Helen House, by Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya (2022)
novella // lesbian
read our review of Helen House
“When she found out about the promotion, we’d gone out for Korean BBQ. Later in bed, I could still smell the smoke in her hair, and it made me hungry for her. I mean, sure, I was always hungry for her. But that smoky smell was like a spell, and I asked her to put on the harness I usually wore, watched her fumble with its buckles and straps without offering any assistance, my hunger deepening when she whispered, Like this?“
All This Could Be Different, by Sarah Thankam Mathews (2022)
novel // lesbian
read our review of All This Could Be Different
“I touched the Kia Soul’s gear stick. Get naked, I said. Then put your mouth on this.
A look of uncertainty flashed across her face. Still, she complied. Contorting her torso to stay perched on me. Her generous lower lip and its slender tremulous companion, pink shot through with brown. Her mouth, parting.
Pleasure this, I said, taking in the bemused look in her eyes, feeling the vague gathering mists of foolishness—and of course, real wild desire is braided tightly with foolishness, with all that is awkward and stilted. I had to work against this. To safeguard the moment, which still felt savable, felt swollen with blood and heat.
Pleasure it, I said, as if it were my cock.“
Pretty Baby, by Chris Belcher (2022)
memoir // lesbian
“Sam and I spent two weeks sweaty fucking for hours a day in her mom’s two-bedroom, one-bathroom trailer without air-conditioning. We barely left except to walk to McDonald’s or Subway, where I would order double and eat until I felt sick. The sex made me ravenous, but I hated leaving Sam’s bedroom, tiptoeing out past her mom, into the kitchen. She looked up at me from her recliner like she could smell her daughter on me, and surely, she could.”
Sirens & Muses, by Antonia Angress (2022)
novel // bisexual
“At first they only hooked up in Louisa’s studio, late at night when the building was empty and silent, but after a few days they began having sex in their room, as well. It was surreal, Louisa thought sometimes: there were her posters on the wall, and there was her green plastic shower caddy, and there was her towel on its hook, and here was Karina’s pale pink nipple in her mouth, and here were Karina’s fingers moving inside her, and here was Karina’s tongue on her neck, and here—”
We Do What We Do in the Dark, by Michelle Hart (2023)
novel // lesbian
read our review of We Do What We Do in the Dark
“Mallory turned toward the woman and kissed the woman’s shoulder, her neck, her lips. They kissed for while before the woman went to lie back on the bed, reaching her hand into her underwear to rub herself, soft and slow. Her eyes were closed. Mallory, still seated beside the woman but looking down at her, understood that the woman wanted to be watched doing this too, so that was what Mallory did: watched.
Almost as a reflex, Mallory, who’d taught herself to masturbate by watching other women do it in porn, began to mirror the woman’s movements on herself. She felt her own wetness and fell back next to the woman. The two of them moved like this, alone and together. Their breaths became heavier and heavier until the woman whispered, ‘Do you want to touch me?’ Mallory said yes, and the woman took Mallory’s hand in hers, bringing it between her legs. The woman, using Mallory’s hand to rub herself, opened her legs wider, and Mallory sat up to kneel between them. A low moan trembled in the woman’s throat. The woman removed her own hand and Mallory continued. ‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘Like that.’ It was as if she was teaching Mallory to draw.”
Dykette, by Jenny Fran Davis (2023)
novel // lesbian
“Sasha fell forward, as though by accident, collapsing into Jules. Pressed into the shoulder of Jules’s royal purple hoodie, she took a deep drag and closed her eyes. It was a sad smell, a smell of the past, a past that isn’t quite gone. Jules arranged her arms around Sasha and pulled her in. The pressure of their bodies together made Sasha so wet that she wondered if she was somehow already coming. They stayed like that for a few minutes, and then she wedged her right knee into Jules’s crotch, gently, again like an accident. Jules’s big body gave in almost immediately, her groin warmly accepting Sasha’s knee, sucking her knee into its micro-climate, and Sasha felt Jules’s wetness through Jules’s jeans and through her own black tights.”
Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin (2023)
novel // queer
read our review of Big Swiss
“Her pussy looked like advanced oragami. A crisp pink lotus flower folded by a master. Greta briefly rearranged it with her mouth. The flower transformed into an acorn. Then a unicorn. Then back again. Greta dragged her tongue over it diagonally three dozen times. Now it resembled two dragonflies languidly mating on a lily pad.”
The Fake, by Zoe Whittall (2023)
novel // lesbian
read our review of The Fake
“Shelby remembers when she and Kate were like that, when even if they were only driving an hour out of town they’d have to stop and have sex in the car on some side road, the bruises on her shins she’d have later that she liked to look at.”
Your Driver Is Waiting, by Priya Guns (2023)
novel // lesbian
read our review of Your Driver Is Waiting
“‘Wait, wait. There’s no one here,’ she said between gasps, still grinding on my face. She opened the door and got out, pulling at me to follow her. She wasn’t afraid of showing me how much she wanted me. She walked around to the front of my car, and bent herself over the hood, before reaching down to touch her pussy. Fuck. Of course I was falling for her. She leaned against the car, my car, with come-get-me eyes.
‘Is this okay? Can I do this?’ asked Jo.
I leaned towards her, wrapping my leg around her, bringing her closer with my arm, then I kissed her neck. We were naked and maybe someone was watching but I didn’t think about it. Our bodies were close, and we rocked, finding each other’s rhythm. She bit my neck harder and scratched at my back, but I kept going until she was limp and shuddering in my arms.”
Homebodies, by Tembe Denton-Hurst (2023)
novel // lesbian
“‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ Lex whispered against her flesh in a voice deeper than normal and Mickey felt the hum of desire rising in her skin. They loved to make up by fucking, some of their best, most spontaneous sex happened that way. The kind of sex they had when they first fell in love, and it reminded her that she could still feel that way, even after all these years.
‘I need a better apology than that.’
‘How do you want me to show you?’
Mickey hopped up on the countertop and opened her legs.”
Here’s Basically Everybody Who Was In “The L Word” And Also Is Gay Now
When the original L Word launched, “which of these actresses are gay in real life” was a common question asked of the cast members at press junkets and interviews. It was a different time, then. Leisha Hailey was the only out lesbian in the main cast. Kate Moennig was also a lesbian but it wasn’t okay yet to say so, at least not anywhere important or public or in print. Karina Lombard, Mia Kirshner and Laurel Holloman had all hinted at or embraced the bisexual label at some point, but both Laurel and Karina have since redacted the identification. Karina’s statement hurt the most, perhaps, as she indicated that being on the show was what convinced her she wasn’t bisexual anymore. Laurel, who’d identified that way after having an experience with another woman following her part in The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls In Love, eventually came to feel that that relationship was a one-off and it wasn’t right for her to continue identifying as bisexual.
The L Word: Generation Q, however, is a VERY gay cast. So we’ll get through the first series and then move gayly onto the second!
Most recent update: May 2023
Here are the original L Word veterans who are now publicly gay, lesbian, queer or bisexual:
1. Leisha Hailey / Alice Pieszecki
(Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images)
The only out lesbian playing a main character when the show premiered, Leisha Hailey had been a musician and an actress for a decade, and famously once dated worldwide lesbian heartthrob kd Lang. While on The L Word, Hailey was dating Nina Garduno of Free City, which’s how the show scored so much Free City apparel for characters who definitely couldn’t truly afford $150 t-shirts. Mid-series, she formed the band Uh Huh Her with Camila Grey, who was then dating Clea Duvall. Then Hailey and Grey dated! She’s now in a relationship with actress Kim Dickens.
2. Kate Moennig / Shane McCutcheon
(Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)
Moennig is Gwyneth Paltrow’s cousin and has been playing queer and trans roles on television and in the movies since her first big break getting the part of Jake Pratt on Young Americans. Moennig figured out and embraced that she was gay while appearing in The L Word as Shane. For a while, her sexual orientation was basically an “open secret.” After The L Word she dated Holly Miranda for a while, was an ambassador for Wildfang and possibly dated Evan Rachel Wood. She has been married to Ana Rezende since 2017.
3. Daniel Sea / Max Sweeney
Daniel Sea is an incredible human who remains an activist and a DJ, doing indie projects and changing the world. They were out as queer and genderfluid when they began the show and told Drew in 2021, “I think the word I’d use for myself today is something like pansexual. I had sexual experiences with all different genders growing up.”
4. Kristanna Loken / Paige Sobel
(Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Huading Awards Group)
Loken was well-known amongst shameless lesbian gossip hounds (read: me) as the ex-girlfriend of Michelle Rodriguez and ex-kisser of Pink. Loken came out as bisexual in Curve Magazine in 2006 and showed up on The L Word shortly thereafter.
5. Clementine Ford / Molly Kroll
Clementine Ford with her mother, Cybil Shephard. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)
Just as The L Word was ending, Clementine Ford appeared on the cover of DIVA magazine in a “coming out” interview that Ford immediately claimed did not actually happen, although she soon thereafter told The Advocate that she was gay, but wanted there not to be “this big emphasis on it.” She also denied rumors from DIVA Magazine that she’d had an affair with Kate Moennig, her on-screen love interest. She dated Linda Perry from 2009-2011, and married actor Cyrus Wilcox in April 2013.
6. Jane Lynch / Joyce Wyshnia
(Photo by Amanda Edwards/WireImage)
As a character actress, Lynch never felt the need to come out, but has been living an openly lesbian life for all of her career. Her career has taken off since The L Word, and she also got married and then divorced. Also, she can do no wrong.
7. Holland Taylor / Peggy Peabody
(Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
It was a gift from the great lesbian beyond when we learned in 2016 that our dearest most treasured Sarah Paulson and our dearest most treasured Holland Taylor were madly in love and not afraid to say so. That was the day I started writing this post, which I then abandoned, and then re-engaged with because we have no content for today! Fun story: the first time I became aware of Sarah Paulson’s existence was when I saw a reading of a play about making The L Word, written by Susan Miller, in which Sarah Paulson appeared. So did Kate Moennig. Now, here we are.
8. Alexandra Hedison / Dylan Moreland
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images // Photo by FilmMagic/FilmMagic
Hedison was the noteworthy ex-girlfriend of Ellen DeGeneres and a successful photographer when she joined the cast as Helena Peabody’s love interest Dylan in Season Three. She scored big in the Lesbian Mate Bingo in 2014, marrying Jodie Foster.
9. Elizabeth Keener / Dawn Denbo
Actress Dania Ramirez and Elizabeth Keener arrive at the Los Angeles Premiere “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” at Dolby Theatre on May 18, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)
Keener was one of those up-and-coming actresses in TLW who was pretty clearly living the life of a gay lady but not ready to say so. AND THEN. “Gay Pride Weekend had such a buoying effect on Keener that the actress stepped out in public not one, not two, but three times, with rumored new lady love Jackie Warner of Bravo’s Work Out,” wrote Gawker in 2008. She was also linked to Top Chef’s Jamie Lauren,
10. Guinevere Turner / Gabby Deveaux
Photo by Paul Archuleta/Getty Images
Turner was part of the general social web that wrote and produced The L Word, having worked on films like Go Fish with people like her ex-girlfriend, co-executive producer Rose Troche. She was one of a handful of out actresses who appeared on the show because you cannot make the first american lesbian TV show ever without giving Guienevere Turner a part. She also wrote three episodes.
11. Patricia Velasquez / Begoña
(Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SXSW)
Velasquez had a bit role as the actress playing Marina in Lez Girls, but remained deeply closeted until 2015, when she came out and released a memoir about her life, including details of her relationship with Sandra Bernhard.
12. Ali Liebert / Rebecca
Photo by Andrew Chin/Getty Images
Liebert was one of many Canadian actresses who played tiny roles with zero lines because The L Word shot in Vancouver. She went public about her relationship with her girlfriend in 2015 and has since played many queer roles on shows like Bomb Girls and Lost Girl, plus getting very involved in the Christmas Movie industry.
13. Kelly McGillis / Colonel Gillian Davis
(Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage)
McGillis played a closeted Colonel trying to kick Tasha out of the military in Season Five of The L Word. McGillis herself remained in the closet until a few months after TLW wrapped up, coming out as a lesbian in May of 2009.
14. Sandra Bernhard / Charlotte Birch
Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival
Bernhard has been an out bisexual comedian for many years, going back to her rumored romance with Madonna in the ’90s, which is one of my favorite things to ever happen.
15. Heather Matarazzo / Stacy Merkin
Heather Matarazzo came out discretely in 2004, and began a guest role of Stacy Merkin on The L Word in 2007. She began dating musician Caroline Murphy in 2007 and the two broke up in 2012. She also played gay in the short-lived Logo series Exes and Ohs. She married Heather Truman in 2018.
16. Anne Ramsay/ Robin
Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images
17. Tammy Lynn Michaels / Lacey
Melissa Etheridge’s ex-girlfriend‘s acting career never fully took off, but she had a very memorable turn as Lacey, Shane’s insane stalker, in The L Word.
18. Patricia Melone / Woman #1
Melone, who eventually became a spokeswoman for lesbian vacation company Sweet, crashed the set of Lez Girls with Dawn Denbo in Season Five.
19. Lucia Rijker / Dusty
on the set of “The L Word” with Rachel Shelly and Rose Rollins
Rijker is a world-famous kickboxer known as “the most dangerous woman in the world” who appeared twice on the show, once as Dana’s trainer and again as Helena’s jailhouse lover Dusty. She was actually Ilene Chaiken’s personal trainer at one time, and the two were working together on a project about female athletes. In 2008, she told Curve Magazine that she doesn’t put a label on her sexuality.
20. Luvia Petersen / Dax and “Cowboy”
Peterson, another Canadian actress, is bisexual. She played two bit parts on The L Word, including Dax, an employee of Ivan’s garage.
21. Brynn Horrocks / “Flight Attendant”
What a role! What a time to be alive!
L Word: Generation Q: Who is Out as Lesbian or Bisexual
The L Word: Generation Q made efforts to employ queer actors for the main roles, although not all the actors on the show have ever spoken publicly about their sexual orientations. But some have!
22. Jacqueline Toboni // Sarah Finley
(Photo by Tibrina Hobson/FilmMagic)
The only out girl in Toboni’s high school gave her The L Word box set on DVD and told her to “figure it out.” Eventually, she did! She’s now happily in a relationship with model Kassandra Clementi.
23. Arienne Mandi // Dani Nunez
(Photo by Jemal Countess/WireImage)
Of her sexuality, Mandi has said, “if there were to be anything close to what I feel, it would be pan. I accept love in all forms and I give love. It’s just all love.”
24. Rosanny Zayas // Sophie
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for GLAAD
Rosanny has shared many cute stories of sneaking around to watch the original series as a teenager and told OutSmart Magazine, “I’m open to falling in love with someone’s personality and how we connect as people.”
25. Stephanie Allynne // Nat
(Photo by Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic)
Allynne met her now-wife Tig Notaro on the set of In a World. Prior to meeting Tig, she’d never dated women, but according to Allyne, “I was so into Tig and I was falling in love with her and I didn’t know how to identify it because I thought I was straight.”
26. Mercedes Mason // Lena
Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/SHOWTIME.
After Season 1 of Generation Q premiered, Mason came out on Instagram, telling her followeres “Usually I’m pretty private about my private life but its’ important for me to discuss my bisexuality because I grew up always being told it was a ‘phase.'”
27. Jillian Mercado // Maribel
(Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows)
Following the premiere of Generation Q, Mercado said on her instagram, “I am proud to say that I’ve done so many great things for the disability community (there is so much more to be done done tho). Over the course of this year I had the absolute honor to know people from all communities that make me me. That being a woman, having a disability, being Dominican, and finally I can add to that magical layer being queer.”
28. Jordan Hull // Angie
(Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
When saying goodbye to the series upon which she became a fan favorite and won all of our hearts right over, Jordan Hull posted on instagram: “Endless love for the family I’ve made on this show. I’m the luckiest queer in the world to be raised by a bunch of queer superstars.”
29. Olivia Thirlby // Rebecca (Season 1)
(Photo by Amanda Edwards/WireImage)
When she participated in the self evident photo project in 2011, she said she was honored to be a part of it because “it’s a way of me showing gratitude that I live surrounded by a community in which I don’t have to hide their sexual orientation…. and I am not one hundred percent straight.”
30. Rosie O’Donnell // Carrie (Season 2-3)
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for GLAAD
LEGEND ROSIE O’DONNELL Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW ALL ABOUT HER SHE IS GAY AND SHE IS CARRIE, TINA’S WIFE. TRANSCENDENT.
31. Paula Andrea Placido / Roxy (Season 3)
(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
Paula’s racking up bit queer roles all over the map, from Hacks to Shameless to her turn as Dani’s longtime on-and-off will-they-wont-they friend with benefits in The L Word: Generation Q‘s final season.
32. Carmen Lo Bue // Dre (Season 3)
Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Outfest
Carmen appeared in the Autostraddle Calendar as one of our 12 queer models for 2011 and describes themselves as “a Queer Non-Binary Afro-Pilipinx American Filmmaker with a passion for social activism that is expressed through their work as a creator.” They were a delight as Dre, a potential love interest for Sophie and for Dani in Season Three.
33. Heidi Sulzman // Misty (Season 3)
Heidi Sulzman, who played Carrie’s girlfriend Misty in Season Three, is married to a woman and has a son and also did a some stage theater with showrunner Marja Lewis-Ryan in the past!
All 235 Dead Lesbian and Bisexual Characters On TV, And How They Died
People die. Characters die. This is perhaps life’s most unfortunate fact: that people will die and leave the rest of us behind. It’s incredibly rare that any dramatic television series lasting over three seasons will never kill a main or recurring character, and all those deaths have driven a stake through the heart of fandom: Joyce on Buffy, Lady Sybil on Downton Abby, Charlie on Lost, Ned Stark on Game of Thrones, Jen on Dawson’s Creek, Nate on Six Feet Under — but when the person who dies is a lesbian or bisexual character, queer fandom takes it pretty hard.
The history of lesbian representation on television is rocky — in the beginning, we seemed exclusively relegated to roles that saw us getting killed/attacked or doing the killing/attacking. And until the last five or so years, lesbian and bisexual characters seemed entirely unable to date an actual woman or stay alive for more than three episodes, let alone an entire run, of a show. Gay and lesbian characters are so often murdered on television that we have our very own trope: Bury Your Gays. We comprise such a teeny-tiny fraction of characters on television to begin with that killing us off so haphazardly feels especially cruel.
Not every death listed below was wholly uncalled for. In many genres, like soap operas and shows about vampires, zombies, criminals, or games of thrones, characters are killed on the reg. That’s a different trope — Anyone Can Die. Furthermore, shows composed entirely of queer characters will inevitably kill one. But regardless, they still add to the body count weighing down our history of misrepresentation.
And, due to the recent untimely death of Lexa on The 100, this week seemed like a good one to count down everybody we have lost over the years.
This list contains every television death of an OPENLY lesbian or bisexual or queer female character on a television show. With a handful of exceptions, these are all characters who appeared for more than one episode. The exceptions were deemed exceptional because something about the characterization still fits in with the Bury Your Gays trope. Victims-of-the-week from crime procedurals (Law & Order, Cold Case, CSI, Criminal Minds or older shows) or patients-of-the-week from hospital dramas (Chicago Hope, E.R.), aren’t on this list, as that is an entirely different kind of list, but recurring characters from those shows are on this list. Nor is subtext on this list, because we’re not gonna give Xena showrunners Queer Character Credit for a character they refused to make openly queer when she was really so obviously queer. You know? [ETA: Okay, I’ve added Xena after doing further research and because if one more commenter takes up space on this thread — a thread I’m using to find more characters to add, and also to engage with thoughtful/funny readers who have opinions and feelings — to tell me that I “forgot” Xena without reading this introduction, I will become the 200th dead lesbian and the cause of death will be “Walked off a cliff with a commenter in her arms. Murder-suicide.” But Xena will be the one and only inclusion based on subtext.] Also, although I’ve done tons of research, I haven’t personally seen all of these shows, so mistakes may very well exist, and feel free to politely inform me of them in the comments, or tell me about characters I may have missed — it’s especially helpful if you can tell me the cause of death and the year.
Unsure if this needs to be said but… SPOILER ALERT.
Special thanks to the LezWatchTV Database for providing info on shows I haven’t seen or heard about directly!
Every Regular or Recurring Lesbian or Bisexual Female Character Killed On Television
Julie, Executive Suite (1976)
Cause of death: Hit by a car. Her love interest had just walked into traffic after realizing her lesbianism and Julie was chasing her.
Franky Doyle, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1980)
Cause of death: Shot by a police officer after escaping from prison
Sharon Gilmour, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1980)
Cause of death: Pushed down the stairs by a corrections officer
Karen O’Malley, Casualty (1987)
Cause of death: Head Injury
Cecília, Vale Tudo (1988)
Cause of death: Car Accident
Cicely, Northern Exposure (1992)
Cause of death: Shot by a gunman employed by the town’s evil overlord who doesn’t want to let the lesbians change his town. The shot was intended for her girlfriend Roslyn, but Cicely, who was already sick, blocked the bullet and died in Roslyn’s arms, thus magically healing the town’s long-simmering feuds and leading them to re-name the town “Cicely.”
Talia Winters, Babylon 5 (1995)
Cause of death: Activated a sleeper personality that wiped out her actual personality, effectively killing her
Beth Jordache, Brookside (1995)
Cause of death: Genetic heart condition, died in prison
Susan Ross, Seinfeld (1996)
Cause of death: Toxic envelope glue
Naomi “Tracy” Richards, Band of Gold (1996)
Cause of death: Stabbed herself
Lucy, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996)
Cause of death: Caught thieving and hanged
Kathy, NYPD Blue (1997)
Cause of death: Shot by a hit man hired by her girlfriend Abby’s ex, who wanted to get rid of Kathy so she could get back together with Abby. Abby was pregnant at the time.
Sondra Westwood, Pacific Drive (1997)
Cause of death: Murdered by a serial killer
Jadzia Dax, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998)
Cause of death: Blasted by an alien-possessed alien
Sonia Besirky, Lindenstraße (1998)
Cause of death: Drug overdose from medication given to her by her ex-lover’s husband
Leila and Rafaela, Torre de Babel (1998)
Cause of death: Explosion in a shopping mall
Susanne Teubner, Hinter Gittern (1999)
Cause of death: Shot during a bank robbery (she was a customer)
Shaz Wiley, Bad Girls (2000)
Cause of death: Bomb, died in resulting fire
Laura Hall, Shortland Street (2000)
Cause of death: Heart attack
Diamond, Dark Angel (2001)
Cause of death: Used as a lab rat for research that killed her
Xena, Xena the Warrior Princess (2001)
Cause of death: Beheaded
Beate “Bea” Hansen, Hinter Gittern (2001)
Cause of death: Injuries from an explosion
Jule Neumann, Hinter Gittern (2001)
Cause of death: Suicide
Frankie Stone, All My Children (2001)
Cause of death: Murder Mystery!
Bridgit, 24 (2001)
Cause of death: Shot by a man in front of her girlfriend
Tara Maclay, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002)
Cause of death: Shot in the heart by a stray bullet
Kelly Hurst, Family Affairs (2002)
Cause of death: Pushed down the stairs by her lover’s husband
Megan Hartnoll, At Home With The Braithwaites (2003)
Cause of death: Electrocuted in the bathtub
Juliet Becker, The Bill (2003)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Tina Greer, Smallville (2003)
Cause of death: Impaled through the chest on a large piece of wood during a fight with a male character
Sandy Lopez, E.R. (2004)
Cause of death: Injuries sustained from fighting a fire in an abandoned warehouse
Al Mackenzie, Bad Girls (2004)
Cause of death: Poisoned
Hanna Novak, Verbotene Liebe (2004)
Cause of death: Stroke, died in her girlfriend’s arms
Ines Führbringer, Hinter Gittern (2004)
Cause of death: Throat slit, died in girlfriend’s arms
Thelma Bates, Hex (2004)
Cause of death: Murdered by a demon
Flora, Deadwood (2004)
Cause of death: Beaten by a man who then forced a woman to shoot her with his gun
Brenda Castillo, Charmed (2004)
Cause of death: Stabbed with a cursed blade by a man, causing her to rapidly age and then die
Tosha, The Wire (2004)
Cause of death: Shot during a heist gone wrong
Marissa Cooper, The O.C. (2005)
Cause of death: Car crash after being driven off the road by her drunk ex-boyfriend
Servilla, Rome (2005)
Cause of death: Stabs herself in front of her rival house, inhabited by the mother of her lover
Dusty, Queer As Folk (2005)
Cause of death: At a benefit at a gay club when a bomb went off
Dana Fairbanks, The L Word (2006)
Cause of death: Breast cancer
Helena Cain, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Shot by her ex-lady-lover
Manuela Wellmann, Hinter Gittern (2006)
Cause of death: Stabbed, died in girlfriend’s arms
Maya Robertson, Hex (2006)
Cause of death: Hit by a car
Natalie, Bad Girls (2006)
Cause of death: Bludgeoned to death with a brick
Gina Inviere/#6, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Set off a nuclear weapon
Eve Jacobson/Zoe McAllister, Home & Away (2006)
Cause of death: Inside a building when it was blown up
Van, Dante’s Cove (2006)
Cause of Death: Killed by the Shadows
Angie Morton, Stritctly Confidential (2006)
Cause of death: Suicide. Jumped off a building.
Ranking “Wizard of Oz” Characters by Gay Energy
As a kid that didn’t feel at home in her family, I loved two movies: Annie (1982) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). I think both movies are about feeling lost and finding family in unusual places. I watched these movies religiously, often more than once in a day. While Annie was my favorite of the two, I’ve been revisiting The Wizard of Oz recently through the eyes of my three-year-old niece. She loves it and reminds me how much I used to love the movie, too.
A couple of days ago I woke up with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in my head. With legendary songs, a cast of characters, and visuals that dazzle to this day, The Wizard of Oz is still a classic worth watching. Because it is my duty to view everything around me through a gay lens, I’m here to rank the characters of this movie from least to greatest gay energy. You may disagree, you may be surprised, but keep in mind this is my ranking, my opinion, and I’m right.
I’ll be ranking the main cast — and maybe some others — so let’s kick this thing off.
12. Auntie Em
We don’t spend a ton of time with Auntie Em, but its enough time to know this woman is 100% heterosexual. No fruity energy emanating off of those finger waves.
11. Uncle Henry
Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are the kind of parents that when you come out they’re like “lots of girls have little crushes on their friends, you’ll get over it doll.” So not dangerously homophobic, but still not great. These two are low on the list because I don’t even get the slightest whiff of homosexuality from them.
10. Glinda
You’re probably thinking, “no way, Glinda is giving high femme.” and you’re wrong. Glinda is an ally, she’s definitely the art teacher or English teacher you ate lunch with as a young closeted queer but she’s not really giving alphabet mafia vibes now is she?? Glinda is proud of you for bringing a girl to the prom that she is chaperoning, that’s it.
9. Toto
We are encroaching on gay energy now. Toto is yappy which translates to being smart-mouthed, and we gays are known for our quick wit. Also a little ugly dog is the gay person’s favorite accessory, so Toto is a little queer by association.
8. The Wizard of Oz
Hiding, pretending to be someone you’re not, is a smidgen gay. Making grand, swooping gestures and promises from behind an emerald curtain is giving showmanship, performance, drama!
7. Dorothy Gale
Dorothy might appear stick straight but there’s a little something about her that gives me closeted vibes. I think she has this yearning, especially the yearning for a different life, that makes her kinda dykey. Also, rounding up a clan of well-meaning, but incompetent, men and leading them is giving ultimate utilitarian lesbian big time.
6. The Scarecrow
The scarecrow is DL and I won’t be elaborating.
Yearning for a brain? Okay, queen.
5. The Tin Man
The Tin Man seems like a nice older gay man with a husband and a couple dogs. Also, and this is important, I played the Tin Man in an elementary school production of Oz and everyone knows I’m the biggest dyke of all time so the Tin Man is gay. I rocked my lil gray sweatsuit and said my lines!
4. The Flying Monkeys
You’re gonna look at me and tell me they aren’t giving chaotic bisexual energy? In their cute little outfits, flying around?! Anything that can fly is gay. This is not a rule I made up even though it sounds like it is. You ever seen a hummingbird? Flitting around like that is queer, its top of the list of gay activities!
3. Wicked Witch of the West
She’s a bitter dyke, a lesbian villain, only governed by her thirst for revenge. In all black and again…FLYING!! Also: poppies… POPPERS?!?! You see where I’m going with this. Wicked Witch of the West is like the perpetually single lesbian in your life that’s over it but doesn’t enjoy dating enough to get back out there. She’s catty, mean, quick with one-liners. Gay.
2. Wicked Witch of the East
Dead.
1. The Cowardly Lion
He talks with such a flourish, rolling his R’s in an unnecessary fashion, the little bow in his mane. The Cowardly Lion is the gayest of them all. I must come back to the yearning, he feels like he has to be this masculine, fearless lion because of the narrative about his species but he’s a darling who loves to break out into song.
Also when they all finally meet and decide to go see the Wizard and sing their little song, the part where they go:
“I’m sure to get a brain (The Scarecrow)
or a heart (the Tin Man)
a home (Dorothy)”
and then he comes in with “the NERVE (pronounced NEY-ve)” is so fucking funny and gay oh my god. His growls and purrs have me on the floor. Purring is gay, it just is. We have claimed it. He’s also has a perpetual case of limp wrist.
I could go on and on but who’s got the time. He is the King of the Forest, and the King of my Heart, and that’s that on that.
What were your comfort movies as a kid? What’s your ranking? Let me know in the comments!
A List of 10 Gay Mushrooms
Mushrooms are gay, right? I feel like this is a widely acknowledged truth, but has been sorely lacking documented evidence, until now!
We’re getting to that time of year when many of us gather with family and other people we don’t want to be stuck around a dinner table with, looking for awkward topics to argue about. Why not gay mushrooms? With this extremely scientific list, you will be equipped to win any mycological debate in your household! Feel free to chime in in the comments with your fave queer fungi!
Amethyst Deceiver (Laccaria amethystina)
Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
It sounds like a queer-coded Batman villain. It is bright purple. This mushroom is deceiving absolutely no one about its extreme homosexuality.
Veiled Lady (Phallus indusiatus)
Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images
Found in abundance on 19th century beaches, staring at each other with barely repressed sapphic longing.
Wood Blewit (Clitocybe nuda)
With hues from blue to pink to purple, it would be easy to declare this to be a bisexual mushroom. So I’m going to do exactly that. Also, both its common and Latin names are gently evocative of sex acts across genders, which is surely a win for bi visibility.
Witch’s Butter (Dacrymyces palmatus)
Witches are gay, butter is gay (especially if it’s nut). In Eastern European legend, having this fungus appear on your house meant you’d been cursed by a witch. Curses are gay, too!
Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea)
Photo by: Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
This puffball reclaimed all the gay slurs thrown at it in the playground, joined a gym and now works security at the gay forest.
Ghost Fungus (Omphalotus nidiformis)
You partied all night with this club kid and never heard from them again. Your friends will be very patient during the three years you spend obsessing over this.
Schizophyllum commune
If you thought you were winning at defying the gender binary, think again – this beauty apparently has over 23,000 sexes. That’s a different one every day for 63 years!
Violet Coral Mushroom (Clavaria zollingeri)
Probably there are many naturally occurring sex toys, but this is the only one that is the correct shade of Sex Toy Pink.
Cryptococcus gattii
According to cishet reporting, this fungus caused an infection outbreak because of gay sex, conveniently forgetting all the destruction straight fungus has wrought on the world. Homophobic!
Lion’s Mane Mushroom (Hericium erinaceus)
This mushroom was last seen in a lesbian club circa 2006 wearing a vest and skinny tie.
10 Self Help Books Whose Titles Healed Me Without Having to Actually Read Them
I have a confession to make: I have never read more than one full chapter of a self-help book. Listen: I know they’re wildly popular. Self-Help is a many-billion dollar industry, and I’m sure many people are helped by the books they’ve read. Queer people are famous for helping ourselves, and we love to read! What could be better than doing both at once?
But when I try to read a self-help book, I get just about through the introduction before I remember: they’re long! They’re repetitive! And they’re often dry as toast! Is reading nonfiction case histories of women who love too much really what I want to do with my one wild and precious life?
Luckily, I have a hack for that. I was complaining to a friend once, and she laughed. “The best self-help books can help you just with their titles,” she said. “I never need to read any more than that.” She’s a genius! She TL:DR’d the industry!
And so, without endorsement of these books, or even admission to having read a single word, may I present: the top ten most useful self-help books that may help you without ever having to crack their spines!
10. Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus
This famous little gem (just barely) made the list because it teaches us what Autostraddle’s Straight People Watch so helpfully pointed out to us back in the day: The Straights are NOT okay. The guy who wrote this really took the idea of “irreconcilable differences” and flew with it, didn’t he?
9. Thriving As An Empath
When I think of “empaths,” I think of Deanna Troi on the USS Enterprise, using her Betazoid powers to inform the captain that the alien who is yelling at them “feels great anger.” The thing I learned from THIS title is to feel slightly wary of anyone I see reading it.
8. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Not trying to stir the pot on this one, but it seems like this concept — that parents can, indeed, be emotionally immature — is helpful to many people I know. Parents! They’re messy! Just like us!
7. Good Vibes, Good Life
Seems good! Vague, but good! This book is the self-help equivalent of a morning at the beach. Waves are lapping at the shore, someone’s playing a ukelele, you just got handed a beverage of choice from a bright blue cooler…can’t argue with this one.
6. Do the Work!
Ok! I will!
It’s amazing how often this is the whole entire answer to a problem.
5. Stop Overthinking
Whoever wrote this one has clearly seen my Google search history late at night. It’ll start with something innocuous like “can dogs have bananas” and pretty soon we’ll be into “canine defibrillator — home use?” territory. Someone should really take away my phone after 11 p.m.! Since I’m an adult, the person who should do that is, well, me. But I would gladly download an app that pops up every thirty minutes when my screen is on after dark to yell STOP! OVER! THINKING! in a very authoritative voice. Definitely someone with a British accent. Gillian Anderson? Jodie Comer? Help me out here, app developers!
4. How to Succeed by Faking It
Because fuck imposter syndrome! You’re hot and smart and you work hard at the things you do! You’re a good friend and your art is worth making and you are enough! Until those things feel true, you can just pretend they do, and do the damn thing anyway.
P.S. There is a typo in this book’s subtitle, which is “Fake It Until You Make It, Look and Act Confidence.” I feel like the author REALLY lives this particular message!
3. Set Boundaries, Find Peace
I live fewer than ten miles away from most of my extended family. I should print this on a bumper sticker and slap it on my Honda.
I love boundaries. I’ve always loved boundaries. Years ago, before I came out, I walled myself off and called those walls boundaries — even close friends knew so very little about me. But with a lot of work, I dismantled the walls! Then I had to learn what healthy boundaries really looked like when I was letting people in, seeing the real me. It’s a process, always. Boundaries, generally: I’m their #1 fan!
2. You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!
This book was recommended to me by the psychiatrist who gave me my ADHD diagnosis. Before I met with him, I’d felt crazy, stupid, and lazy for approximately twenty-nine years, ever since I stopped being able to turn in finished homework assignment in the second grade. I’d been called lazy a few times over, too. But surprise! Turns out I’m just neurospicy! Congratulations to me!
1. You Are Not the Target
Fabulous advice, and advice I really wish I’d been able to metabolize in my early twenties. Coworker sighing loudly? You are not the target. Somebody acting irrationally angry? You are not the target. That old saying about how “everybody is fighting battles you don’t know about” is true, but no one ever says the next part, where those battles mean that a lot of people are going to act like assholes in your direction. Which sucks! And they shouldn’t do it! But whatever they’re going through? It’s probably not about you, and it’s probably not your job (or in your capacity) to fix it.