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Marcus Pavilonis
10/4/2018
LGBT people are seeing more representation in 2018 on television than ever before, whether on reality shows or sitcoms and dramas.
TV shows featuring gay couples, transgender women and men, and other characters with fluid sexualities and genders may not be as groundbreaking as they were a decade ago, but the increasing representation is just as important today than ever before.
Whether it is overblown personalities on teen dramas and reality shows or the normal down-to-earth people on fictional dramas and comedies, LGBT individuals are able to find more and more on-screen characters they can relate to.
Here are some of the best shows with LGBT representation:
Netflix's reboot of 'Queer Eye' is not to be missed. (Photo via @queereye Instagram)
This show is a Netflix Original Series of the Bravo series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. This reality show features the Fab Five: Antoni Porowski, a food and wine expert; Tan France, a fashion expert; Karamo Brown, a culture expert; Bobby Berk, a design expert; and Jonathan Van Ness, a hair and grooming expert.
The Fab Five set out to makeover the lives of different people in the state of Georgia while also providing amazing social commentary on anything from LGBT rights to how to best way to declutter someone's house. In the end they are able to teach people more about themselves, while also helping them gain a new sense of self-confidence and establish control over their lives.
OINTB is a six-season Netflix show set at a women’s prison; which features of variety of characters of different races, sexual orientations and gender identities. The show is based off a memoir by Piper Kerman detailing her time in a women’s prison. The show is Netflix’s most-watched original series.
The show does not make the prisoner’s sexuality and gender identity central to the plot, but it makes the variety of characters on the show more original and adds to the way in which the show seeks to humanize prisoners and address some of the important topics and contentious issues surrounding U.S. incarceration.
This Freeform comedy drama premiered in July 2017 and follows three friends, Jane, Kat and Sutton while they work at a women’s magazine called Scarlet. The show is inspired by the life of former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles.
In the first season, Kat explores her sexuality and meets a photographer named Adena. As the second seasons rolls on, their relationship grows and becomes more complex. The show has received a lot of praise for bringing in diverse representation of a lesbian relationship through this couple.
This reality competition show follows host RuPaul in the quest to find the America’s next drag superstar. The show has spanned ten seasons and even airs internationally. Each episode roughly follows a format consisting of a mini challenge, a main challenge, a runway walk, the judging panel, a lip sync battle and the elimination of a contestant.
Contestants on the show can be of any sexual orientation or gender, but the show mostly features either gay men or transgender women. The show has also produced spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U and RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars.
Since season one of HTGAWM, the show has evolved to feature more and more in depth conversation surrounding the LGBT people. Though at first the only real representation came from Connor Walsh and his sex scenes, the show has grown to include so much more as it moves into its fifth season.
Viewers get to be with Annalise Keating while she explores her sexuality, they get to see Walsh stay in a steady yet turbulent relationship that has grown exponentially since it was first introduced, and the show has storylines featuring other characters and actors who are LGBT identifying.
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This story is part of a series of specially designed stories that represents some of the best journalism The Post has to offer. Check out the rest of the special projects here.