LGBT Fanbase / Live-Action TV

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LGBT Fanbases in Live-Action TV.

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• The 100 has quickly become a staple on LGBT+-friendly social media, thanks to its Commander Lexa, bisexual heroine and overall just the show's funky, mercurial and anti-establishment vibe. Lexa's death in Season 3 naturally provoked a very negative reaction, particularly with its strong echoes of a similar event on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., mostly due to the addition of Agent Victoria Hand, who is a lesbian in the comics, as a recurring character. This would make her the first LGBT character to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The show also gave the Marvel Cinematic Universe its first explicitly gay character with Inhuman Joey Gutierrez. Plus the whole Inhuman story arc that was introduced in Season 2 is really starting to resonate with LGBT viewers since all struggles faced by the Inhumans in the show can be applied to gay people in Real Life. Same-sex pairings amongst the main characters are also popular and the fandom even has their own hashtag: #superqueeros.
• The After Elton website has a section dedicated to live-action dramas (especially Soap Operas) like this called "Gays Of Our Lives".
• Andi Mack has one of the first explicitly gay characters on an American Kid Com, nevermind a Disney Channel show, so it quickly garnered a fanbase amongst LGBTQ people. Later similar tween shows such as Diary of a Future President and Julie and the Phantoms gained a similar sized fan base among the LGBTQ community.
• Arrow has a recurring bisexual character and a minor lesbian character. Several of its actors have a pre-existing gay fanbase (either because they're gay and/or because of previous work e.g. John Barrowman from Doctor Who and Torchwood, Colton Haynes from Teen Wolf, Stephen Amell from Dante's Cove and Hung, Brandon Routh, Bex Taylor-Klaus and several actors from Spartacus).
• Babylon 5: Talia and Susan have a relationship that was confirmed by the creator, with Susan later saying she loved Talia, which has resulted in them being popular with queer women.
• Blake's 7: All the way. It was one of the first major slash fandoms and from the late Nineties onwards, new fans have mostly trickled in because of the slash. The main fan-run Blake's 7 convention, Redemption, regularly features slash panels. This makes the somewhat homophobic, anti-slash copyright owners rather uneasy.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • The series was well-received by the LGBT+ community from the get-go: its opening episode introduces an older gay African-American character who has finally risen to the position of Captain, despite facing prejudice due to his race and sexuality. Captain Holt is shown to be Happily Married; very active as a community organizer for LGBT+ and POC police officers (he even heads up the organization for NYPD officers who are both, even though to start with there were only three members); and scarily good at his job, despite facing criticism that any promotion he received always looked like diversity hiring.
  • In Season 5, main character Rosa came out as bisexual. Even greater popularity was gained as she's played by a bisexual actor; that she's another (still comparatively rare) LGBT+ main character of color; and that the show became the first US prime-time comedy to have a character use the word "bisexual" to self-describe.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Particularly revolving around Willow and Tara's canon relationship, but the fans also leap upon the (occasionally intentional) Ho Yay between other characters. Joss Whedon has explicitly stated that relationships on the show are "BYO Subtext." The LOGO channel also frequently reruns the show.
• The 1980s police drama Cagney & Lacey focused on two women working together in the police force. It gained a fanbase due to the two female leads being mistaken for lesbians.
• The Catherine Tate Show has an In-Universe example of a female pop star who had many gay fans.
• The Colbert Report has a strong LGBT fanbase, so much so that Colbert once won Gay.com's Man of the Year award (as well as several other awards from LGBT groups). It helps that one of Colbert's past roles was Chuck Noblet, an instance of a sympathetic gay man in a time when such characters were still very rare.
• Columbo picked up a large queer following in the 2020s. This is mainly owed to Columbo being an unconventional portrayal of masculinity, especially for the show's time, which allows him to resonate well with queer viewers.
• The Dan Schneider stable of shows, including iCarly, Victorious and Drake & Josh, all managed to pick up an ongoing LGBT fanbase.
  • iCarly because of Sam's ambiguously lesbian, probably bisexual, tendencies, the Les Yay between Carly and Sam, and that any plot involving Carly, Sam and a third female, turns into a Love Triangle, or at least looks like UST, such as the Missy/Sam example, and the Carly/Shelby one. Plus the guest star who kissed another girl on the lips.
  • Sam & Cat has a moderate following, with the relationship between the eponymous duo.
  • In Victorious, again, the Les Yay is piled on from the start, with the Unresolved Sexual Tension between Jade and Tori, and Cat's crush apparent on Jade.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation:
  • Marco's storyline is blatant LGBT Fanbase bait.
  • There's also the relationship between Alex and Paige (who is either bisexual or considers Alex an exception.) The later seasons have Riley coming to terms with his homosexuality.
  • Adam brought in many transgender fans.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Eleventh Doctor was snogging guys just for fun by 2012 (an element that got introduced in the novels in the late 90s).
  • The revival series saw the Doctor begin taking openly queer companions like Captain Jack Harkness and Bill Potts (something again pioneered by the Expanded Universe in the 90s).
  • Steven Moffat's era introduced the idea of Time Lords being a race of Sex Shifters, potentially changing gender upon regeneration, with the first on-screen demonstration being Missy in 2014, followed by the Doctor themself in 2017. The Twelfth Doctor especially has a lot of trans fans, as most of the above happened in his era, and he openly hoped his next regeneration would be female.
  • The Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan's relationship is particularly important to the LGBT fandom because it was the first time one of the Doctor's same-sex relationships was put on the same level as the Doctor's hetero relationships - and what's more, it had Yaz openly admit she felt that way about the Doctor. (Doctor/Jack got secondary focus, Second and Jamie's relationship, while rich in Ho Yay, was never openly romantic, and male Doctor/male Master was Ho Yay or Homoerotic Subtext, depending on the era.)
  • Doctor Who had attracted a large LGBT fanbase during the original series as well, as revival Show Runner Russell T Davies had repeatedly referenced on his previous show Queer As Folk ("Oh my God, you've got Genesis of the Daleks!"). This is commonly ascribed to the show's long-time No Hugging, No Kissing policy, which meant that gay viewers didn't have the characters' heterosexuality rammed down their throats, and also made the Doctor into something of a symbol in the Asexual community. Its embrace of camp didn't hurt, nor did the fact that most eras of the show were about a clever, snarky, flamboyantly-dressed hero who defeated bullying authoritarians with guile rather than violence.
  • In the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels and Scream of the Shalka, it's entirely deliberate.
  • The Doctor Who Spin-Off Torchwood has a strong LGBT fanbase due to having an unapologetically Extreme Omnisexual as its star and several gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters.
• Elementary has one, though not to the degree of its BBC counterpart. Many LGBT people liked its positive portrayal of a trans woman side-character, who is also portrayed by a trans woman. Many women are also very into Watson (especially after she began wearing more suits in later seasons) and Moriarty. The tension between them has made them into the second most popular ship in the fandom (just behind Joanlock).
• Ellen, already popular in the LGBT community, exploded after actress Ellen DeGeneres and character Ellen Morgan came out. Then the backlash set in as some of those same fans began criticizing the only show on the air with a queer lead character portrayed by a queer performer as "too gay".
• The Eurovision Song Contest. The entire program is campier than a chorus line of drag queens, and a huge number of performers are themselves members of the LGBT community. There's a reason why the contest is often referred to in the media as the "Gay Olympics".
• Faking It has both an LGBT Fanbase and an LGBT Hatedom (the latter mostly for believing the show is either queer-baiting, implying that one can choose to turn being gay on and off like a light switch, or implying that being gay is a path to popularity rather than bullying). The Fanbase ships Karma and Amy, despite their relationship being a ruse...at least at first.
• Frasier, due to its Camp Straight main character, progressive attitudes towards homosexuality (at least at the time) and the fact that most of the male actors and some crew members on the show are gay in real life.
• Friends: In-Universe. In "The One With Joey's Interview", Joey does a magazine interview and is surprised to discover he has a large male gay fanbase. At the end of the episode, he reveals he sent a "steamy" picture of himself to the magazine to please said fanbase.
• Girls5eva: Discussed In-Universe. While at a gay party, Summer comments on "gay icons" being women who often aren't gay themselves, as well as the attendees' "diva worship" towards Wickie, telling the others that they are drawn to divas and figures like Judy Garland because of their ability to project strength and vulnerability.
• Glee, with two of the creators being gay, several gay actors, and handling of gay story lines, has quite the gay fanbase. In particular, Brittany and Santana's relationship went from background Les Yay to throwaway joke to full story arc due in no small part to the work of the LGBT writers.
• The Golden Girls' huge gay following (and LGBT channel LOGO plays weekly marathons of the series) is probably because the show was very gay-conscious even at a time when it wasn't acceptable. Besides Coco in the pilot, there are entire episodes dealing with AIDS, crossdressing, gay marriage, coming out, accepting gay family members, and one that addressed non-family members trying to see their loved ones in the hospital.
• Good Omens has resonated with a lot of non-binary, trans and queer fans because of its genderqueer characters, a fanbase which has only grown and consolidated since the author Neil Gaiman confirmed that the two main characters Aziraphale and Crowley, and the rest of angel/demonkind, are non-binary. It also has a following of fans who ship Aziraphale and Crowley, with their love relationship being left somewhat undefined in the miniseries. With the addition of Gaiman outright saying that the two love each other, and Michael Sheen confirming that (in his interpretation), the two are in love with one another, the LGBT fandom has only grown. Due to the fact that the main duo appears largely nonsexual in the miniseries and their ambiguous love is never made fun of, many asexual fans were drawn to the relationship as well.
• The Good Place:
  • The series is popular with trans and non-binary fans due to Janet's consistent reminders that even though she presents as feminine and uses she/her pronouns, she's "not a girl" and doesn't actually conform to gender binary at all.
  • Eleanor is low-key bisexual (all of her on-screen love interests are male, but as a group her past "exes" are deliberately left gender-non-specific), and of course she openly lusts after several female characters, most consistently Tahani. In one Season 4 episode during a discussion about past US presidents who were possibly gay, she makes the point that someone who's publicly only been different-sex relationships may well still be gay or bi, which went down very well with the shows bi+ viewers.
• Hannibal has developed one primarily for the fans of one-sided feelings Hannibal had towards Will Graham before it eventually became mutual.
• House does this with House and Wilson, and sometimes to a lesser degree with House and his male team members. This probably started off accidental, but by the fourth season it was obvious the writers were running with it. In the 6th season they raised the tease to high art, complete with an episode where Wilson "proposes" to House as part of a ploy to keep him from sleeping with their new neighbor.
• For House of the Dragon, there is plenty of same-sex chemistry going on in front of and behind the camera, it's the first mainstream show to cast a non-binary performer in a lead role (Emma D'Arcy), there's the gay character of Laenor Velaryon who's both attractive and badass and dragons have always been extremely popular with queer fan artists, so it was hardly a surprise that LGBT+ fandoms took to the series very well.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia grew a supportive LGBT fanbase, thanks to its gay-friendly cast and its many gay and bisexual guest characters (as well as the increasingly not-so-Ambiguously Gay Mac).
• The L Word, which takes place in West LA (dubbed in-universe Lesboland), harvested a devout following among lesbian viewers for all too obvious reasons.
• Back when Alex Cabot was still on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (pick a season, any season. She's the ADA for five out of eleven of them, even after she died.), the series had a reputation for having a large lesbian fanbase, due to the blatant Les Yay between Alex and Olivia, which Executive Producer Neal Baer not only acknowledged, but deliberately strung along. Stephanie March (Alex) said that she thinks Alex/Olivia is entirely possible - they may even have been together, a la the Grissoms, for a long while. Which is spectacular.
• Legacies: The abundance of pretty girls who like other girls on the show has spawned this, naturally. Canonically several characters are part of the LGBT community, with Josie being pansexual and Hope being bisexual. All three of Josie's love interests Penelope, Finch, and Jade, are also queer. Lizzie is also Ambiguously Bi. That is not even mentioning the popularity of the Hope/Josie ship, which is supported by their actresses Danielle Rose Russell and Kaylee Bryant (who is queer in real life).
• Despite there not being any openly LGBT actor cast in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Durin IV and Elrond still garnered their own queer fanbase for being reminiscent of Gimli and Legolas, which is the most popular same-gender ship in the fandom. Alternatively, those who like Disa, are more than happy to ship the three of them as a One True Threesome.
  Durin to Elrond: Give me the meat and give it to me RAW!
• Lost Girl, due to the protagonist Bo being an example of a positively portrayed bisexual and the respect with which her relationship with Lauren Lewis is treated.
• Merlin:
  • The series has this, with its central relationship being that of Arthur and Merlin (both played by young men in this version), and the fact that the actors Colin Morgan and Bradley James are Heterosexual Life-Partners. However, there has been some Creator Backlash to this, with one of the head writers claiming that: "we don't pander to that lot."
  • In the very first episode they have the Dragon say "A half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole." Which is about as unsubtle as you can get on the subject of their relationship.
  • Co-stars Katie McGrath and Angel Coulby both appear to ship both Arthur/Merlin and Morgana/Gwen, at least going by the DVD commentary.
  • Katie McGrath also has a lovely bit on the final episode commentary with one of the show main writers, Julian Murphy, in which she says she does not believe they added a certain line/scene and he replies saying that it was to be expected when 'the man he loves' is dying.
• The Mighty Boosh has a big LGBT fanbase, because of the joyfully queer universe the show exists within, where queerness is present everywhere and normalized and unremarked-upon, and because both of the main characters are some flavor of bisexual. Also because the show's creators never treat the shipteasing of Howard and Vince as something that's funny or absurd because of its queerness, it's just an element of the characters. Vince's androgynous gender presentation ('I'm the Confuser! Is it a man, is it a woman? Ooh, I'm not sure I mind.') is also a big element of that, with a bigger than usual chunk of the fanbase being trans or nonbinary. Many young fans even cite Vince and the Boosh as helping them feel safe in exploring their own gender more.
• Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, has been called a bisexual icon after an interview was uncovered where he said he was "in the middle" of straight and gay.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: Due to having two queer female leading characters, and their relationship being a continuing arc, the show is quite popular in the LGBT+ community. Creator/showrunner Eliot Laurence being openly gay may also help (he's of course behind it being so queer themed).
• Aside from having one of its main characters as a producer of Musical Theater, The Nanny is quite taken with the LGBT+ community, the show itself having a few positive gay one-off characters, plus the Ho Yay relationship between Maxwell and Niles and the Les Yay relationship triangle between Fran, Val, and C.C.
• Neighbours, specifically with regard to Stephanie Scully and Libby Kennedy, who have a substantial lesbian following. Stephanie at least was eventually revealed as bisexual about sixteen years after she was first introduced (though this perhaps bordered on But Not Too Bi, since her only relationships within the regular cast, however unsuccessful, were with men). The show has also introduced several gay and bisexual regular characters since 2010, culminating in a same-sex wedding in 2018, and introduced a transgender character (played by a trans actress) in 2019.
• The Office (US) has gained a cult following in the LGBTQ+ community as of recent years, with many fans praising the inclusion of Oscar for being an accurate representation of a gay man.
• Once Upon a Time has a large fanbase of queer men who love the large amounts of camp and extravagant costumes. The fact that several characters such as Mulan, Ruby, Dorothy, Tilly, and Margot are all confirmed to be part of the LGBT community helps secure a large fandom of queer women as well. Even some straight characters like Emma, Regina, and Rumplestiltskin have large queer fanbases due to said fans relating to their themes of being forced to conform to roles you don't fit, feeling alone in the world, and wanting to be more than that role. That is not even getting into the large amounts of Ho Yay and Les Yay between characters like Emma and Regina, Mulan and Aurora, Ruby and Belle, Pan and Felix, or Hook and Charming.
• Orange Is the New Black has a strong LGBT fanbase due to its multiple LGBT characters and a transgender character played by a transgender actress.
• The Other Two: Invoked in "Chase Gets the Gays". The label has Chase sing a song about how he loves his gay brother Cary, and proceeds to evaluate how the LGBT community feels about it throughout the daily media discourse cycle like a conservative talking head decrying it. They finally land on "the gays think it's camp" and decide that Chase should pursue other 'safer' demographics like American suburbia now that he has secured an LGBT fanbase.
• Person of Interest has gained one of these for the extremely flirtatious relationship between Root and Shaw. Escalated to the point where a "Shut Up" Kiss was seen in season four, confirmed by actress Sarah Shahi to be a gift for the shippers...before Shaw went down in a hail of bullets. Or did she?
• The British ITV documentary series Police, Camera, Action! is a documentary / Edutainment series / Gearhead Show which has had a queer fanbase since December 1994, but this example is unusual in that the show features no LGBT content or characters whatsoever. Considering it was made in The '90s, this is surprising.
• Pose immediately garnered a huge queer fanbase, unsurprising since it features the largest ever cast of trans performers portraying trans characters.
• Power Rangers: This applies to the whole Power Rangers franchise, starting with the dozens of attractive young men running around in rainbow spandex. One could also cite the No Hugging, No Kissing rule as playing into it; many of the friendships which are meant to be platonic are so emotionally charged that they come off as Ho Yay. Many teams have had characters that fandom at large views as coded gay or bi (Kelsey, Vida, Jayden and Antonio, or Riley for example). It also helps that many of the ranger alumni are LGBT+ allies, and have participated in NoH8 photoshoots.
  • Power Rangers S.P.D., specifically Doggie Cruger, who became an instant Bara Genre icon. His counterpart from SPD's source material, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, is submissive (and VERY muscular) in almost every erotic pic of him (even if it's straight!)
  • Power Rangers Dino Fury took off early on thanks to Izzy and Javi. Izzy is seen as queer-coded by many viewers due to being a very tomboyish athlete, and for getting an epic shot of her tearing the skirt off her ranger suit because it's not her style. Javi conversely is the Sensitive Man to her Tomboy - he prefers music to more masculine pursuits and that causes a rift between him and his father that a lot of queer men have find relatable. And then "The Matchmaker" reveals that Izzy is dating another girl named Fern, making her the first LGBT Power Ranger in the main show. Later episodes feature Izzy directly calling Fern her girlfriend, cheek-to-cheek kisses, and an episode where they prepare to go to prom together. Fern and Izzy's romance led to the franchise's first GLAAD Media Award win for "Outstanding Kids & Family Programming".
• Pretty Little Liars, a show aimed at teenagers, is ridiculously popular among adult lesbian and bisexual women thanks to lesbian main character Emily Fields.
• Project Runway, unsurprisingly since it has one of the highest percentages of LGBT contestants on television, what with it being about fashion designers.
• Queer as Folk (UK), due to taking place in Manchester's gay village and having several gay main characters.
• Raven's Home is a That's So Raven sequel where Raven and Chelsea are adults with children. They're both recently divorced and have decided to move in together. Their heavy Les Yay has made many viewers note that it's practically a show about two moms raising a blended family. Their children even call the other's mom "Aunt" and mention that they're like siblings. There's also the fact that Raven-Symoné herself is a lesbian. This has attracted a large following amongst LGBT people.
• Rizzoli & Isles has this in spades. Which is unsurprising, considering it's a pair of Heterosexual Life-Partners played by Abbie Carmichael and Kate Todd.
• RuPaul's Drag Race, seeing as the cast is entirely Drag Queens, guest stars include many LGBT celebrities as judges and it airs on LOGO. It's also one of the most diverse shows in terms of race and has featured several trans* contestants.
• Schitt's Creek gained praise and attention from the LGBTQ community early on for portraying its flamboyant main character David Rose, played by series creator and Show Runner Dan Levy, as pansexual rather than gay. On top of that Catherine O'Hara's Moira Rose, with her over-the-top style, has developed a devoted following among drag queens and anyone who appreciates a good wig. David's poignant Queer Romance with Patrick, which is treated equally to the straight relationships on the show, has also been embraced simply because it avoids the angst that tends to plague gay TV pairings.
• The Secret Circle had a decent lesbian following. Though none of the girls are known to be gay, the close friendships between Cassie and Diana, and Faye and Melissa, definitely fuel things. Plus there's also the tension between Faye with both Cassie and Diana. Les Yay ship teasing is not only played up in the show ("I would do anything for my best friend"), but also by the cast & creator on Twitter ("Fayana was here"). Anthony D. Langford also started uploading parts of soaps on YouTube that focused on male relationships. For example, uploading the Luke and Reid parts of As the World Turns.
• Sense8: Considering the two canon LGBT characters, the pansexual orgies the main characters "sensates" (who are all confirmed to be pansexual) find themselves in, the strong, recurring theme of fluid sexuality, the presence of an openly transgender actress and directors, and the prominent coverage of the show on queer websites like The Advocateand Out.com, this was practically unavoidable.
• As with most Sherlock Holmes-related stories, Sherlock has a prominent LGBT following very keen on shipping Sherlock and John. There are also many asexual and aromantic fans who resonate with Sherlock and view him as asexual. However, this one also has a prominent LGBT hatedom which insists that the show is actually just 'queer-baiting' by cynically including Ship Tease between Sherlock and John in order to attract such a following while simultaneously ridiculing this.
• Skins positively exploded with this during Maxxie from the first generation for the gay men, as well as Naomi and Emily's relationship for lesbians. With the introduction of the third generation, Franky and Mini's relationship got this fan support as well.
• South of Nowhere, has grown a large cult following among lesbian and bisexual women, of all ages. Especially notable for being one of the first youth-orientated American shows with a gay female protagonist, as well as featuring several other gay and bisexual main characters.
• Starz's Spartacus on HBO was not shy about portraying 1st Century BC Rome as it really was: sex included. It was also a series that was absolutely clear in its intention to openly appeal to the gay male audience that older "sword and sandal" films had covertly appealed to^note Because of censorship laws back in the day, media that catered to gay people often used Classical history as a cover, with pop-cultural ideas of Classical clothing leading to a lot of ripped guys in loincloths. Thus, anything that's set in that period is liable to attract a sizable LGBT fanbase. The general lack of clothing among the gorgeous cast (male and female, though the male costumes were generally more accurate) helped as well. The show became well-known for its depiction of many manly muscular men in Stripperiffic costumes (and not infrequently fully and full-frontally nude) who were shot with just as much erotic Gaze as the female characters, and inclusion of actual m/m sex and relationships (sometimes with tragic endings, although this was mitigated by the series' general Anyone Can Die and cynical view of life).
• Special Ops: Lioness: The majority of the show's fandom (or at least the most vocal ones online) are lesbian or other queer women who watched the show for two reasons: A) the good looking female stars and B) the queer romance between Cruz and Aaliyah.
• Star Trek, which was conceived as taking place in a time when all humanity had overcome all its internal prejudices.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series had plenty of homoeroticism, strong characters and is about a group of peace-loving space scientists overcoming all manners of danger through unity and with a shared, near-unbreakable sense of morality. And it made Slash Fic a thing (Kirk/Spock, anyone?).
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Commander Riker is an icon among the "bear" community.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • Jadzia Dax is extremely popular with LGBT fans: she's clearly pansexual, and consists of a genderless symbiont currently inhabiting a cis-female body but with previous hosts of both sexes. She's best friends with Kira Nerys and the two have an implied foursome with a pair of holographic masseurs at one point, prompting a lot of Slash Fic. She's also the main character in "Rejoined", an Old Flame episode where she's paired with another woman (two of the symbionts' previous hosts were married) and which contains a pretty explicit homophobia allegory.
    • What Slash Fic for this series that isn't Kira/Jadzia femslash, is invariably Julian Bashir/Elim Garak. Garak actor Andrew Robinson intentionally played Garak as pansexual, and Bashir actor Alexander Siddig called them "Star Trek's first gay couple" when first told about their relationship (they were told to tone it down after their first episode together).
  • Star Trek: Voyager attracted a loyal (still active, 25 years and counting) female LGBT Fanbase with its higher than usual for Star Trek number of strong (and attractive) female characters and the Les Yay that came with them. Star Trek: Picard tossed these fans a bone by making longtime fan favorite Seven of Nine canonically queer (type of queerness is ambiguous, Jeri Ryan says pan).
  • Star Trek: Discovery actively set out to cultivate an LGBT fandom by putting an explicit male-male couple, Dr. Culber and Paul Stamets, in the series' supporting cast.^note The previous Trek outing to attempt this, Star Trek Beyond, showed Alternate Timeline Sulu with his husband and daughter in an interaction that was so brief that it could have easily been mistaken for a platonic relationship absent Word of God to the contrary. This led to a serious backlash against the series when Dr. Culber was suddenly murdered in episode nine. The backlash was so severe that it is widely believed to have led to the writers contriving a way to bring him Back from the Dead in season two (Aaron Harberts claims it was planned that way to begin with, but gained a reputation as a Lying Creator during the first season).
• Supergirl (2015) gained a huge following amongst LGBT women in season 2 when it was revealed that Alex is gay. Her Coming-Out Story and relationship with Maggie has been highly praised.
• Supernatural:
  • The series unexpectedly managed to gather not just a huge female fanbase, but also a huge queer female fanbase; while many of those involved in the show's very extensive Slash Fic fanbase are straight, a decent proportion are bi or even gay, many of which genuinely saw representation of themselves in Dean and his relationship with Castiel. This caused some conflict later when the Dean/Castiel subtext was heavily increased, but then the writers insisted that the characters were always intended to be straight, leading to some arguing that the show took advantage of queer viewers who were expecting some canonisation of the subtext.
  • Cas in particular has a massive LGBT fanbase, owing as much to his canonical lack of gender and his "utter indifference to sexual orientation" as to his buckets of Ho Yay with Dean. His asexual fanbase is particularly large — and endorsed by his actor.
  • And then there was that time when Jared Padalecki admitted at a con that if the writers ever decided to make Sam bi, he'd be down to play him that way. After dropping that little bombshell, the fandom has started to retroactively notice that Sam speaks of his past relationships in gender-neutral terms, that his first concern when people mistake him and Dean for lovers is to clarify that they're related, not that they're not gay, and he's never outright stated his sexuality the way Dean has...
• Teen Wolf has developed an extremely large LGBTQ fan following. The cast is full of absolutely gorgeous men who frequently strut around without shirts on — and they just keep adding more of those guys every season! The show also has plenty of bisexual characters, and doesn't make a big deal out of gay, lesbian, or bisexual relationships — the characters simply accept that same-sex love exists without commenting on it or calling it weird. On a more serious note, the show's central relationship is between Scott McCall and "Stiles" Stilinski, who, though straight, openly admit their love for one another and have had several touching moments expressing their affection in a queer-friendly way; as a result, they're not even the most popular slash couple in the fanbase (that honor goes to Stiles and older man Derek Hale, or Sterek). There's also the overall theme of the formation of a "pack" as a metaphor for non-traditional family models; for instance, after Scott transforms freshman Liam into a werewolf, their relationship essentially becomes that of a single teenage father and his confused son.
• True Blood: The creator is gay, so there is plenty of homoerotic fanservice.
• Wednesday: The show has gathered a large fanbase of queer fans, which can be separated into three groups. The first is those who are already fans of The Addams Family's embrace of the strange and unique. The second is those who saw Enid's struggles with not fitting in with her family and not being a "normal werewolf" to be very relatable (especially with her mom wanting her to go to conversion therapy). The final group are those who saw the Les Yay between Wednesday and Enid and watch the show specifically for this dynamic.
• The Wheel of Time (2021) has a large number of lesbian fans. This is mainly due to Moiraine and Siuan being in a relationship in this version and the presence of beautiful and strong female characters. It also helps that actresses like Rosamund Pike (who plays Moiraine) already have large lesbian fanbases.
• Willow: Given that Kit and Jade, two of the female main characters, are explicitly in love while their growing romance is a continuing arc, it's no surprise this is a popular show among many LGBT+ viewers.
• Xena: Warrior Princess: Xena and Gabrielle weren't lovers at first, but by the end of the series due to the huge LGBT fanbase they were declared to be soulmates, destined to hook up in every single lifetime, and every incarnation, forever. In fact, their future selves were married. And even clones made from the DNA of their Ancient Greek incarnations hooked up the very day that they became sentient. Even their own mysteriously similar-looking ancestors hook up. And for some reason, Joxer is always with them.
• The Young and the Restless has a surprisingly vocal subset of young, queer fans. Or, maybe not so surprisingly — as of 2017, the show has its first official same-gender romance, between fan favorite Mariah and newcomer Tessa. The fact that everyone in-universe so far has been supportive of Mariah also helps.