18 Juicy Queer Love Triangles From Television
Call me a simple gay, but I sure am a sucker for a really good love triangle. Who isn’t? It’s a classic trope for a reason. And the queer ones are always the best ones, so I figured I’d revisit some standout examples from television through the years.
As tends to happen when I write lists like this, I started way overthinking the definitions of “love triangle” and “queer love triangle.” Initially, I set out to only include love triangles that didn’t involve cis men at all, but that didn’t feel right — or fair to bisexuals! So in the instances of queer love triangles that feature cis and (ostensibly?) straight men, I stuck to ones in which the two women involved have a romance together at some point. You would think this would be obvious, but it meant ruling out a love triangle like Riverdale‘s Jughead/Betty/Toni, because even though Betty and Toni are both bisexual (Toni, explicitly so, and Betty a little more nebulously but in a manner I’d still consider canon), they never have a thing together, thus sparking my realization that perhaps the definition of “queer love triangle” is not simply “a love triangle featuring queer characters” but a love triangle in which queerness is acted upon within that triangle and fully at the surface. Meanwhile, I also couldn’t bring myself to include Cheryl/Toni/Jughead, because while Cheryl/Toni happens and Toni/Jughead happens, there is never really tension between who Toni might choose. It was more like Toni/Jughead naturally ended and then Toni/Cheryl got together. There’s queerness there, but it doesn’t have the trajectory of a love triangle! Few shows do love triangles (which at this point have so thoroughly transcended that particular geometry to look something more like love…helixes?) as well as Riverdale, which is also full of lesbian and bisexual characters, but I just couldn’t quite pinpoint a combination that worked for the purposes of this list!
After spending probably too much time crafting my own definition of and “rules” for this queer love triangle list, I inevitably will deviate at some point, because I’ve never been particularly good at sticking to definitions, even the ones I construct myself. If you’d like to argue with me over what “counts” and doesn’t count as a love triangle, by all means, do so! I’m highlighting the character combinations that feel like queer love triangles to me. And that’s my longwinded disclaimer!!!!
Niko/Mel/Jada, Charmed
I meeeean, three witches of color in a love triangle together? This is my catnip, this is my religion, this is my anthem.
Lauren/Bo/Dyson, Lost Girl
Most of the time, I’m like GET OUTTA HERE DYSON! But truth be told, I do like the tension of this triangle, even if broody Dyson has to be involved. I’m now fondly recalling a simpler time on tumblr when my friends and I would photoshop his face onto vacuums. Take me back!
Ryan/Sophie/Montoya, Batwoman
I know this is controversial, and I’m sorry!!! Sometimes love triangles are long drawn-out things, and other times, they are…let’s call them isosceles love triangles? What Sophie and Montoya had was brief, but it was real, and it intercepted Ryan/Sophie in a dramatic way!
Villanelle/Eve/Hélène, Killing Eve
Yes, they COUNT! Wives who stab each other belong together, I’m always saying. Both of these deadly women are obsessed with Eve! It is a fact.
Rose/Luisa/Susanna, Jane the Virgin
This is not REALLY a love triangle for reasons that are extreme spoilers, but I’m counting it since it still plays out like one! Because I am Me, I was always rooting for the ill-advised ship of Luisa/Rose and in fact have lost many precious hours (days?) of my life to consuming fan-made literature and art about them, but it sure was fun when the show explicitly about love triangles started introducing lesbian ones (again…sorta…there’s definitely a soap opera twist to this one). Also, I kept trying to figure out a way to get Petra and JR on this list, but they never felt like they were in a love triangle really! Jane was so done with Rafael by then.
Dani/Sophie/Finley, The L Word: Generation Q
So, even though this particular love triangle was not my cup of tea (I don’t get Sinley, I’m sorry!), I’d be remiss not to include them on this list. Although, I do think it should have been a rule on Generation Q that if you were in a love triangle, you also had to have a threesome. Which brings me to…
Alice/Nat/Gigi, The L Word: Generation Q
A love triangle that had a threesome together is a love triangle I enthusiastically endorse. That’s my political platform!
Tina/Bette/Jodi, The L Word
Sure, there were probably a lot of love triangles I could have selected for the original The L Word, but this remains a favorite! Sorry to her haters and to mine, but Jodi’s introduction into season four of The L Word remains one of my favorite arcs, and the Bette/Jodi sex scene IN Jodi’s art installation is top tier — emphasis on top since I do believe the only reason these two didn’t work out is because they’re top4top.
Tasha/Alice/Jamie, The L Word
Okay, yes, one more L Word universe entry. This love triangle was a doozy! What can I say, I’m addicted to emotional pain in my queer romantic storylines. 🥰
Idina/Hattie/Ida B., Twenties
One of the many love triangles on this list that screams MESS!!! And it’s no surprise Hattie is at the center of this particularly steamy three-sided polygon. Autostraddle EIC Carmen aptly pointed out that once upon a time there were TWO television shows airing on THE SAME NIGHT that featured love triangles comprising three queer Black women (Twenties and the aforementioned Batwoman) and WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!!!!!!
Rue/Jules/Elliot, Euphoria
Here’s another show where “triangle” doesn’t really geometrically cut it when considering the shape of all the various intersecting and complex relationships, but this particular combo does count as a love triangle imo!
Lana/Kalinda/Cary, The Good Wife
Now, did this love triangle actually go anywhere? Not really! But Kalinda Sharma remains one of my favorite queer characters of all time, and I was equally invested in both of these relationships.
Emily/Sue/Austin, Dickinson
I am a big fan of this hyperspecific trope: a brother and sister who are both in love with the same woman, who loves them each (in different ways) as well. I mean, hello, I am marrying the author of Mostly Dead Things.
Forrest/Billie/Ivy, The Lake
Here we have another, albeit narratively distinct, iteration of the queer love triangle that involves siblings!
Spencer/Ashley/Aiden, South of Nowhere
Throwing it way back with this particular triangle! In the five years later special webisode for this series, it is revealed that this love triangle makes a baby together?! Ashley is pregnant as a result of Spencer donating an egg and Aiden donating sperm! That’s a beautiful love triangle development right there!
Amy/Karma/Liam, Faking It
Whewwwww this love triangle was MESSY! In a good way! It had so many twists and turns that I genuinely didn’t see coming!
Kat/Adena/Coco, The Bold Type
Adena has to decide between Kat and Coco on more than one occasion, and it’s DRAMA every time!
Sam/Brittany/Santana, Glee
I will be a Brittana shipper til the day I die, but I’ll take a little drama in the form of a love triangle even when it comes to them. Also, “Trouty Mouth” lives in infamy.
What are your favorite love triangles from television?
Revisiting Iconic Pride Scenes From Film and Television
Pride month is nearing, and I thought it might be fun to look at on-screen depictions of Pride through the years. It turns out…there aren’t that many? I thought perhaps there was just a gap in my knowledge, but even when I tapped other queer film/tv critics to assist with this list, it didn’t get much longer! I thought surely there’d be DOZENS? Where is the 200 Cigarettes-esque multistory, sprawling cast Pride comedy we deserve?! Actually, don’t take that idea. I might wanna do that idea.
Also, I’m hoping the Billy Porter-directed teen comedy set at Pride being made by Gabrielle Union’s production company is still in the works, but I feel like I haven’t heard any new information about it in a couple years.
I do think part of the reason it’s rare to find Pride scenes is because of budget reasons! It’d be expensive and difficult to film a Pride parade or major event in a way that feels realistic. It makes sense to me that Sense8 is on this list twice given the sheer size of that show’s large-scale production budget! Also, it makes sense to me that a lot of Pride scenes film at actual Pride events rather than staging them. Some shows have referenced Gay Pride even if they don’t explicitly show Pride events, like Pose and Generation Q.
Here are some of the (rare!) moments from film and television that explicitly depict Pride celebrations. I’m sure I missed some though, so be sure to shout them out in the comments!
Pride docuseries
Okay, this is an obvious one to include, but the 2021 FX docuseries Pride documents LGBTQ+ resistance and activism from the 1950s to the 2000s. It’s worth a watch! I’m skipping over some documentaries on this list, because I’m going to do a separate Pride piece that centers docs, but this series feels right to include on this list as a starting point.
Pride (2014)
This movie really captures the political and activism aspects of Gay Pride, focusing on the group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, which advocated for a Welsh mining community. Collective action! Protesting! Being loud and proud and fighting the system! This is what Pride’s all about.
The Truth About Jane (2000)
Ah, yes, the time Stockard Channing plays mother to a teen lesbian coming out the closet and does not take it well but then eventually goes to a Pride parade as she learns to accept her gay daughter! I wish this very 2000 movie hadn’t made me cry when I watched it the first time, but ALAS!!!!!! We get to see the parade from young Jane’s POV, and it got me. She’s taking it all in — the signs, the shirts, the smiling and cheering queers living out and proud. The movie is free to stream online.
BPM (2017)
Set in 1990s France, the French movie BPM follows ACT UP Paris activists. There’s a lot to love about this movie, and I in particular am drawn to the tension within the group about how to best show up for Pride. Some members want to take a more serious approach to mourn lives lost, but some of our central characters want to take a more joyful and cheerful approach to celebrating queer lives. I think this tension and plurality ties very well into the theme of Autostraddle’s Pride package this year, which will be revealed soon 👀
South of Nowhere, “Gay Pride”
The third season of South of Nowhere indeed featured an episode literally called “Gay Pride,” which saw the return of the show’s popular ship “Spashley.” Just typing “Spashley” awakened something dormant in me.
Queer as Folk, “Pride”
The Pride episode of Queer as Folk aired in 2002 and is centered on the characters attending Pittsburgh’s Gay Pride parade. It has it all! Pride ex drama! Baby gay first Pride fears! Dykes on bikes!
The L Word, “Loud & Proud“
Given the subject matter and scope, it’s a little surprising we don’t have like…75 episodes of The L Word to choose from when it comes to on-screen depictions of Pride. Instead, we pretty much just have season two, episode 11, “Loud & Proud.” We head to West Hollywood Pride in the episode, and I’d say that the most Pride thing about this episode are the outfits that make you experience a full spectrum of reactions. Alice at one point is in a red terrycloth romper and a rainbow boa, and it all makes you go “huh” but also “could be cute?” What is Pride if not perplexing fashion-wise!
Harlem, “Pride”
In Harlem‘s second season, Tye takes Quinn to her first Pride after coming out — she comes dressed wig-to-toe in a homemade outfit! — and the comedy of errors of one of the longest days on the queer calendar is not quite what Quinn expected. Meanwhile, Tye ends up on a journey of self-discovery, confronts her past, and grapples with what her legacy means as a queer small business owner in service of her community. It’s joy-filled but also nuanced look at the range of feelings queer people have about Pride, and is also one of the only depictions of Black community celebrations of Pride on television.
Boomerang, “Family”
Like Harlem, Lena Waithe’s Boomerang stands out by focusing its depiction of Pride on voice and celebrations that are often otherwise left at the margins — this time on Atlanta’s annual Black Pride festival. This is what Carmen had to say when the episode first aired in 2019:
“Most striking is that we not only see Tia and Ari comfortable in their own Black queer skin, but that the director chooses to highlight – via portrait style close ups – a variety of festival goers. Black trans women and men, Black studs and butches, Black femmes of all genders, Black drag performers, Black masc gay men – the whole family is accounted for. And we’re happy, we’re smiling, we’re…. Proud. There is not a single second in the episodes 22 minute run time where Black queer folks are asked to check any part of ourselves at the door. It’s unforgettable and, quite frankly, revolutionary.”
Vanderpump Rules, “Your Pride’s Showing”
While I won’t include every single Bravo Pride moment (because a lot of them center straight women!), this Vanderpump Rules episode from season eight is important, because it was the first Pride episode of VPR that main cast member Ariana Madix was out as bisexual for. In fact, I wrote about it when it first aired. Newer (and short-lived) cast member Dayna (pictured above) also came out as bisexual at Pride that year. Now is when I must confess that my fiancé Kristen and I have a deranged annual Pride tradition — that we do on the morning of Orlando Pride, which doesn’t happen until October — of watching all the Pride episodes of Vanderpump Rules. Yes, Pride episodes are an annual tradition for this show (though they’ve sadly stopped doing them recently), and yes they often focus way more on the straight cast members’ drama than the actual queer ones, but they still just really capture the vibe of Pride.
Real Housewives of Atlanta, “The Float Goes On”
My favorite thing about this episode is that it airs one episode after Cynthia Bailey’s daughter Noelle opens up about being sexually fluid to her mom in a really sweet scene. Then just one episode later, we get to see them going to New York for World Pride together! There are some classic Housewives shenanigans that go down on the float unfortunately, but I like that it’s also a touching mother daughter moment between Cynthia and Noelle!
Southern Hospitality, “Pride and Peanut Butter”
This is one of my favorite Pride episodes on Bravo, because it’s the one that manages to center LGBTQ+ cast members the most. There are still some straight shenanigans (I won’t even explain what the “peanut butter” in the title means, but you can Google it”), but for the most part, this episode really is about Mikel and TJ, the show’s queer main cast members — who also are kind of frenemies but still come together in this episode to throw a killer Pride party. Mikel’s coming out journey is documented across the season as he reckons with his religious upbringing and familial relationships. TJ opens up in the episode about how he never really formally came out to his parents. It’s a really moving depiction of a range of queer experiences in the South, and the whole time I was watching it, I was mumbling “Vanderpump Rules could never.”
Sense8, “Isolated Above, Connected Below”
The sixth episode of Sense8‘s second season features the previously closeted Lito making the boldest public declaration of his own queerness by participating in São Paulo’s Pride parade. The scene was filmed at São Paolo’s actual Pride celebrations!!!!! It has all the hallmarks of a big, spectacular Sense8 set piece while also being…real! It’s such a celebratory and fun scene that it would easily be one of my favorite on-screen Pride moments of all time if it weren’t for the fact that Sense8 had already topped it a season before, which brings us to…
Sense8, “Limbic Resonance”
I have saved the best for last. This is easily my favorite Pride scene of all time as well as the moment I first fell in love with Sense8. It happens in the first few minutes of the show’s pilot. Amanita fucks Nomi with a rainbow strap-on, takes it off, and wishes her gorgeous girlfriend a happy Pride. It’s a lovely, hot, wet scene of intimate and joyful queer and trans sex. Happy Pride indeed!!!!
Later, we see Nomi and Amanita out and about celebrating Pride, and they reflect on their first Pride together. It’s really sweet and sweetly real! This is why I’m surprised Pride doesn’t crop up in film and television more often! Sure, there are plenty of individuals and couples who don’t make a point to attend designated Pride events on the regular, but it’s a big part of a lot of queer people’s lives! Even just complaining about [corporate] Pride is a big part of being queer! Nomi and Amanita always felt like a strikingly realistic lesbian couple to me, and the fact that we meet them on Pride and they reflect on their first Pride together actually heightens that!
From Willow to Waverly: A Decade of Being Out and Me and Queer TV
Ten years ago today, on December 27th, 2009, I was in the car with my parents, about two hours into our five-hour trek from Boston to New York, when I told them I’m gay.
I always claim this as the date of my coming out, even though they weren’t the first people I told, nor the last I would have to. It wasn’t the day I figured it out, or the day I accepted it. It was just the day I told my parents, so it was the day I stopped hiding it, so it felt like an important milestone in the journey.
But if I’m being honest, I have at least two decades of milestones. And most of my other milestones involve fictional characters’ milestones.
I Think I’m Kinda Gay (1997-2004)
I was basically raised by TV. My dad had a full-time job and my mom worked two jobs from home, so the TV and I got close really quickly. Elmo taught me how to read, Barney was my first babysitter. Kimberly from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was my first crush, though I wouldn’t realize that until many years later.
Though I’m sure I was exposed to LGBTQ+ characters before this, just by the sheer amount of TV I watched, the first real queer characters in my life were Willow and Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Bianca Montgomery on All My Children. Funnily enough, Tara first appeared on Buffy in December in 1999, ten years before I came out, twenty years ago this month. I was twelve years old, and I had already been loving Willow (and the rest of the Scoobies) for two years. A kind of awkward nerd whose intelligence was her superpower? I loved Willow — and when Tara appeared and her chemistry with Willow sparked on my screen, I was enamored. Enchanted. Here was one of my favorite TV characters falling in love with another woman, and it was beautiful. It probably helped that my dad, my Buffy buddy, and the reason I was even “allowed” to watch the show in the first place (I found out later my mother had declared me too young to watch it but my dad and I had already watched half a season and he didn’t want to keep watching alone) didn’t really react to it.
When I did come out to him, in that car in 2009, he claimed to have always known. “I watched Buffy with you,” was his response, when I asked how he could possibly have known what I was only now coming to terms with. And in retrospect the drooling over Faith I thought totally normal and the heart-eyes over Willow and Tara were probably a dead giveaway to a perceptive father.
In December 2000, I was sitting at the kitchen counter watching All My Children with my mother (a common activity of my childhood, which in retrospect is a little ironic considering her chiding my father for letting me watch Buffy), when Bianca Montgomery came out to her mother. My eyes grew wider and wider as I watched Susan Lucci lose her mind about it. I asked my mother why Erica was so upset, and her explaining that some people approve of girls liking girls, or boys liking boys. I didn’t ask any follow up questions, this answer rattled around too loudly in my brain to process any more conversation.
When Tara and Willow kissed on screen for the first time a few months later, it was a warm, bright light in the middle of the darkest hour of television I had seen to date. It hit me hard like the truth, like a lightning bolt right to the heart.
At the time, I was in eighth grade at my small Catholic school. There were 18 kids in my class, most of them I’d known since I was five. We were at the age where the girls had moved on from the boys having cooties, but I was still there. They teased me for not having a boyfriend to the point where the year before, a friend of mine said he’d pretend to be my boyfriend so they would leave me alone. Despite having so few girls in the grade, cliques were starting to form anyway, and while I used to be able to seamlessly shift from one group of friends to another, I was feeling more and more isolated from my peers. Until she showed up. We’ll call her Madeline. She was new and she was different and I was fascinated by her extra-long hair and her unencumbered laugh and the way the bangles on her wrist tinkled when she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She wasn’t hyper-feminine like the mean girls in my class were trying to be, rolling up their uniforms and coordinating matching hairdos. She was unique.
Every year, my elementary school took the 8th graders on a trip to Washington, DC. Despite the fact that the majority of us had known each other for 75% of our lives, it was the longest most of us had spent together at one time. We were all at the precipice of change in so many ways. Puberty was running rampant. We were weeks away from leaving the only school we’d known and splitting up to go to different high schools, where our homerooms alone would have more students than our entire grade. We were in a different state and staying in hotels and barely supervised. Our very skin was thrumming with the excitement of it all. On one of the last nights of the trip, we went on a dinner cruise. We got all dressed up and got on a boat that would sail out for a few hours before redocking. It all seemed very grown-up and romantic. We were on the cruise with other eighth grade classes from other cities around the country, so it was basically like the biggest middle-school dance we’d ever been to.
Maybe I should have known because of how Willow and Tara made me feel. But watching my friend kiss someone else was the tipping point. The moment I knew that I liked girls in a different way than my friends did.
At one point I lost track of Madeline, and asked another kid in our class where she was. He pointed, and I looked, and there she was, slow dancing with some boy from another school. And kissing him. It hit me hard like the truth, like a lightning bolt right to the heart. That was the moment I knew. Maybe I should have already known. Maybe I should have known when I started hating the Green Ranger after he started dating Kimberly. Maybe I should have known because of my recent investment in Bianca Montgomery. Maybe I should have known because of how Willow and Tara made me feel. But watching my friend kiss someone else was the tipping point. The moment I knew that I liked girls in a different way than my friends did.
It would be a long time until I really came to terms with it. While it never really came up in elementary school, my Catholic high school did the work to let me know that being gay was wrong and really barricaded that closet door for me. I spent those four years in extreme denial, though in retrospect it’s almost laughable that I thought I was fooling anyone. I was still obsessed with Willow and Tara; before “Once More with Feeling” aired, the WB released “Under Your Spell” early and I listened to it non-stop until the episode aired. I was obsessed with the ladies of Buffy and Charmed and Roswell. Where my peers had boy bands and teen heartthrobs, I had the mythical ladies of The WB’s supernatural shows I ripped from magazines plastered all over my bedroom walls.
But still I fought against it. The guilt and fear was driven deep in me, and while I’d be the first to point out to my religion teacher that saying we should love our neighbors but then have exceptions for non-Christians and gay people felt counter-intuitive, I was also the first to deny it when anyone so much as hinted on me and my best friend being an item, despite the fact that she was always sitting on my lap or holding my hand. Though I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to daydream about kissing girls, I wouldn’t even let my imagination get away with being gay, not fully. I would always imagine scenarios where we had to kiss. Usually truth or dare or spin the bottle. It was the only way I could let myself imagine it, if it didn’t really “count.” It’s not like I WANTED to kiss girls… but on TV plenty of straight girls kissed girls during party games, and it was fine. No one made a big deal of it. No one had to come out and cause drama and lose friends. I was in denial so deep I was hiding the truth from even myself.
Women Who Long, Love, Lust (2005-2008)
When I got to college in 2005, I didn’t have a TV, so I wasn’t really watching the weekly serial dramas anymore. (I call it “the dark years” when people now ask me if I’ve seen shows that are absolutely in my wheelhouse and I 100% would have loved if I saw them, like Fringe and Dexter.) But I didn’t avoid TV altogether. My friends had OC watch parties, and while I mostly avoided them, I did “happen” to catch all the Olivia Wilde episodes. I went to NYU, in the heart of New York City, where somehow being into girls didn’t seem like quite as big and scary as a concept as it had for years. So I slowly started to experiment with telling my friends I might be into girls… to mixed reactions. Mostly hand-waving “everyone feels that way in college, you’ll get over it” kind of reactions. And then, in my freshman year I heard about this show called The L Word. (Funnily enough, according to my LiveJournal, it was December 2005. There’s just something about December…)
I quickly became obsessed. The first two seasons had already aired, and I watched them both by the time the third season started airing in January. I devoured the episodes in my dorm room, hiding under my covers and making sure I had my headphones in so my roommate didn’t think I was watching porn. I liked it in a different way than I liked other shows, and it came to me at the time I think I needed it most. My friends weren’t being particularly supportive of my newly expressed queerness, but this show was validating my feelings in a way they weren’t. It still felt scary, though.
One time I got in the elevator and there was a girl there with a bleach-blonde pixie cut and a nose ring and she was just holding the bright pink case of The L Word DVDs and my heart almost beat full out of my chest — and I wasn’t even the one holding them! I had a crush on a girl in my Spanish class, and we ended up having an entire coded conversation where we came out to each other by comparing ourselves to L Word characters. (She ended up having a girlfriend so nothing happened but it was kind of validating to have the first girl I openly admitted to having a crush on actually be queer.)
At the end of my Freshman year, I mentioned something about being into girls again, and one of the friends who had been hand-wavey about it all along scoffed. “You’re still going on about that?” I had finally taken down the bars my high school experience had built across my closet door, but as soon as I started to creep the door open, I had it slammed in my face. I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, and I stayed in that closet for a few more years.
One time I got in the elevator and there was a girl there with a bleach-blonde pixie cut and a nose ring and she was just holding the bright pink case of The L Word DVDs and my heart almost beat full out of my chest — and I wasn’t even the one holding them!
But then I met Bernadette. It was fall 2008, the first semester of my senior year of college, and I had just started a job at Barnes & Noble. I don’t really believe in love at first sight, but something definitely sparked in that first interaction. Something about her intrigued me. Something inside me was screaming for me to continue the conversation, where normally my social anxiety would be screaming for me to get out of it. So I did. I started talking about something, anything to keep talking to her. She must have felt the magnetic pull too, because before long we had exchanged numbers and became Facebook friends. I saw on her page that she liked Buffy, and I told her I had all the DVDs, so we made plans for her to come over to my dorm and watch.
The night before she came over, I was a wreck. I cleaned more than I had ever cleaned before, I was a bundle of nerves, I couldn’t sleep. We had only known each other for a few weeks but I couldn’t stop thinking about her, thinking about every time she put her hand on the small of my back when she walked by me, thinking about every time she brushed my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear. I Googled “what does being in love feel like” and read that it felt sort of like being on cocaine, which I had never done, but the symptoms tracked. When she came over, we watched hours and hours of Buffy, sitting closer and closer on the bed every time one of us got up and sat back down, eventually ending in our hands brushing over each other’s. At 4am, we decided it was time to stop binge-ing but also too late for her to come home, so she stayed over. She fell asleep with her head resting on my shoulder and for the second night in a row, I was wide awake.
The next morning, I thought about kissing her. As we took the elevator downstairs, I thought about kissing her. As we hugged goodbye in the lobby of my dorm, I thought about kissing her. But I didn’t kiss her. I regretted it for so long. I don’t know that it would have changed anything, but it might have.
Then again, maybe it wouldn’t have, because a few weeks later, we were at work talking to a group of people and she casually mentioned that she had a boyfriend. It hit me hard like the truth, like a lightning bolt right to the heart. Did I imagine everything between us?
Well, it turns out I didn’t. We eventually talked about it plainly, and she told me that she liked me, but that she’d been dating this boy for years, that they had been friends for longer before that, that he was living across the country right now, and that she just needs time to end it. She asked me to wait for her.
So I did. I waited. But in the meantime I was out of my mind in love and in torment so I started “coming out” to my friends. I put it in quotations because it wasn’t the way I would eventually come out to my parents, with a serious conversation and a declaration. It was “I’m in love I need help” and then casually mentioning it was a girl, allowing space for any surprise (there was little) and rambling on about my confused heart. I still wasn’t sure if I was bisexual or gay, I just knew I loved Bernadette.
I went home for Christmas break that December, and they didn’t have space for me at the Barnes & Noble when I got back in January, so I got a different retail job, but we kept texting. A group of cashiers from my semester decided to get together at the end of the month, and she was acting a little strange. She wasn’t being as warm as usual, it almost felt like she was avoiding me. And then someone asked her if her boyfriend was coming. It turns out she forgot to mention that he moved to New York. The conversation shifted but she could tell I was upset. We did that thing that people always think is so sly but is actually very obvious and annoying where we texted each other despite being in the same room. She told me she had to give it another chance with him. She told me she was sorry. I told her she broke my heart. She kissed me on the cheek before she left and I thought that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t. Months went by and she still would tell me she missed me all the time. She was living with him and telling me not to give up on her, that we could still happen someday. She was still asking me to wait for her, while she did nothing to prove she was going to make good on her side of the deal. But I waited, of course I waited.
But in the meantime I had my own sexuality to reckon with. I had started telling my friends I liked girls, but what did that even mean to me? In the Fall of 2009, I moved back to New York, into my first non-dorm apartment. I was starting grad school, but it was still just the start of the semester, so I had some time on my hands. I went searching for a show that would give me the answers I sought — and honestly probably something to fill the gay void The L Word ending left — and ended up finding South of Nowhere.
I’m Not Going To Apologize For My Heart (2009-2019)
South of Nowhere ended up being a turning point for me. In one episode, Spencer talks to Ashley about maybe being gay. About how it scares her, but she thinks it’s true. Ashley tells her the truth of it: it can be great, it can suck, but one thing’s for sure, you can’t fight it. If you’re gay, you’re gay. And that’s okay. Spencer’s line of questioning mirrored my own so clearly that I knew then. I knew the truth. As the show went on, Spencer and Ashley’s relationship unclouded my vision, unmuddied my heart. I remember little moments so vividly — like Ashley kissing Spencer on the shoulder while they looked in the refrigerator for something to eat. This is what I wanted. And I wasn’t afraid of wanting it anymore.
So in December 2009, I came out to my parents. I said it plainly, and I meant it. “I’m gay.”
And then in 2010, TV started to follow suit. While South of Nowhere was really all I could find when I was looking for my next gay show in 2009*, the following year starting bearing more fruits. Lost Girl came to town with a bisexual succubus, Pretty Little Liars apparated into our lives with lesbian swimmer Emily Fields. Santana and Brittany started making out on Glee, I discovered (albeit a little late) the magic of Naomi and Emily from Skins. TV recaps and Twitter were starting to pick up popularity, so I started to find friends online who liked the same things I did. People who would squeal with me every time Santana and Brittany locked pinkies. People who also watched the Emaya Popcorn Kiss a hundred times. People who also had to find creative ways to get their weekly Doccubus fix because they didn’t live in Canada.
*It’s worth nothing here that Callie Torres was already Doing the Work on primetime TV at this point, but I hadn’t fallen into my Grey’s Anatomy addiction quite yet.
I remember little moments so vividly — like Ashley kissing Spencer on the shoulder while they looked in the refrigerator for something to eat. This is what I wanted. And I wasn’t afraid of wanting it anymore.
Pretty Little Liars fandom ended up being more important to me than the show itself. We had our own language, thanks to Heather Hogan’s recaps we all shared a love for. We had our own corner of the internet, #BooRadleyVanCullen, where we could be as weird and gay as we wanted, no judgement.
The more I was able to see myself on TV, the more I was able to see myself, full stop. I was finding context and language for things I’d always felt but never knew how to express. I felt less alone in my feelings — and even referenced Santana’s famous, “He’s just a stupid boy,” moment in my final email to Bernadette, where I explained why I couldn’t keep waiting for her.
And still, despite this uptick in queer TV, when I first started writing recaps of my own in 2012, there weren’t enough shows to cover, so I was writing about a show that only had a subtext femslash ship at the time. But then the next year, Orphan Black started, Rookie Blue‘s Gail Peck came out, and the ball kept rolling. We lived through the best of times
It’s hard to imagine that ten years ago, when I came out, I was so desperate for queer content I had to look to Canada to find anything. And while today Canada still gives us some of our queerest content, it’s not all we have. Now, when I’m with other queer people and we’re trying to describe ourselves to each other, we don’t have to do it in L Word characters alone; we have a much bigger pool to select from. Instead of trying to explain all the ways I’m like Dana Fairbanks but also not quite exactly like her, I can say I’m two parts Waverly Earp and one part Cosima Niehaus. Waverly spoke to me in similar way to how Willow spoke to me all those years before, but I know this story won’t end quite as tragically.
In fact, there’s so much queer content now that it’s almost impossible to keep up with it all. And sometimes it can feel frustrating — especially after years of being able to consume literally any and all queer content — to have to pick and choose, but at the same time it’s kind of liberating to not HAVE to watch a show just because it has queer content. It makes me so happy to think of the kids who won’t have to hide under the blankets to watch The L Word afraid people will figure them out, because there will be queer content on every channel. Teenagers won’t have to feel so guilty about wanting to kiss girls they can’t even imagine what it looks like, because they will have a wide variety of examples of what it could look like everywhere they turn.
It’s also hard to imagine that a decade after embracing the thing I had been fighting for a decade before that is now my entire life. I joke sometimes that I’m a professional lesbian because my queer identity is part of what qualifies me for one of my jobs. I get asked to be on panels about LGBTQ+ representation in the media, I’ve interviewed and met some of my favorite creators and portrayers of queer content. I’ve met most of my best friends through the TV shows we love and the queer characters we saw ourselves in. Basically what I’m saying is, in the past ten years, TV got gayer, and so did I. And I can only hope the pattern will continue in the next ten years.
Cast Full of Lesbians: 15 TV Shows That Put Queer Women First
In interviews about The L Word reboot, Ilene Chaiken often mentions her assumption, at TLW’s conclusion in 2009, that the initiative she’d begun would be taken up by future showrunners and networks — that we’d enter a bold new era of lesbian-centric programming. Gay cable channels Logo and Here! had recently launched and we were full of hope. Chaiken was, as you probably have gathered, incorrect. But – there have been some shows that symbolically picked up the torch to varying degrees and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. The headline references the “Cast Full of Gays” trope, which is a much easier list to make (e.g., Queer as Folk, Looking, Noah’s Arc, Dante’s Cove, etc.) because of the patriarchy.
The criteria for this list were as follows: the program was produced and broadcast by an actual television or streaming network (rather than picked up later by one) and is not a “webseries,” it aims for realism, the lead(s) are queer and its focus is one or more lesbian, bisexual or queer women and her/their romantic, sexual and social lives. This does not include very queer shows that are primarily about supernatural situations (e.g., Lost Girl, Wynonna Earp, Sense8) or prison life (e.g., Orange is the New Black, Bad Girls, Wentworth) or the law (e.g., How to Get Away With Murder, Janet King), but shows that are about people and their relationships first and foremost. This usually means they fall into “prime-time soap” category. However, having a lesbian or bisexual lead and being realistic isn’t enough (e.g., Everything Sucks!, Gypsy, Broad City), the queer element has to be the show’s focus and the show’s essential hook without which the show would have no argument for its own existence. I didn’t include The Fosters because the kids’ stories are given equal importance / screen time to the lesbian Moms as opposed to the more clearly defined side-plot status of the straights on the other shows in this list. Even Ellen wouldn’t count because she was ostensibly straight for the first many seasons. These are shows that put lesbian and bisexual women and their social and romantic relationships with other queer women first.
Ratings System: Percentage based on score out of 30
10 points: 1 point for every 10% of the show that is focused on queer stories
10 points: The presence of lesbian/bisexual friends, with the highest score going to shows that portray queer social groups / social life
10 points: % of lead characters who are lesbian/bisexual
The L Word, Showtime, 2004 – 2009 (95%)
Watch: On Netflix or Amazon
Leads: Jennifer Schecter (lesbian), Shane McCutcheon (lesbian), Tina Kennard (bisexual), Kit Porter (straight), Alice Pieszecki (bisexual), Bette Porter (lesbian)
As Shirley Bassey sings in a remix played during that scene in Season Two when Alice and Dana “debut” as a couple at The Planet, “where do I begin?” The answer is: right here, with The L Word. This is where we begin.
South of Nowhere, The N, 2005 – 2008 (53%)
Watch: Season One on DVD, Seasons 2 & 3 are streaming on Amazon Prime
Leads: Spencer Carlin (lesbian) & Ashley Davies (bisexual)
Secondary Leads: Spencer’s brother Glen and her parents (all heterosexual), Ashley and Spencer’s friend Aiden (heterosexual).
For a moment, when both South of Nowhere and The L Word existed at the same time on the same planet, it seemed a tide was turning and our stories had suddenly become viable television products. LOL. But so many owe their lesbian awakenings to this tender teen drama about Spencer, who moves to Los Angeles from the midwest with her family, gets a new best friend Ashley, and gradually discovers that she likes girls (including Ashley, who also likes girls). It was the first series on The N to address the topic with its primary characters, was reviewed favorably, and nominated for a GLAAD Media Award all three seasons. It started out so strong, giving us one of the first-ever femme teen couples on U.S. television, then created a very unpleasant Ashley/Aiden/Spencer love triangle and then spent entirely too much time trying to make us care about the straight characters before getting cancelled. NOBODY CARES ABOUT GLEN. Fans fought hard for a webseries following up the original program though, and got it, and the lead actresses remain regular fixtures at cons and in lesbian webseries.
Sugar Rush, Channel 4 (UK), 2005 – 2006 (60%)
Watch: On DVD or YouTube
Leads: Kim (lesbian) and Sugar (bisexual).
Secondary Leads: Kim’s parents, Nathan and Stella. (Heterosexual)
“It says something about the state of diversity in UK television that, currently, the best programme about lesbian relationships is a series from 2005,” wrote Radio Times in 2017, celebrating the release of Channel 4’s Pride Collection, further noting the “near-absence of lesbian shows in the Pride Collection” that indicated “a larger deficiency in the UK television industry.”
The series follows 15-year old Kim as she fights her burning crush on her new BFF, super bad girl Sugar, and struggles with her dysfunctional family — Mom’s shagging the carpenter while her Dad’s oblivious and heart-breakingly kind, and her brother literally believes he’s from another planet. But the focus is on Kim’s sexuality, her love for and friendship with Sugar and, later, her actual lesbian girlfriend Saint. It’s based on a YA novel you shouldn’t buy because the author is a terrible person. After two seasons the program was cancelled for mysterious reasons — a channel spokeswoman said the story of the girls had run its course, rumors suggested it was being removed to make room for Big Brother 8, and producers said the cancellation was “a last minute thing” and they were saddened to learn of it.
Curl Girls (Reality), Logo, 2007 (100%)
Watch: Online at Logo through local cable provider
Curl Girls was the first lesbian reality show on a major television channel, was part of Logo’s initial effort to actually provide lesbian representation as well as the same for gay men on their brand new cable channel. Logo described the cast like this: “Vanessa, who’ll go topless for her love of shock value; Melissa and Jessica, the on again-off again, steamy couple; Michele and Erin, the surfing pros of the group; and sexy new-girl Gingi.” They competed for a trip to Hawaii, which “strained their friendship” but apparently was not enough drama to earn the show a second season.
Exes and Ohs, Logo, 2007 – 2011 (100%)
Watch: On Amazon Prime
Leads: Jennifer (lesbian), Sam (lesbian), Kris (lesbian), Chris (lesbian).
This American/Canadian TV series, created by and starring lesbian comedian Michelle Paradise, focused on the dating life of Jennifer, a documentary filmmaker and her friends — Sam (Marnie Alton), the femme Shane of the group, animal-obsessed couple Chris (Megan Cavanagh) and Kris (Angela Featherstone) and musician Crutch (Heather Matarazzo). Based on Paradise’s short film The Ten Rules: A Lesbian Survival Guide, Exes and Ohs had the general vibe of a mediocre ’90s lesbian movie. Still, many found it charming and endearing in its own way. Plus, it’s basically the only sitcom about a group of lesbian friends to ever exist AND as far as I know, the cast was mostly or entirely queer women, too.
Gimme Sugar (Reality), Logo, 2008 – 2009 (100%)
Watch: On Logo’s website through your local cable provider
Gimme Sugar was Logo’s other reality offering for women, featuring a group of five lesbian and bisexual friends who put on Truck Stop, a hot party hosted at The Abbey in Los Angeles that I used to like a lot. Logo described it like this: “Five hot young friends on the L.A. lesbian club scene bite off more than they can chew when they try to launch and promote their own club night. If they succeed, they’ll be the youngest female promoters in LA. The girls will fight, fall in love, break apart, and come back together as they struggle to make their dream come true in this hot new reality series.” Season Two split the team between Miami and LA, a move that never really justified itself. We made fun of this show and acted like it was ridiculous until we tried to throw our own party and all of us were petty in emails and then sloppy-drunk fighting with each other at the bar the night of and realized that we lived in a glass house and shouldn’t throw stones.
Lip Service, BBC Three (UK), 2010 – 2012 (90%)
Watch: On Hulu
Season One Leads: Cat Mackenzie (lesbian), Frankie Alan (lesbian), Tess Roberts (lesbian), Sam Murray (lesbian), Sadie Anderson (lesbian), Jay Adams (heterosexual male), Ed McKenzie (heterosexual male)
Season Two Leads: Tess Roberts (lesbian), Sam Murray (lesbian), Sadie Anderson (lesbian), Lexy Price (lesbian), Ed McKenzie (heterosexual male)
The closest think we ever got to The L Word was Lip Service, a Glasgow-set drama following a group of lesbian friends: neurotic architect Cat; her best friend Frankie, a brooding Shane-esque photographer; frazzled struggling actress Tess; hot cop Sam (this is how we all discovered Heather Peace!) and notorious bad girl Sadie. Season Two introduced Sexy Lexy Price, a doctor who moved in with Tess, Frankie and Sadie. It was fun and hot and compelling, but the show never really set up the sense of a larger queer social web or the city’s scene in the same way The L Word did, mainstream critics hated it and the community’s reaction was, according to Heather Davidson, “mixed.” She also noted that the show aired on BBC Three, its “youth-oriented” channel. I recapped a handful of episodes, watched it faithfully, truly enjoyed it and never felt bored or upset (besides when Cat was killed) — but still none of the involved characters come to mind when I think of my favorites. But 12 episodes isn’t a lot of time to shine, either. “What Lip Service was interested in showing you was sex, and lots of it – sex involving razors, sex involving funeral homes, sex involving condiments,” Heather wrote. “Honestly, it was a trip.”
The Real L Word (Reality), Showtime, 2010 – 2012 (100%)
Watch: On Showtime or Amazon Prime
It is not a secret that I hated every moment of this hellshow but y’all loved my petulant recaps and our parody videos and that was great for traffic! Each season was its own specific beast: Season One was a series of barely-intersecting mini-documentaries following four different stories including, most prominently, a group of young friends heavy into the WeHo party scene and Whitney Mixter. Whitney, along with her on-again-off-again girlfriend Sara and her ex Romi, were the series’ only consistent cast members. Aside from that, we got some fresh young Los Angeles faces who all interacted with each other in Season Two (including a butch/femme couple trying to get pregnant) and for Season Three, the show split itself between New York and Los Angeles, while still making a lot of room for crossover. The show definitely had its value, though. A year after its cancellation, the franchise produced the honestly touching and revelatory mini-documentary The Real L Word Mississippi: Hate The Sin.
Candy Bar Girls, Channel 5 (UK), 2011 (100%)
Watch: on YouTube
This reality program set in The Candy Bar, a former lesbian hotspot in the Soho neighborhood of London, aimed to “follow the lives and loves of a group of young lesbians who work hard and party even harder,” promising “raunchy drama and unique characters.” A salacious promotional campaign generated controversy before the show even hit the air, but the show itself surprised at least one Guardian reviewer: “The show’s trailers were tongue-in-cheek soft porn, but the wink-wink, nudge-nudge vibe isn’t present in the show itself. Instead, we’re treated to a glimpse into the lives of a diverse group of women, whose only common link is their sexuality.” A marketing campaign that aimed to arouse straight men was maybe part of why the show didn’t last past its first season, but who can say! The program’s oft-highlighted draw was its inclusion of former Big Brother contestant Shabby Katchadourian.
Faking It, MTV, 2014 – 2016 (43%)
Watch: Amazon Prime
Leads: Amy (lesbian) & Karma (unclear)
Secondary Leads: Shane (gay male), Liam (straight male)
The premise was as horrifying as they come but the result was often downright delightful: Amy and Karma, certifiably uncool best friends, pretend to be a lesbian couple to earn popularity points at their decidedly alternative high school in Austin. Then Amy realizes she might actually be a lesbian! Amy will always be near and dear to my heart, and recapping this program was usually a joy. By the series’ end there had been a PLETHORA of missteps but also some substantial steps towards inclusivity, eventually featuring an intersex woman, trans man and bisexual man in addition to the gay man and queer woman in the lead ensemble from the jump. Much like South of Nowhere, however, it seemed like Faking It was never fully invested to going all-in on its queer audience or its straight audience, and trying to please both rather than doubling down on one might be part of why it never found its groove and earned the ratings necessary to stay on the air. Unfortunately, Season Three had finished shooting before the team got word of its cancellation, so we never really got to close the door on Karmy.
Transparent, Amazon Prime, 2014 – 2019 (60%)
Watch: On Amazon Prime
Leads: Moira Pfefferman (bisexual trans woman), Ali Pfefferman (pansexual genderqueer), Sarah Pfefferman (bisexual), Josh Pfefferman (straight male), Shelly Pfefferman (mostly-straight female)
Transparent follows the very Jewish, very neurotic Los Angeles-based Pfeffermans headed up by Moira, a trans woman coming out and into herself in her sixties and her ex-wife, Shelly. Their daughter Sarah is a bisexual mother-of-two who leaves her husband for her ex-girlfriend before returning to her husband and joining a triad and their child Ali is a sexually fluid millennial who dates their bisexual BFF Syd (Carrie Brownstein) and their lesbian teacher (Cherry Jones) before eventually discovering their genderqueer identity. It’s also one of a handful of shows ever to portray a trans woman dating a cis woman. The show garnered massive critical acclaim and broke ground in so many ways — only to have the ship sunk by Jeffrey Tambour, who controversially was cast as the trans woman lead and eventually booted for sexual harassment. After a year off to pick up the pieces, the show’s final season, in the form of a musical special, will debut this year. Still, it’s the longest-running show on this list and although it lacks a consistent group of lesbian/bisexual friends, it dips in and out of multiple queer social groups and has the unique honor of being a show wherein the most consistent “group” of queer friends are all in the same family.
One Mississippi, Amazon Prime, 2016 – 2017 (57%)
Watch: On Amazon Prime
Kate (Stephanie Allyne) and Tig (Tig Notaro)
Lead: Tig (lesbian)
Secondary Leads: Remy (straight male), Bill (straight male), Stephanie (queer)
Tig Notaro’s little masterpiece was cancelled in what I can only perceive was a personal attack on me and my happiness. But before that dark day we got two small seasons of candor, wit, insight and biting social commentary, packaged alongside a sweet lesbian love story and an exploration of a family reeling from grief and trauma.
Take My Wife, Seeso/Starz, 2016 – 2018 (80%)
Watch: On Starz via Amazon Prime
Leads: Cameron (lesbian) and River (lesbian)
I didn’t believe Take My Wife was actually a real thing when I first heard about it — what was then perceived as a funny masculine-of-center lesbian couple, with episodes of traditional length, distributed by a legit channel with wide-audience-potential, exuding professional-level production value, filmed on a set that doesn’t look like a display copy of a condo? LOL!!! But wow, Take My Wife existed and was hilarious, full of heart and, especially in Season Two, chock-full of a diverse supporting cast of other queer folks, set in the bustling queer metropolis of Los Angeles. The show lost a Season Two platform after Seeso shuttered, but was mercifully picked up by iTunes and Starz.
Strangers, Facebook Watch, 2017 – (67%)
Watch: On Facebook Watch
Leads: Isobel (bisexual) and Cam (lesbian)
Heather Hogan boldly declared that Strangers was one of the best queer shows of 2017 when its first season debuted on Facebook’s new streaming network, and Vice declared “the best queer comedy on TV right now is on Facebook.” Heather found its second season to be EVEN BETTER than the first. “The second season premiere of Strangers debuted earlier this week and it’s already as gay as it was before,” Heather wrote. “Maybe gayer! 26 minutes, two queer BFFs, four women making out (in pairs), and a serious discussion about the fact that, look, everyone is gay now.”
Vida, Starz, 2018 – 2020 (67%)
Watch: On Starz or Amazon Prime
Leads: Emma (queer) & Lyn (straight)
Secondary Leads: Eddy (lesbian), Mari (straight), Cruz (lesbian), Johnny (straight man)
Vida is the only show on this list with a straight storyline given as much screentime as the queer ones, but I’m including it anyway because it’s one of the gayest shows ever and it gets everything right! Y’all, Vida has it all! A writer’s room dominated by POC and women, a diverse cast, a plethora of queer characters and the incredibly rare feature of showcasing a POC-centric queer social web. We spend a lot of time in a queer bar in Los Angeles’ rapidly gentrifying Boyle Heights neighborhood, surrounded by lesbians and other queer women of all shapes, sizes and gender presentations. Another advantage to staffing your writer’s room with QPOC is that you might end up with a writer who’s also primed to be part of one of the hottest lesbian sex scenes in television history.
The Bisexual, Channel 4 (UK), 2018
Watch: On Hulu
Lead: Leila (bisexual)
Secondary leads: Gabe (straight male), Deniz (lesbian), Sadie (lesbian)
Like Vida, The Bisexual sets itself apart by featuring a diverse group of lesbian friends in addition to focusing on the queer protagonist’s narrative and, like Vida, The Bisexual feels entirely 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.” Will we ever get more of this show, which Akhavan struggled mightily to get on the air at all? I hope so, but if history is any indication… probably not. :-(
17 Bisexual Women TV Characters Who Thwarted Tropes and Won Your Hearts
We originally published this list with ten characters on Bi+ Week in 2017, but we’ve made some additions and think you might enjoy reading it again!
It’s a tricky business being a bisexual woman on teevee. There are so many lazy cliches and tropes writers are constantly forcing you to trip over, and oftentimes those hackneyed storylines perpetuate harmful stereotypes that actually harm bi women in real life. But sometimes, on a rare harvest moon when the mermaids sing and the unicorns take flight, we’re treated to really authentic, layered, swoon-worthy portrayals of bisexual women on our favorite shows. These are the best of them.
A note: Labels are hard, in real life and in fiction. Language isn’t science; it’s constantly evolving and everyone comes to the label table with different experiences. Some of these characters have used the word bisexual to describe themselves. Some of them have not labeled their sexuality in any way, but their storylines seem to indicate that they’re bisexual. We really just want to celebrate some really rad fictional characters who have found themselves attracted to other fictional characters of various genders.
Okay? Okay! Happy #BiWeek!
Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife
by heather
Kalinda’s sexuality was a surprise! The Good Wife‘s writers never dangled the hope that she’d be bisexual in any interviews and CBS certainly didn’t tease it in any press releases. Then one night, out of the blue, she kissed a woman! (Supposedly; it happened behind a garage door and we only saw their feet.) But then she kissed more women and had sex with some of them and fell in love with at least one of them. She also had a very significant relationship with a man throughout the course of the show. None of it ever felt forced or like a ratings stunt. Kalinda was Kalinda. She never cared what anyone thought of her or felt compelled to explain herself. Her sexuality just made sense. She is also one of the very few South Asian queer characters in TV history, which, as Kayla Upadhyaya noted in our Best QTPOC TV and Movie Characters Roundtable, is a really big deal. Having someone as talented as Archie Panjabi — who was nominated for multiple Emmys during her time on The Good Wife — portraying such a complicated character was just icing on the cake.
Syd Feldman, Transparent
by riese
Transparent is a stand-out for its progressive portrayal of sexuality and gender on so many fronts and dancing on the outside of the dysfunctional Pferfferman clan was Syd Feldman, played by Carrie Brownstein. We know Syd is Ali’s best friend and then suddenly there she is sleeping with Josh (who is the worst) and then she’s in class with Ali, saying she slept with the female professor! And also she has a crush on Ali who she’s had a crush on since 8th grade. The ensuing arc feels real if also sad in that it ended in a Syd/Ali breakup (but anybody who was an angsty teen in the ’90s like me was probably just honored to witness any moments of Gaby Hoffman / Carrie Brownstein romance), but I think Syd deserves better. The bad thing about her character is that I guess she had to leave the show to find it.
Brenna Carver, Chasing Life
by heather
Brenna Carver is one of the few characters on this list who used the word “bisexual” every chance she got. She dated guys and liked them a lot, she dated girls and liked them a lot too. And when people tried label her as something else, she had no problem correcting them. She also spent a lot of time clearing up misconceptions about bi people. “I’m not attracted to everyone I walk by,” she snapped at a lesbian in her Gay-Straight Alliance who hinted that bi girls are indecisive cheating machines. “I’m not changing my mind; I’m attracted to the person for who they are, not the gender!” Brenna’s grandma got it, and she shipped Brenna and Greer hardcore.
Waverly Earp, Wynonna Earp
by heather
No one was more surprised than Waverly Earp when she fell for a literal hot cop in season one of Wynonna Earp. She’d been dating Champ, Purgatory’s rodeo jock for a while, when Nicole swaggered into town. She only fought her feelings for a minute; when she fell, she fell. One of the major questions the series has explored over the first two seasons is: Who is Waverly Earp? It’s something Waverly herself doesn’t really know; she’s constantly struggling to figure it out. But never once has her sexuality factored into her confusion. She knows who she loves. She knows why. She also makes out with her girlfriend with the lights on, a special gift on television, even in 2017.
Editor’s note: You’ll see some passionate comments about Waverly’s sexuality in the comments of this post from 2017; since then, at ClexaCon 2018, Dominique Provost-Chalkley labeled Waverly as bisexual.
Annalise Keating, How to Get Away With Murder
by heather
I have written why Annalise Keating is one of the best bisexual character on TV so many times I don’t know what else to say! Annalise has loved some terrible men and some good men. And she’s loved at least one woman who makes her light up from the inside. Annalise is just unlike any other woman we’ve ever seen on TV. She’s brilliant and driven and broken and messy and glorious and in charge and out of control and holding the entire world together through the sheer power of her will. And she’s played by VIOLA DAVIS, one of the greatest actors on the face of the earth. I’m just going to quote Natalie’s feelings from the Best QTPOC TV and Movie Characters Roundtable: “It’s hard to divorce my love for Annalise Keating from the woman that plays her because so much of what makes me feel seen is that she’s portrayed by someone that looks like Viola Davis. Annalise Keating is a dark-skinned black woman, who isn’t a size zero and whose natural hair hides beneath impeccable wigs. Hollywood has a very narrow definition of what a beautiful black woman ought to look like —*cough* Halle Berry *cough* — and Viola Davis upends all of that.”
Delphine Cormier, Orphan Black
by heather
Delphine was very nearly all the bad bi tropes. She seemed duplicitous, conniving, unable to make up her mind, she even died! But it turns out she was really just Severus Snape, minus the casual torture of young witches and wizards and their pet frogs. By which I mean: She started out working for the bad guys, became a double-agent because of the woman she loved, and every single decision she made after that was to keep Cosima (and her sestras) safe. Also, she gave one of the best speeches about sexuality I’ve ever heard: “I have never thought about bisexuality. I mean, for myself, you know? But as a scientist, I know that sexuality is a spectrum. But, you know, social biases, they codifiy attraction. It’s contrary to the biological facts… you know?” Cosima did know. They immediately had sex and then ice cream.
Paige Michalchuck, Degrassi: The Next Generation
by riese
In 2005 and 2006, I was grappling with questions around my own sexual orientation while working doggedly on a non-fiction/memoir hybrid about bisexuality — which involved a lot of “research” and by “research” I mean “watching every bi storyline I could get my hands on.” Paige was the first bisexual character in the Degrassi franchise, and although as a character I find her insufferable (particularly for how she shamed Alex for working at a strip club), at the time of its airing, Paige’s portrayal was pretty revolutionary. Many passionate television watchers go bananas watching characters do cartwheels and circle dances all around the word “bisexual,” and Paige’s storyline starts out being an extended exercise in that particular art. She might be falling for Alex… but she’s not gay! She says this a lot, “I’m not gay!” “I can’t be gay!” Her brother is gay, you see, and she doesn’t think her parents can handle two gay kids. Guest Star Kevin Smith tells her to stop getting hung up on gender and just follow her heart, and she does, taking the plunge to openly date Alex. When she and Alex break up (they’re not a great match, let’s be real), her best friend Hazel laments, “I just got used to you being a lesbian,” and Paige reminds her that it’s not about her and also “I’m free to date whoever I want, boy or girl.” The Palex Storyline, Round One, leads to a pair of revelations: Pagie realizes she’s into boys and girls, Alex realizes she’s a lesbian. The two girls reunite a year later but Paige, having recently flunked out of college and thus disappointed her parents, is resistant to do anything that might ruffle their feathers: “Look you’re cool with being a lesbian, but I don’t know what I am.” Alex, “The word is bisexual, Paige, and it’s just a label. Who cares?” Paige gives it a think and soon enough it turns out that Paige in fact does not care. She wants to give it another go with Alex. Although Paige does fall into the “dates four boys and one girl” trope, it’s worth noting that she does date a girl twice, it just happens to be the same one. Back then, that didn’t happen much — the lesbian storyline served its purpose, then vanished into the ether. Degrassi gets points for not letting it go there, and for using the word “bisexual,” too.
Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy
by heather
Callie Torres is the longest running bisexual character in the history of television and she is played by real life bisexual Latina superhero Sara Ramirez. Over the course of her eleven seasons on Grey’s Anatomy, she was married to a man and a woman, both of whom she loved deeply. She never shied away from calling herself bisexual, whether as confrontation or as comfort. Callie’s journey to figuring out she was bisexual and ultimately falling in love with Arizona Robbins happened right on the heels of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, one of the most devastating blows to the marriage equality movement in modern history. Her storyline happened at a crucial moment on one of the most-watched and most talked about shows in the country on broadcast network television. There’s really no way to overstate her impact. But she’s more than just what she accomplished. Callie was a joy to watch on TV. Smart and savvy and silly and relentlessly loyal to the people she loved. Perhaps one day the goddesses will smile upon us and she will return to Seattle Grace Mercy West and the open arms of her ex-wife.
Kat Sandoval, Madam Secretary
by heather
Sara Ramriez set our hearts on fire when she released the first promo shot of Kat Sandoval from Madam Secretary. We hardly every get to see butch women on TV, and especially not bisexual butches, and especially not women of color. It was already revolutionary. It didn’t stop with style, though; Kat’s coming out — which coincided with a really important storyline about LGBTQ+ human rights violations — was breathtaking. “I shivered,” Carmen wrote about the episode. “I have never heard a television character — male, female, or non binary — use ‘queer’ in the way I use it in my daily life.”
Bo Dennis, Lost Girl
by riese
Lost Girl was the first time I saw a storyline in which a female protagonist was torn between a male and a female love interest and their gender was never summoned as a factor in her decision or situation. Nor did it seem that the writers were inherently biased towards the male love interest, as most stories I’d seen until then had been. There’s no coming out narrative, nobody has an issue with her bisexuality or relationships, her feelings for women are never seen as “less than” her relationships with men. Her sexual orientation was actually seen, more or less, as the norm, rather than the exception. I think this is part of why queers are so drawn to sci-fi narratives; because we can make our own worlds there, worlds without compulsory heterosexuality or traditional gender roles. It actually seemed like all the fae were bisexual. It was a magical world where nobody assumes anything about your sexual orientation just from looking at you. Girls kissed other girls so often that I stopped even noticing it!
Ashlie Davies, South of Nowhere
by heather
There were no characters like Ashley Davies when she arrived on the scene in 2005. Sure, we had two seasons of The L Word under our belts, but that was premium cable and, frankly, a cast of characters many (if not most) lesbians couldn’t relate to. Spencer and Ashley, though? They seemed universal. There’d been a handful of bi teens on TV before, but usually it was just a main character exploring her feelings for a woman for ratings for a few episodes, and then never mentioning it again. Not Ashley! She had significant relationships with guys and gals, and her angst-free openness about her sexuality was a welcome relief for both the audience and Spencer.
Sameen Shaw, Person of Interest
by heather
Shaw was the center of what was, in my opinion, one of the greatest episodes of queer TV ever, in Person of Interest‘s “6,741.” What makes her character so remarkable is she came on as a guest, with no plans to make her Root’s love interest, but their chemistry was so good the writers leaned into and then just gave themselves over to it. On CBS of all places! Shaw also isn’t like most of the other characters on this list. She’s not a squeaky clean good guy. In fact, she’s kind of a sociopath. Not in a way that’s damming, though; in a way that was so compelling even — to quote Natalie — the straights could see.
Sara Lance, Legends of Tomorrow
by heather
Sara Lance died and usually that would have been that, but it was not and how lucky we are! She came back to life, joined up with the Legends of Tomorrow team, and is now the captain of the entire group of heroes and the center of the show! She’s a badass with a lot of trauma and an enormous heart, which she used to great effect in season three: falling in love with Ava and fighting for her like she fights to save the world. It was always fun to watch Sara seduce her way through time and space, but it was also really rewarding to watch her settle down, despite all the odds.
Ilana Wexler, Broad City
by heather
Broad City has never made a big deal about Ilana’s sexuality, which is a big deal. She’s openly attracted to both men and women and desperately in love with her best friend, in an on-and-off relationship with a man we actually like, and openly non-monogamous. Riese loves Broad City and she loved Ilana and she will probably never forgive the people who didn’t vote for her in our Gay Emmys. “I love how nonchalant the show is about Ilana’s sexuality,” Riese wrote after her most recent queer hookup. “She’s just out to have a good time, yannow?”
Rosa Diaz, Brooklyn Nine-Nine
by heather
Speaking of the Gay Emmys, Stephanie Beatriz swept them — and rightly so! When Beatriz came out in real life, the shows writers came to her to help craft a coming out story for Rosa, and she did. For starters, she said the word “bisexual” to describe herself, right out loud on network TV, which hardly ever happens. And then she explained it in the simplest terms: “I was in seventh grade. I was watching Saved by the Bell and I thought, Zack Morris: hot. And then I thought, Lisa Turtle: also hot.” Her coming out to her friends was easy as anything, but things didn’t go well with her parents, who refused to even entertain the idea at first and then settled on accepting it because she’d “probably end up with a man anyway.” Her heart broke at their deliberate obtuseness, but her friends rallied around her and Captain Holt pep talked her in one of the sweetest scenes of the entire series. Even better: The show’s not done telling her story yet!
Petra Solano, Jane the Virgin
by heather
Fans of Jane the Virgin had been shipping Petra and Jane for years, and one day the writers decided, “Why not?” Not Jane-Jane, but Jane Ramos, Petra’s lawyer — played scorchingly hot by Rosario Dawson. Petra’s bisexual awakening was actually one of the easiest things in her life. No one was axe-murdered. No one was poisoned. No No one was body-swapped, kidnapped, or framed for a felony they didn’t commit. There was simply some chemistry, a sex dream, and then she went for it. Petra’s coming out was also as casual as can be. “We had sex,” she told Jane and Rafael about JR, after they mistakenly thought she had a crush on Jane. And that was that.
Kat Edison, The Bold Type
by heather
Kat came out in season one after some serious hand-wringing and one very intense SoulCycle class, but once she realized she’s bisexual, she never looked back. She made the huge gesture for Adena, leading an episode modeled after one of the most romantic movies of all time. And even though their relationship didn’t work out, she made a serious commitment (which she’d never been willing to do before), and hooked up with plenty of other girls in the process. Natalie and Kayla and Carmen talked about The Bold Type‘s struggle to get Kat’s identity as a woman of color right, which is always an important thing to add to any conversation about Kat. The show seems to be listening, though, and growing. Just like our beloved social media manager at Scarlet magazine. Her queer storyline was the romantic emotional anchor of season two, which was a revolutionary thing.
Monday Roundtable: The Ships We’d Still Go Down With
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a group of queer women and nonbinary people can often, as a community and as individuals, trace some part of their gay coming into themselves and out into the world to a favorite ship (canon or not) that made them say, in the words of Willow Rosenberg, “Hello, gay now.” Even years or decades later, regardless of how much objectively better television has been produced, we carry them in our hearts. Here are ours; tell us yours?
(Before you head to the comments section with shock and outrage, you should know that this roundtable was written before Killing Eve aired.)
Heather Hogan, Senior Editor: Helen and Nikki, Bad Girls
This was a hard choice for me! I made a spreadsheet! It came down to three couples! But if I’m being really real with myself it’s Governing Governor Helen Stewart and Larkhall inmate Nikki Wade — and I know that sounds kinda gross and definitely illegal but it’s not like the show ignored those complicated dynamics. Helen was tortured, okay, and she didn’t even kiss Nikki on the mouth at all until she wasn’t her jailer anymore! (And then I guess again at a different time when she kind of was still her jailer but then Nikki broke out of prison in a blonde wig and went to Helen’s house and Helen was like “…the fuck!” and she almost called the cops but then instead she whispered “Nicola…” and they totally did it.) (But then Nikki did go back to jail.) So there was the power imbalance and the personality difference and also Helen kept trying to be straight and Nikki was for sure Chaotic Neutral and Helen was for sure Lawful Good, but at the end of the day Nikki got out of jail and Helen chased her down and said, “Thomas is gorgeous, and he’s everything you would want in a man — but I want a woman.” And oooooh they smooched in the middle of the day in the middle of the street for a very long time. Also I’ve read somewhere between one million and two million Helen/Nikki fan fics and they are all so good.
Riese, Editor-in-Chief: Shane and Jenny, The L Word
I don’t know that I need to describe this at any greater length than I already did on April 1st, 2018, the best day of my life, when we trolled the entire internet by turning Autostraddle into a Shenny fansite and I wrote my first-ever fan-fic about my #1 ship, Shane and Jenny. But in sum: I truly believe that the most authentic versions of the characters of Shane and Jenny were MTB, and I believe that Season 6 was blasphemy and ruined so many things including that particular pairing. I think that they are uniquely capable of taking care of one another and helping the other deal with mental health issues and also accept each other for who they are and work with it instead of against it and I think also they would’ve had very hot sex. Okay the end.
Rachel, Managing Editor: Faith and Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I didn’t think I had “a ship,” but I was casually rewatching the graduation arc of Buffy recently, as one does, and when I got to the Buffy/Faith showdown I thought I was gonna need a goddamn fainting couch. I suddenly viscerally understood why people make entire blogs and 34-tweet threads about their favorite ships in fandom, because I had the urge to call people I haven’t talked to since high school and walk them through a powerpoint of why Faith and Buffy are meant to be together and anyone who disagrees is probably a war criminal. They understand each other in ways no one else ever will! Faith will never take any of Buffy’s self-centered shit the way all her friends do; Buffy knows enough about what Faith has been through and why she is the way she is that she can give Faith the genuine love and validation she so desperately wants and needs. Also it’s very hot when they’re trying to stab each other! What more can you ask for in a relationship.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Staff Writer: Kalinda and Alicia, The Good Wife
If you whisper “Kalinda and Alicia were endgame” three times in a row, you will conjure me out of thin air. Go ahead, try it. I believe in the (doomed) love story of Kalinda and Alicia so passionately that I accidentally made my girlfriend believe that they were in a canon sexual relationship before she watched The Good Wife. She was disappointed to learn the truth, and I don’t blame her! I have seen The Good Wife from start to finish at least four times now and I am still shocked every time that they do not kiss ever. Look, I’m going to go ahead and out myself here and say that I enjoy a lot of trash ships in my life. I’ve been known to dabble in some Doctor Mechanic here, some SuperCat there (and by dabble, I mean stay up all night on fanfic benders on multiple occasions). If a show has a trash ship, I probably ship it. There is now a canon wlw ship at the heart of Riverdale, and yet I’m out here still asking strangers if they’d like to hear the good word of Betty/Cheryl. But Kalinda and Alicia, noncanon as they may be, are not trash! This ship is pure and it is good. And the only thing that really undercuts it (aside from their OBVIOUS ATTRACTION TO ONE ANOTHER remaining entirely subtextual) is the weird behind the scenes drama between Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi that made them literally not want to be in the same room as one another, which tbh, made me ship the characters even more? As hot as some of the women Kalinda made out with on the show were, none had the complex yet natural chemistry that Alicia has with her. NONE!
Carrie, Staff Writer: Spencer and Ashley, South of Nowhere
I was good and gay and out by the time South of Nowhere appeared on our screens, and therefore prepared to laugh my way through the first season’s attempts at relating to me. But damn it, dear reader, if Spencer and Ashley didn’t get me right in the heart anyway. Like many a cult teen favorite, SON kinda went off the from Season 2 and onward — but that first season still does it for me! It was ahead of its time, I think, in how it depicted Spencer’s more “traditional” coming out versus Ashley’s queerer sexuality (though they never used that word). It was also my first proper introduction to fandom and TV recaps and fanfic and the whole bit, though more as an observer than a creator.
True story: a couple years after SON went off the air, my college’s summer research program paid me (!) to do a study about the show’s impact on its LGBTQ+ viewership as illustrated by its online communities. Yes, I got funding to watch South of Nowhere and read message boards all summer. Liberal arts school! (It was legitimately a great project, not gonna lie.)
Abeni, Staff Writer: Harry and literally anyone else besides Ginny, Harry Potter series
OK, so I’ll admit I was a Harry/Hermione shipper when the series was coming out (I used to go to the bookstore and get the books at the midnight release, sometimes with costumes, so I was pretty into it) but I realized that their sibling-type relationship made more sense, and Ron and Hermione made sense, and looking back it was hinted throughout, and I think I they’re fun and cute together. But Harry and Ginny? I was completely floored when that plot point came out. It seemed shoe-horned in at the last minute and yeah, there were like, a couple hints, but what? It seemed really strange to me. Like, getting together with your best friend’s much-younger sister? By the last book weren’t they like, 18 and 14 or something? I haven’t read in a while, and maybe it’s not as problematic as I remember it, but still. Harry could have been with anyone else!
He could have been with that Quidditch captain girl, Angelina Johnson (who I just Googled and she married George? What?) I remember her getting very little “page-time,” but she was a boss. When I was a teen, I wanted him to be with Cho, but that kinda fell apart for obvious reasons. Or, wouldn’t it have been really interesting and poetic if Harry ended up with Neville?
My ship though is Luna Lovegood. She was smart, unconcerned with what people thought of her, brave, radical politically if I remember correctly, cute and sweet and quirky and charming. She was used to being an outsider, to having people have prejudgments about her, and didn’t think of Harry as “the boy who lived” or whoever but just as a dude. She treated him like a regular guy (unlike Ginny, who was like, crushing for a while and idolized him). And her mother died when she was young, and she and Harry have a moment after Sirius dies where they connect over this. I really feel like they get each other and Luna’s personality allows Harry to just be himself around her. Harry x Luna forever.
Natalie, Staff Writer: Annalise and Eve, How to Get Away With Murder
Well, that answer was pretty predictable wasn’t it? In posts, in the comments and on social media… my love for Annalise and Eve is a thing that anyone who knows anything about my pop culture diet knows about me. I won’t bore you by repeating it all again.
That said, I was wrong about one thing with regard to Annalise and Eve: through the first three seasons of How to Get Away With Murder, I never thought it possible for Annalise and Eve to end up together in the end… not because of Vanessa, the woman who whisks Eve away to the west coast, but because Annalise never saw herself as someone worthy of Eve’s love. HTGAWM never struck me as kind of show that’d allow Annalise to experience the kind of personal growth needed to overcome her traumas so I never really imagined them becoming more. But, then season four happened and, despite having the worst counselor ever and still having those stupid students around causing unending consternation, Annalise Keating came out the other side better… perhaps the healthiest we’ve ever seen her.
So go get your girl, Annalise Keating. Celebrate the love you now know you deserve… for me.
Alexis, Staff Writer: Kelly and Yorkie, Black Mirror: San Junipero
My friends, I still wanna get lost in San Junipero. I’m all about let me find you in ever possible universe so we can be together type love. The way Kelly looks at Yorkie like she hung the moon and stars, when Yorkie answers: “Oh. So many things.” to Kelly’s “What would you like to do that you’ve never done?” The idea that you can escape a hellish world to live in your heaven? It’s not perfect but it’s here and someone loves you and you love them and isn’t that miracle enough to call it paradise? Like, “Can you just… make this easy for me?” COME ON. Love being totally “fucking inconvenient”? Admitting you’re scared but doing it anyways? I could write books on this one episode and I still don’t think it’d be enough.
Valerie Anne, Staff Writer: NO, I WON’T PICK AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME
HOW DARE. I have been obsessed with TV my ENTIRE LIFE and have been shipping since long before I knew the term. I have a long list of ships that shaped me, from non-canon ships like Buffy and Faith to canon ships like Spashley from South of Nowhere. Cosima and Delphine changed the path of my career entirely, in the best way possible. Waverly Earp and Nicole Haught have brought me new friends I consider family. My heart will never be fully healed from what Eleanor and Max put me through on Black Sails. I can’t listen to Ellie Goulding’s Atlantis without wailing to the stars about Myka and HG. In fact, I have a whole “Fandom” folder in my Spotify for ship-related playlists and they all make me Emotional. I’ve cried just listening to Chyler Leigh TALK ABOUT Sanvers. I’ve written cross-fandom femslash fanfiction (#Fabrastings) I’ve shipped problematic ships (Quinn and Santana, Arizona and Dr. Peyton) and the obvious ships (Brittana, Calzona – I have layers). I’ve shipped ships long after I should have stopped shipping them (Emaya, #MAYALIVES), and long before they even started (Avalance). I ship ships I know will never happen (Emily and JJ, Criminal Minds) and ships I foolishly believe still could (Skimmons, Agents of Shield). I ship new ships (Petra and JR) and old ships (Willow and Tara) with similar vigor, and I even still hold ships on short-lived shows dear to me (Lucy and Mina, Dracula, RIP). Hell, every once in a while, I even ship STRAIGHT PEOPLE. (I can’t think of an example right now but I’m sure it’s true.) I’ve found a way to mention over a dozen ships in this one paragraph alone and I haven’t even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the fictional characters I have been emotionally invested in. I am basically a pirate at this point, I’ve been on so many ships, and I refuse — REFUSE — to pick one. Sorry.
Reneice Charles, Staff Writer: Janelle Monáe and Tessa Thompson
I know this is a TV thing but I don’t watch enough to participate that way so I’m extending the branch to music and going with the only ship there is imo, Janelle and Tessa. I feel like this is self explanatory. If not, Carmen made a whole damn entire timeline of their relationship where you can find all the receipts you need to realize that this is the best ship.
17 Spashley Forum Topics Started By Autostraddle’s Business Director, 2006-2007
Sarah posting on the Spashley forums, 2007
Our new Business and Design Director, Sarah Sarwar, passionately explored her lesbianism in the ’00s via passionate commitments to various fandoms. Specifically, Sarah really got real on the South of Nowhere Spashley fan forums. Like… REALLY REAL, Y’ALL. This week we’re all together in one geographical location working on this website and Sarah made the mistake of letting us see her storied world wide web history on The Spencer & Ashley Forums.
BTW her username was “mouthfull.”
Below, please enjoy some of the many forum topics that Sarah Sarwar herself began, including her creative sub-titles. Also now that I’ve used her full name three times in this post, she’ll never be able to work anywhere else besides here. As Sarah 2007 would say, “Bwahaha.”
1. Ashley’s FUGLY Ex
2. Who’s Afraid Of The Amazing Prices Lady?
Seriously, she scares me.
3. Are you shaved?
Purely moralistic discussion. Bwahaha
4. Kissing Boys.
I kissed a boy last night, bitches.
5. Sexy Punishments
Calling all creative lovers!
6. Degrassi Lesbian Porn!
Manny and Darcy could possibly get it on
7. Back Door Woman…
She’s got a boyfriend, and wants me too.
8. MARYKATE&ASHLEY VIDEOS
You know you watched them.
9. Okay, let’s just be perverts…
Don’t click if you can’t handle honesty!
10. PRETEND YOU’RE FROM THE N!
U kan b awzeom in dis thread 4 shizzle
11. Is Nina a closeted Homo?
& how long will this thread survive?
12. Annoying Heterosexual Ex-Girlfriends
God. We even took SHOWERS together!!!
13. Check out my sexy journal layout
14. Tom Lynch… Maybe a little pervey?
Ever crossed your mind?
15. Outside My Window
Connections through the WINDOWPANE
16. HAHAHA. Oh Gabrielle.
17. MAKING A BANNER FOR THE FANBASE
I STILL WANT YOUR PICTURES
10 Badass Yet Toxic Best Friends: TV & Film’s Hottest Troublemakers
“So I started hanging out with Rayanne Graff. Just for fun. Just cause it seemed like if I didn’t, I would die or something. Things were getting to me. Just how people are.”
– Angela Chase, My So-Called Life, Pilot
You know the type — the Bad Girls who corrupt the Good Girls. The Bad Girls who inspire the Good Girls’ Mothers to say “I don’t want you hanging out with that girl.” The best friends who “save” girls who perceive themselves to be “stuck” or “boring” by jump-starting those good girls’ little lives into free-fall.
Cigarettes are smoked, lipsticks are shoplifted, and, more often than not, lesbian kisses are exchanged. Maybe it’s because it’s hard not to fall in love with somebody who makes you feel such giant feelings, no matter what those feelings are.
I always wanted one of my own, ’cause I was a good kid who got good grades, didn’t drink or do drugs, worked a part-time job and always made it home before my fascist curfew. I wanted Rayanne Graff to tell me that my hair was holding me back, and then do something about it. Like the girls on this list, I think.
Top 10 Sidekicks Who Will Probably Get You Into Trouble, Look Good Doing It
10. Alex Nuñez (Deanna Casaluce), Degrassi: The Next Generation
Known in school as a bully and a troublemaker, Alex’s signature quote is “I don’t play well with others.” Her attitude got flipped on its head when Alex’s heart flip-flopped for Paige. But Alex was always really dark, like way darker than killing a baby harp seal.
9. Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), Friday Night Lights
Julie’s Mom: “Honey, I don’t like your tone, I don’t like your sarcasm, and I really don’t understand what you see in hanging out with this [Tyra Collette] girl.”
Eventually Tyra became proof that even the Baddest Bad Influence could turn her shit around with a helping hand from Tami Taylor.
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8. Sugar (Lenora Crichlow), Sugar Rush
Even harder than having a badass best friend is having a badass best friend you want to bone. This was the case for poor Kim with respect to her fuckup friend Sugar who was always stealing things, drinking, and having casual sex (with men). Kim does get the girl-on-girl action she wants from Sugar, eventually, but Sugar can’t seem to do anything besides manipulate. The best part is that Sugar actually lands in prison and gets out early by fucking a female prison guard.
7. Edie (Mena Suvari), Six Feet Under
Claire was never a good girl, that’s for sure, but Claire gets so intoxicated by Edie and their Deep Talks About Art and hallucinogenic drugs that she actually sleeps with Edie even though Claire’s not gay and Edie is. Then Edie says, “The world’s not your own private fucking chemistry set. Just stay away from me!”, which should be printed on a sticker and distributed to straight best friends all over the world. (I love Claire though, don’t get me wrong.)
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6. Ashley Davies (Mandy Musgrave), South of Nowhere
Ashley: “I know I’m not the one you want her to be with, but I’m the one she chose.”
Spencer’s Mom: “We’ll see who she chooses. I guess the battle lines are drawn.”
Ashley: “Guess they are.”
It’s a rule of television that anybody who uses Manic Panic in earnest and wears more than three bracelets at a time is probably gonna make you skip school sometimes. This is another case of the badass best friend turning into The Girlfriend which is extra-special for the Mom that hated her even before the gay shit came up.
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5. Gia (Marla Sokoloff), Full House
Gia: “Mr. Tanner, my mom would NEVER let me have a party without adult supervision… [Mr.Tanner walks out] …which is why I didn’t tell her.”
You know when you look back on your life and think “that’s when I shoulda known I might be gay,” that’s how I feel about my lifelong imaginary affair with Malra Sokoloff, who played Stephanie Tanner’s best friend, Gia, in Full House. Sokoloff went on to corrupt multiple other youths on programs like Party of Five, Seventh Heaven and Boy Meets World. Gia peer-pressures the hell out of Stephanie during their two-season homoreotic best friendship, luring Steph to the darkside of Makeout Parties, joyriding and smoking and eventually gets into a car accident with two guys they met at the mall.
4. Evie (Nikki Reed), Thirteen
Tracy’s Mom: “Tracy was playing with Barbies before she met Evie!”
Getting one’s tongue pierced is the ultimate symbol of teenage rebellion. Then there’s drugs, drinking, threesomes, feelings, fights with Mom and so forth. Then you put all that together and you have yourself a movie.
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3. Effy (Kaya Scodelario), Skins
Effy: “Pandora, why are we friends? Do you ever wonder?”
Pandora: “Well, that’s super easy. You’re my pal because you’re the coolest ever, and I’m yours because I’ll totally do anything you say and none of your boyfriends ever want to surf me cos I’m useless.”
Effy: “That’s it?”
Pandora: “Yeah.”
Skins could be described as a show about self-destructive kids and the normal kids transformed into self-destructive kids by the self-destructive kids. But in Season Two, Effy didn’t even have to talk to get her and her friends into trouble.
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2. Legs (Angelina Jolie), Foxfire
Remember that time Legs walked into your school even though she didn’t even go there, and then empowered this whole group of shat-upon misfits into creating a homoerotic fire-cult? That was awesome.
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1. Rayanne Graff (AJ Langer), My So-Called Life
Angela’s Mom: “All right, I admit it. I don’t like her. I don’t think that she’s the right friend for you.”
Rayanne defines this trope, and she’s alluring because she acts like she doesn’t care, ever. So for people who care a lot, like Angela Chase, someone so Devil-May-Care is just fascinating. Because you never know what could happen next. She might even break your heart!
Who was your favorite bad influence?
“Smells Like Teen Lesbian Spirit” Featuring South of Nowhere & Anyone But Me
South of Nowhere was an adorable teen soap that aired from 2005-2008 on Nickelodeon’s badass alternative for teens, The N (recently reborn as Teen Nick). The show centered on the Carlin family and mostly revolved around the on-again/off-again romance between Ashley (Mandy Musgrave) and Spencer (Gabrielle Christian). The show helped pave the way for Pretty Little Liars as it featured the first gay teen TV couple in headlining roles. Does “Save Splashley” mean anything to you?
Anyway, SON executive producer Nancylee Myatt has reassembled the cast in a series of videos in an effort to prove to the network that the show still has an audience hungry for a feature film. These videos try to bridge the storyline gap since the show went off the air and give a hint of what could potentially come next. According to the SON Facebook page, they need 100,000 views on YouTube by April 27, as a benchmark to prove the audience still cares.
Hey, stranger things have happened, like the *OurChart hosted GIRLTRASH web series turning into a feature length musical set to premiere later this year. Seriously though, Girltrash is the brainchild of L Word writer/director Angela Robinson and her writer/director partner Alex Kondracke (the people responsible for the best L Word episodes and DEBS) so we’re very excited for this movie! Interestingly, Girltrash: All Night Long also stars Mandy Musgrave and Gabrielle Christian as well as Rose Rollins, Clementine Ford and Kate French.
Our friends at Anyone But Me are offering a sneak preview of the Season Three premiere episode on April 25th for those who would like to live chat with stars Rachael Hip-Flores and Nicole Pacent! Over the past two seasons Vivian and Aster, together with their high school friends and family, have experienced a whole lotta drama. Last season, Vivian and Aster’s relationship took an abrupt turn, leaving audiences hanging about their future together. The brand new 5 episode season will air every other week on anyonebutmeseries.com beginning April 26th.
Will Santana’s Lesbian Future Somehow Include Dating Men? (and Other Teevee-Related News)
Glee:
From E! Spoiler Chat:
YELYAHbosco: There is lots of speculation about Glee‘s Santana and her sexuality, any scoop on her upcoming storyline?
“She’s definitely a lesbian,” Brad Falchuk tells us, forever putting to rest the question of her sexuality. Now that we cleared that up,
Jesus f*cking Christ Almighty. I hope they don’t riot on AfterEllen today.
I think I’m supposed to freak out about this, it’s like our obligation to flip our shit whenever a lesbian does it with a dude, but I can’t. Yes — we hate this trope. Our people, long oppressed by the thwarted lesbians of teevee shows past, hate this trope even more than I hate “dining with people who are eating buffalo wings.”
But this isn’t like that.
Honestly, I don’t personally think that the lesbian-hooks-up-with-dude storyline inherently problematic (as long as the girl goes back to her stated preference at the story’s end!). Stories need conflict, after all!
What’s problematic about any suggestion of this trope, and what riles up some Skins US–esque hostility, is how historically this trope has been used to undermine and trivialize our sexuality, pander to a straight male audience, reinforce patriarchal ideas of men being downright irresistible and ideal romantic partners and to placate networks or advertisers by quickly shuffling the lesbian storyline out of sight. Also, it’s been done and with so few gay storylines out there, we expect a lot from each one.
Because the thing is — and I might get axed for saying this — it’s a rich trope, from a writer’s perspective. It’s hard to beat in terms of inherent complexity, although employing it haphazardly is often exactly as lazy as it seems. It was executed well in The Kids Are All Right, where a gender-swap would’ve told a different story altogether — if Jules had cheated on Nic with another woman, the ‘other woman’ would’ve been a formidable threat to Jules and Nic’s relationship. Paul’s gender made Jules’ reasons-for-cheating abundantly clear: she wanted to be wanted by someone — no strings or potential love attached — and men are pretty adept at ravenously wanting sex. She was looking for sex, not love, and a standard Affair would’ve complicated that intent.
So how will this go? We’re cautiously optimistic. In our favor:
1) Glee drops storylines like they’re hot, cannot maintain continuity, it’s unlikely that they’d break tradition here and actually pursue a Santana-runs-to-a-dude storyline past one episode.
2) Everyone flipped about Blaine possibly going bisexual and our fears were unfounded.
3) Santana is definitely a lesbian and acording to the most recent definition of “lesbian,” a lesbian is a person sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. So this means, logically, that were Santana to run into the arms of a dude, it’d probs last about as long as it did for Paige on Pretty Little Liars.
4) Glee‘s done (relatively) well by us so far when it comes to homosexual representation.
5) There’s so much opportunity for humor in Santana getting with a boy after deciding she doesn’t like boys and that humor hinges on a rejection of the heterosexual paradigm.
6) Finn is a lesbian
Other homosexual Glee info from the E! post:
Q: Anything new on Blaine/Kurt on Glee? Can’t get enough of those two!
A: Neither can we. That’s why we were so psyched when Darren Criss told us that Blaine and Kurt (Chris Colfer) have real staying power. “They’re in the honeymoon stage, and they’ve just recently gotten together, so that’s really new and exciting like any new relationship is,” he says to us. “I think [Blaine] has something really special with Kurt. It’s not just a flash in the pan kind of crush.”
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South of Nowhere:
The cast of South of Nowhere has put together a promo to inspire somebody to make a South of Nowhere movie. However someone invited Glen to this reunion, probably because he was on the show, but I don’t see why we have to keep looking at his stupid face. There’s still time to fix the mistake of inventing his character!
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Exes & Ohs:
The second season of Michelle Paradise’s “Exes & Ohs” was signed, sealed and delivered to Logo quite some time ago, but Logo never gave it an air date. Now it has one — June 29 at 7:30 pm. We somehow suspect this is an effort to use up their lesbian content so they can safely move forward as if there is no “L” in LGBTQ.
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The Today Show:
Jessie J appeared on The Today Show today and it was awesome.
Ilene Chaiken, Debt Collectors, High School Principals, EllDrew, Lady Gaga & Homophobic Actors Defy Expectations: Daily Fix
Yesterday we dropped our Fall Music Preview ’09: Where Crystal and Emily discuss hotly anticipated releases from La Roux, Tegan & Sara, Basement Jaxx, Jay-Z and more.
The Tuesday Televisionary was all about True Blood Ending Underwhelmingly, Glee Beginning Showmantically, and Hot Girls Outlasting the VMAs.
Check out our Fall Preview 2009 Guide to see what’s happened and what you can look forward to!
The Fall coverage thus far includes: Fall Books, Fall TV, The Fall Excitantcy Matrix and the Biggest Event of Fall — The National Equality March.
Yesterday’s Fix: In which we all unnecessarily obsess with Kate Moennig’s haircut, gender norms, Drew & Ellen, sex toys.
HIGH SCHOOL: I can’t believe this even has to be a headline: Principal Relents, Lets Lesbian Wear Tux for Senior Picture. (@nbc) In unrelated news, there’s a cute photo of Anna Faris in a blazer to the left.
AMERICA’S NEXT TOP: Remember the girl who talked crazy to America’s Next Top Lesbian Kim Stolz? Our dear often hilarious but clearly bonkers Bree Scullark was arrested after an altercation in Starbucks. FYI they don’t sell granola bars there. Also in ANTM news, (not out) lesbian Nik Pace has given birth to a baby boy, is smokin’ hot. Note the article avoids addressing the parentage question. Also, FourFour recaps America’s Next Top Model Cycle 13’s “Mehovers.”
DREW AND ELLEN CUDDLE & TALK AT THE SAME TIME: “I love her madly … You hope that you’ll fall in love with your muse and your hero, and I did fall in love with [Ellen Page],” Drew Barrymore tells reporters.
L WORD: Here we go again. Ilene Chaiken has tweeted: “Still working on The L Word movie, and ramping up on The Real L Word. They’re two completely separate projects.” One of the biggest differences between these two projects is that one is (unfortunately) happening, and the other is not.
LADY TECH: Question: Dear readers of Autostraddle, how do you feel about this website? This is a real question. I’m wondering if the “feminized” approach to technology here is totally offensive or borderline interesting? I’m inclined to go with the former. LET ME READ YOUR PULSE I NEED ANSWERS ABOUT HOW THE INTERNET WORKS.
THE LYNCH CAN DO NO WRONG: “There’s something about [her character on Glee]. I’ve played arrogant people before, but the levels and lengths she goes to, it’s so entertaining and fun. The writers love pushing it. In the first draft, they always go too far. It’s like, ‘I can’t talk about skinning a cat!’ ” Still, sometimes she wishes the first draft bits would stick. “There have been a couple that I was sorry to lose.” – Jane Lynch to People.
Top Ten Feats of Lesbian-Storyline-Television Endurance
We are often such scavengers when it comes to lesbians on television. We’ll forage desperately and hungrily through minutes upon minutes of storylines we don’t care about on shows we’ve never seen before — aliens! Junior high schoolers! Telenovelas! Big Brother 10: Gomorrah! — to reach the two-minute morsel we care about so much more than we probably should: the holy grail of promised homosexual content.
Is there a bisexual secretary? Turn it up! A lesbian kiss at 35:54? DVR it! Mischa Barton? Has a lesbian sneezed? Did she sneeze on a bisexual? Was it Jessica Capshaw? Is she pretty, does her Mom know? How many episodes will her story arc last? Will there be tongue? Was this news given an entire post and three gigantic photographs on AfterEllen? 
Well, you bet we’ll be there, twitter-fingers ready to witness and sound off. However, sometimes we can cheat the system by watching a YouTube lesbian storyline compilation (e.g., Mistresses) but that’s getting harder with their copyrighted content crackdown [and just when you think you’ve found it … it turns out to be a montage of Kim/Sugar screenshots set to a Jason Mraz lullaby]. Let’s not forget once upon a time the only way to watch a TV show was on the TV when it actually aired or on DVD several months later.
Which is just to say that more often than not we’ve had to get our kicks the hard way — by watching the entire freaking show. What pain we must endure for three minutes of pleasure inevitably ending with the sweeps bisexual going back to her ex-boyfriend and the hot lesbian/bisexual guest-star departing blithely into the distance!
So today we’ll round up some of the B.S. we’ve sat through and tell you all about it! I had to recruit some interns to fill in the gaps on this one, and of course Crystal from Australia to give you the scoop on the negligable homosexual conduct down under.