In 1994, HBO made More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter, an episode of “Lifestories: Families in Crisis,” a series which was HBO’s answer to the afterschool special. Mostly based on true stories, each episode tackled a new “issue” such as AIDS, bulimia or sexual abuse. In one episode, Ben Affleck plays a football player addicted to steroids.

In More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter, Sabrina Llyod plays Heidi Leiter, a nice teenage girl with a girlfriend named Missy, played by Kate Anthony. In the first scene, the two girls play basketball and smile at each other like people in love. They’re both very fresh-faced, with shiny hair and sanitized smiles. Heidi’s younger sister is played by Claire Danes, who is, incidentally, basically playing Danielle Chase in this film.

Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.

It’s supposed to be a story of triumph because they go to prom together and nobody dies or punches them in the face (in that scene). But they don’t really seem to be having fun, you know? Maybe that was the thing — you were allowed to be gay and go to things, but you weren’t necessarily allowed to be happy about it.

The first kiss between two women on television happened in 1991 on LA Law and the first kiss between two lesbian characters happened in 1996 on the short-lived drama Relativity. There were some more made-for-tv movies around this time, like about lesbian serial killer Aileen Wournos, lesbian supermodel drug addict Gia, and a lesbian who got kicked out of the army and then sued to get back in named Margarethe Cammermeyer. Glen Close played Margarethe Cammermeyer, and the movie was a big deal.

In 2000, Lifetime made The Truth About Jane. Lifetime movies are like after-school specials for adults.

Like all the other after-school specials here, Jane is white, smart and well-behaved.  She’s played by Ellen Muth and her Mom Janice is played by Stockard Channing, bless her heart. Even RuPaul was involved, as Janice’s gay friend Jimmy.

Jane leads the story via voiceover, which maybe serves to put you on her team from the start. You can watch the entire movie online if you haven’t already seen it. The movie is really suburban and it was that part of fashion history where everybody was sort of just wearing their pajamas.

Jane’s outed when her brother catches her kissing this girl Taylor that she’s really into. The girl is into her too, but it fades. When Janice confronts Jane, Jane deflects because she knows it’s what her mother wanted to hear.

Jane voiceovers: “When I said it was a phase, it wasn’t, I was gay, with or without Taylor. I knew it deep down the whole time but what my Mom didn’t know was that I was exactly as I was meant to be, whether she liked it or not.”

In the clip below, Jane “comes out” and her mother isn’t happy about it:

Janice goes batshit for the rest of the episode, while others try to talk her down. Jane engages in risky behavior, cries, wears overalls, and eventually bonds with a lesbian teacher played by Kirsten from The O.C. When shit hits the fan, Mom is forced to change, not Jane, and in the final scene Janice shows up at a Pride Rally sponsored by PFLAG — a move that’s almost a trope, now, as it’s since been done by Spencer’s Mom on South of Nowhere and Justin’s Mom in Queer as Folk.

So here we are, we’ve come full circle from The Truth About Alex to The Truth About Jane. Our truths have changed, some things are changing and getting better. It is the year 2000. We have Willow & Tara on Buffy, and that woman on ER, and Queer as Folk starts on Showtime. HBO airs If These Walls Could Talk 2 and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her.

The Truth About Jane ends like it began, with a voiceover: “The amazing thing about change is that everyone can do it, even the people you least expect it from My mother was finally exactly the person she was meant to be, I was so proud of how well she had grown.”