Adaptational Sexuality

Top: Mystique kissing Destiny in Inferno
Bottom: Mystique kissing Magneto in X-Men: First Class

Dennis Hensley: The book is extremely explicit and in some places very homoerotic. Has that been toned down?
Dana Delany: Yeah, it's very much a heterosexual island. It's too bad because Anne Rice has a great homosexual following, but I think Garry Marshall is aiming for a Middle-American audience. There are two things I think about this: in movies, I think, people only want one lover—they want the hero and they want the heroine. They get confused otherwise, even though that's reality.

— Movieline interview for Exit to Eden.

Elements of a character changing when a work is adapted from one medium to another is an extremely common occurrence. Nice Guys might turn into Jerkasses, platonic friends might become love interests, an ally might become an enemy, etc.

One of the most controversial ways of changing a character (much like a Race Lift, and for similar reasons) is to alter their sexuality. This could mean making a homosexual character straight, giving a sex life to someone described as asexual, putting aromantic characters into romantic relationships, making a straight person gay or bisexual, or any combination or variation of the above. It's debatable whether establishing a gay orientation for a character with a previously unknown sexuality counts — presumably, "I'll just tell the missus I'll be home late tonight" would slide right by for a minor male character whose marriage wasn't established in the source material, but would raise eyebrows for a woman.

Sometimes a form of Bowdlerization, when the change is made to appease Moral Guardians or to avoid controversy. Compare Hide Your Lesbians and Promoted to Love Interest. Not to be confused with Situational Sexuality. This can be made clear through a Queer Establishing Moment. Sub-trope to Adaptational Diversity. Compare Adaptational Gender Identity for when a character's gender identity is changed in an adaptation.

Note: If a character (most importantly if they're based on a Real Life person) is merely speculated to have a certain sexuality and a depiction does not follow that, it does not count as this trope, even if said speculation has been generally accepted as fact through Pop-Cultural Osmosis.

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Example subpages:

• Fan Works

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• Area 88: In the original manga, Mickey Simon is attracted to women and has two significant relationships with them, with him even sharing a tragic Last Kiss with the latter of the two before they both die. In the anime adaptation, these relationships (and the women he was in them with) are not present, and he is shown at one point to be reading Playgirl, suggesting an interest in men.
• Classi9: In real life, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is a known fact. It has been considered one of the reasons behind his semi-permanent depressive disorder, and his brother, who was also gay, discussed it in his biography. In the manga, he is bisexual, or possibly pansexual, as he doesn't care about someone's gender so long as they are weak enough to be attractive to him.
• While Lyrical Nanoha is legendary for the Homoerotic Subtext between Nanoha and Fate and the two are confirmed to be a couple via Word of Gay, Nanoha was originally in a relationship with Chrono back in the Lyrical Toy Box fandisc for Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever.
• Sailor Moon:
  • In the manga, Kunzite and Zoisite's sexuality was never addressed but there is a piece of artwork Naoko Takeuchi made whilst hashing out plot points that were eventually dropped that shows Zoisite and Sailor Mercury and Kunzite and Sailor Venus embracing. In the anime however, Kunzite and Zoisite are a couple (and in the DiC dub "Zoycite" is a woman). Also Fisheye was never into guys in the manga, again showing romantic interest in Sailor Mercury, but chased men in the anime and once more became female in The '90s English dub.
  • The Cloverway English dub of the original anime did this to Haruka (Amara) and Michuru (Michelle). In the Japanese version and later dubs they are unrelated and an Official Couple. The dub changed them so that they're cousins. In combination with that, the dub edited a scene so Michelle mentions her first kiss was with a boy named Brad and Amara also mentions being attracted to boys. Michuru is Ambiguously Bi but her kissing a boy was nowhere in the Japanese version. The dub, however, accidentally made the cousins come off as gay or bisexual anyway (though with a Kissing Cousins slant) because their scenes together are still heavily romantic even with dialogue changes.
• Prince of Stride: Alternative: Takeru Fujiwara was a straight bachelor in the visual novel the anime is based on. In the anime, he has been changed to gay, with no romantic interest in the heroine, and is instead heavily implied to have feelings for Riku... As well as any man with attractive and muscular legs.
• Juri Arisugawa of Revolutionary Girl Utena has a different sexuality in every continuity:
  • In the anime series, she's a closeted lesbian who is secretly in love with her childhood frenemy Shiori Takatsuki,
  • In the manga, she's straight and in love with Touga Kiryuu except in that version, she actually has a torch for Ruka and just sees Touga as a stand-in in Ruka's absence; incidentally, Shiori doesn't even exist in the manga. Part of the reason for this seems to be that Juri in the manga is a combination of Juri from the anime and Nanami (who is in love with Touga and a Clingy Jealous Girl much like manga!Juri). In interviews, Chiho Saito said that since the manga was shorter, she wanted to keep the story as focused on Utena as possible, so she decided Juri's love triangle couldn't be as separate from the main character as it was in the anime. The After the Revolution manga epilogue Saito did 20 years later reversed this decision to an extent, showing a now-adult Juri in a relationship with Shiori.
  • In Adolescence of Utena, Juri is once again in love with Shiori, but also appears to be hitting on Miki at one point.
  • In the movie-manga and Light Novels, Juri's sexuality has never been specified.
• Tokyo Mew Mew's Minto was clearly into Zakuro, but she also showed attraction to a couple of guys. When making Mew Mew Power, the translators for 4Kids Entertainment realized that there was no way they could write around the lesbian subtext between the two characters, and apparently decided that having Corina be gay would raise fewer eyebrows than having her be bisexual. So while they toned down Corina's romantic feelings toward Renee where they could, they excised any hint that she might have feelings for anyone else, most notably in a scene where the Mew Mews were imagining their ideal man; Mint's imaginary boyfriend was replaced with an image of Renee.
  • The attraction is further amplified in the 2022 reboot, with the added implication that it may be reciprocated.
• My-HiME. In the anime, Natsuki repeatedly states that she has no interest in or time or romance, and her close friend Shizuru believes that her feelings for Natsuki are unrequited. That said, Shizuru is Natsuki's most important person, and there are some indications that Natsuki may return her feelings. In the manga, however, Natsuki's most important person is Yuuichi, thereby creating a Love Triangle with Mai and suggesting that Natsuki is heterosexual in this continuity.
• Baki the Grappler: Kureha, in the subs, was obsessed with bodybuilding. Kureha in the anime dub, however, is obsessed with bodybuilding and beautiful men. The dub also changes the scene Kureha has with Baki after Doppo's loss from Kureha talking about how life and death are natural for a doctor to Kureha going on about how cute Baki is, and gives every line out of his mouth huge amounts of innuendo from then onward.
• Gankutsuou is a rare example that takes this trope in both directions. In the novel, Eugénie Danglars is a lesbian who runs away with her piano instructor while Franz is simply a good friend of Albert. In the anime, both characters are in love with Albert.
• The title character of Birdy the Mighty is a Celibate Heroine, rejecting the feelings of someone she knew from childhood because she feels romance would get in the way of her job. In Decode, she returns the feelings of another childhood friend.

Audio Drama

• The Big Finish Doctor Who: Jago & Litefoot line heavily implies that Litefoot is gay (they had no real sexuality in the original serial featuring them).

Comic Books

• Archie Comics:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Word of Gay from Ken Penders stated that Rotor Walrus was supposed to have been gay, falling in love with a former member of the Dark Legion in the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" storyline. Granted, he revealed this after he left the title and Ian Flynn killed off the latter when he revisited the story.
  • In the main Archie Comics Nancy has a boyfriend. In Afterlife with Archie she is using her boyfriend as a Beard and is really in love with (and dating) Ginger.
  • The reboot of Josie and the Pussycats makes Melody bisexual. The reboot also changed Jughead from heterosexual to aromantic asexual.
• The DCU:
  • The all-new version of Alan Scott (the original Golden Age Green Lantern and very much Married With Children in the old continuity) revealed as being in a same-sex relationship on the all-new Earth 2. Word of God says that this was to make up for the fact that his son Obsidian, who was homosexual, was erased from continuity due to the age-down making Scott too young to have adult children. When the original Golden Age version of Alan Scott returned to the DC Universe (alongside his children Jade and Obsidian) following DC Rebirth and Doomsday Clock, a Flashback story set in the 1940s implied that Alan was a closeted gay man. This was eventually confirmed in Infinite Frontier #0. Jimmy, Alan's friend who died back in his origin story, was Retconned into having been his secret lover.
  • The National Comics (New 52-era outside continuity books) version of Rose & Thorn is Ambiguously Bi (it's hinted that Rose's Superpowered Alter Ego tried to seduce her best friend, Mel).
  • The Multiversity:
    • On Earth-36, The Flash and Green Lantern are a gay couple known as Red Racer and Flashlight.
    • The Ray of Earth-10 is gay, in keeping with the theme of each of Earth-10's Freedom Fighters representing different groups who were persecuted by the Nazis.
    • The Teen Justice miniseries establishes that the Earth-11 (Gender Flip universe) counterparts to Donna Troy and Raven are a gay couple, when the standard versions of the characters are straight.
  • Originally, Maxima was an adult Stalker with a Crush And Test Tube who was obsessed with bedding Superman and other powerful men. Post-Flashpoint story Crucible turns her into a closeted teenage lesbian with a schoolgirl crush on Supergirl.
  • In Pre-Flashpoint comics, the last time we saw DEO Agent Cameron Chase, she was in a relationship with a guy called Dylan and expecting his child. In Supergirl (Rebirth) she's dating Dr. Shay Vertitas.
  • Pre-Flashpoint Captain Stingaree was a closeted gay man in a relationship with the Cavalier. His closeted status was even used to blackmail him into acting as an informant and implied to be part of why he's the family's "black sheep", a core component of his character. In the New 52, he's straight and married with children.
  • In DC Comics Bombshells, a number of characters who are either straight or Ambiguously Bi in the mainstream DC universe are depicted as unambiguously lesbian or bi. For example, Big Barda and Kimiyo Hoshi are lovers, Wonder Woman is unambiguously bisexual, Lois Lane is dating Supergirl, and Mera is strongly implied to have had a past sexual thing with Diana.
  • In the DC Rebirth relaunch, Aqualad II (Jackson Hyde/Kaldur'ahm) is gay. Then again, this might be a subversion, as he was a Canon Immigrant from Young Justice and all Greg Weisman said on the subject was he wasn't straight. At the time Rebirth started, all he had in a love interest was a relationship with Tula that ended with her falling in love with Garth while he was away, along with some Ship Teasing in Brightest Day that suggested the comic version of Aqualad had an attraction to Lorena Marquez/Aquagirl II. The 2019 revival of Young Justice would indeed see Kaldur with a boyfriend, and Word of God is that he's polysexual.
  • Natasha Irons, the niece of Steel, exclusively had male love interests in the pre-Flashpoint continuity. When she finally made her post-reboot debut in the DC Rebirth Superwoman series, she's established as having had a girlfriend in the past, and later shown to be in a relationship with Traci 13.
    • Traci herself went from dating Jaime Reyes pre-Flashpoint to dating Natasha afterward.
  • The DC Rebirth relaunch of Deathstroke establishes that Jericho from the Teen Titans is pansexual, and has a rather fluid view on sexuality in general. In fact, he was originally planned to be gay when Marv Wolfman and George Perez was developing the character.
  • Ray Terrill, aka the Ray, is gay in DC Rebirth, as compared to his pre-Flashpoint counterpart, who used to have a thing with Black Canary.
  • Gotham Central had Batman: The Animated Series Canon Immigrant Renee Montoya come out as a lesbian. However, the Series Bible for B: TAS had her join the GCPD after her husband died. (Though the bible's canonicity is debatable, as Renee's entry also states that she opposed Batman's vigilante activities, while in the series she supported them, in contrast to her partner Harvey Bullock).
  • Wonder Woman (Rebirth):
    • Barbara Anne Minerva, post-Crisis, was attracted to men and most recently had shown an attraction to Hunter Zolomon (Zoom, the second Reverse-Flash). Here, she's attracted to women, although it's not clear what her sexuality is.
    • Wonder Woman's friend Etta Candy is also strongly implied to be a lesbian, complete with some light Ship Teasing with the aforementioned Barbara. Etta was exclusively depicted as straight prior to this and even ended up marrying Steve Trevor in the post-Crisis continuity. This also seems to be true of the alternate universe version of Etta from Grant Morrison's Wonder Woman: Earth One graphic novels, who is very intrigued to learn about Themyscira.
      Etta: So let me get this straight. You're from a paradise island of science fiction lesbians? With a side of bondage? Honey, I'll drink to that! Woo woo!
  • In the pre-Crisis continuity, the Justice League of America supporting character Dale Gunn was Ship Teased with both Vixen and Zatanna, and was even briefly in a Love Triangle with them. In the New 52 Vibe series, Dale is instead shown to have a husband named Casey.
  • In his original appearance, Mikaal Tomas, the Starman of 1976, was portrayed as motivated by his lost love Lyssa Jurndaal, and not shown to have any other romantic interests. When he reappeared in James Robinson's Starman, he was bisexual.
  • The pre-Flashpoint version of Nightwing villain Stallion had an ex-wife and objectified women. The post-Flashpoint version is reformed and works in a gay bar. However, it's also suggested that when he was a villain, he was extremely closeted, so the above characterisation may still stand as Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?.
  • In Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed Steve Trevor (traditionally a straight man) is here Steve and Trevor, a married gay couple.
  • In Harley Quinn: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour (set in the continuity of the animated series), Vixen is a lesbian and has a girlfriend named Elle.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Colossus of X-Men fame is straight in the 616 universe, but gay in the Ultimate Universe and in a relationship with Northstar, who's gay in both continuities.
  • Exiles traveled through many of Marvel's multiversal realities, picking up an alternate-timeline Mariko Yashida (Sunfire), who entered into a lesbian relationship with the Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Woman) of another reality. In the mainstream timeline both characters were or are straight (Mariko one of the most important of Wolverine's deceased love interests, Mary Jane Spider-Man's wife). A later version of the team would include an alternate reality Beast, who was the lover of Wonder Man.
  • In X-Treme X-Men (2012) an alternate universe Wolverine, here known by his birth name of James Howlett, is bisexual and in a relationship with Hercules, whose 616-universe incarnation was Ambiguously Bi at the time but has since been confirmed as bisexual.
  • In the Secret Wars relaunch of Runaways, Pixie and Jubilee are stated to have been a couple at one point. Pixie also hits on Cloak and clarifies that she's bisexual ("Anyway, I date boys too!"), but Jubilee's orientation hasn't been stated. The final issue has Jubilee kissing Frostbite, one of her female teammates. On that note, Secret Wars's Siege comic had Leah of Hel and Magik in a sapphic relationship.
  • Played with regarding the Ultimate version of Jessica Drew being a lesbian. She's actually an Opposite-Sex Clone of Peter Parker and by her own admission has the exact same preferences as Peter: women, especially natural redheads like Mark Jane and Jewish girls such as KittyPryde.
  • Elektra and The Kingpin's wife, Vanessa Fisk, are a lesbian couple in The Punisher MAX.
  • In Marvel 1602, Angel's Silver Age attraction to Jean is referenced, with the twist that Werner is entirely unaware she's a Sweet Polly Oliver and is in love with "John Grey".
  • In Spider-Gwen, the version of Mary Jane Watson in Gwen's home universe is explicitly bi, and eventually ends up in a relationship with Glory Grant (who also fits this trope).
  • An unusual example in Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat!, which reintroduces Tom Hale as gay, when the original non-canon Patsy Walker teen humor book had him dating a girl called Nan Brown ... but because that book is officially fictional within the Marvel Universe, from his perspective he was written as being straight when he wasn't.
• IDW:
  • Transformers have historically tended to be straight. IDW generally has not bought into this, with multiple characters who lacked any romantic partners in Generation 1 material developing romantic entanglements, often with a robot of the same gender: Cyclonus with Tailgate, Chromedome with Rewind (and, apparently, Prowl), Blast Off with Onslaught, you get the idea.
    • Arcee had a relationship with Springer in the Legends comic and the third season of the cartoon, an explicit crush on Hot Rod in the movie, and dated Chromedome in The Headmasters; in The Transformers: Robots in Disguise, she hooks up with fellow female Transformer Aileron, while in the 2019 series, she's in a relationship with Greenlight.
    • Knock Out was Ambiguously Gay in Transformers: Prime, but it's never stated explicitly, or indeed implied by more than a quick sequence of Knock Out checking out Optimus Prime's altmode. The Transformers: Windblade and The Transformers: Till All Are One had no, aheh, truck with the word "ambiguously", and a 'bot with the same design as his best war buddy in Prime is explicitly his husband.
    • Ratchet is unattached in the G1 cartoon, mentions a girlfriend in Transformers: Animated, and gets robo-married to fellow male robot Drift in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye. Although to be fair, he could hypothetically be bi in all three.
    • The 2019 series Valentine's Day special pairs Blast Off with Cosmos.
  • Jem and the Holograms (IDW):
    • The IDW reboot makes Kimber and Stormer from Jem a couple. Kimber in the cartoons was known for having many male love interests. Stormer's sexuality was never hinted at, though. The two were heavy on the Les Yay in "The Bands Break Up" episode but nothing was ever confirmed.
    • Aja is bisexual. In the original cartoon, her only shown love interest was her boyfriend.
• Other
  • George Fayne was straight and had at least two male love interests in the original Nancy Drew novels. In the 2018 comic book series, George is instead an out lesbian and in a relationship with a girl named Danica.
  • In the Kieron Gillen version of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, Cannon is Amicable Exes with Tabu Singh. Neither character was shown to be interested in men in previous incarnations.

Films — Animation

• In The Batman vs. Dracula, Dracula is trying to resurrect his dead wife, named Carmilla Karnstein. There aren't a lot of well-known vampiresses to use for a Mythology Gag, but given what Carmilla is best known for...
• Queer Duck: The Movie does this to the unnamed Mocky Mouse mascot of gay-friendly theme park Fairyland from the original web series episode "The Gayest Place on Earth". While the original web series depicted the character as gay due to being in a relationship with a male turkey named Gobble the Salty Seaman and getting confrontational over Queer Duck flirting with Gobble, the character in the movie is reinterpreted as the mascot of a theme park called Happyland and is supposedly straight, since he doesn't show attraction to men, denies the gay men Queer Duck assembled admittance to Happyland and at the end of the film is told "Beat it, hetero" when Queer Duck kicks him out of the theme park after buying out the place and changing it to Fairyland.
• In the comic Superman: Red Son, Wonder Woman is attracted to Superman. In the Superman: Red Son film, she turns him down because she's a lesbian. Funnily enough Wondy is bisexual in the comics, but seems to be strictly same sex here.
• In Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, Etta Candy is an out lesbian.
  Etta: Next stop: Themyscira. And hopefully an Amazon who likes 'em thick.
  Wonder Woman: If we survive this, I can make a few introductions.

Films — Live-Action

• Atomic Blonde: The protagonist's heterosexual affair with a male French agent in the graphic novel is turned into a same-sex romance in the film.
• Barbarella: The Black Queen in the comic books is a Psycho Lesbian who only shows interest in getting it on with Barbarella and ignores Pygar. She was changed to a Depraved Bisexual for the movie, still showing interest in Barbarella but also Pygar, even having dreams about him, which suggests she prefers him to Barbarella. Barbarella is not averse to female attention herself in the comics, but she's clearly not interested in the Black Queen in the film. She's also openly promiscuous, but in the film has to be coaxed into sex (though is quite eager once she experiences it for the first time). This is Played for Laughs, however.
• Confirmed for Gaston's comic relief sidekick LeFou by Word of Saint Paul in Beauty and the Beast (2017). Josh Gad even admitted to being proud of playing the first openly gay Disney character. How "open" he comes across is up to viewer interpretation in the actual movie.
• The unnamed gay protagonist of Truman Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (whom Holly calls by her brother's name, 'Fred') becomes the film's straight love interest Paul. They also eliminated all signs of Holly's bisexuality. Famously referenced in Seinfeld, when George's attempt to bluff through a book club meeting, having only seen the film, fails spectacularly when his girlfriend has to tell him, "George... Fred's gay."
• In the movie version of Dear Evan Hansen the character of Jared is stated to be gay, changing a line about hooking up with a girl at band camp to one about hooking up with a guy at said band camp.
• Truman Capote's unmade script for the The Great Gatsby would've had Nick as a closeted homosexual and Jordan as a vindictive lesbian.
• In the novel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Rebecca Gillies was a passive-aggressive Alpha Bitch who was setting her claws on Mark Darcy. In the film version, she was changed to a nice Brainy Brunette with a crush on Bridget.
• Cabaret: Christopher Isherwood's autobiographical collection of short stories Goodbye to Berlin never hides the fact that the protagonist was gay, but when they adapted it into the film they turned the main character bisexual, had him hook up with the cabaret singer Sally, and had them being the official couple for the majority of the play, with a token mention of his attraction to men at the beginning and the end of their relationship. This apparently pissed off Isherwood to the point that he wrote Christopher and his Kind in an effort to (pardon the pun) set the record straight. This book was given a movie adaptation in 2011, starring Matt Smith. Watching the two movies back-to-back is actually a really good case study of the LGBT movement's progress in the last forty years.
• In Tennessee Williams' 1955 play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brick's friend Skipper killed himself after drunkenly confessing his love, and Brick's own feelings are rather violently conflicted and ambiguous. The 1958 film strips out this aspect, which some critics have suggested leaves the central conflict of Brick's character somewhat muddled.
• The documentary The Celluloid Closet was supposed to feature a sequence detailing Biopics where the subject was known to be gay or bisexual but was nevertheless portrayed as straight. It was cut due to rights issues. Some of the films meant to be featured were:
  • The Agony and the Ecstasy: Charlton Heston denied the film rights because he insisted that his portrayal of the famous sculptor Michelangelo as straight was historically accurate.
  • Alexander the Great (1956), starring Richard Burton. Despite popular belief, no ancient sources state Alexander had homosexual relationships or that his relationship with Hephaestion was sexual. The only person specifically mentioned as Alex's eromenos was Bagoas, a eunuch who had been Darius' courtesan and "was afterwards loved by Alexander" according to historian Quintus Curtius.^note Historian Plutarch says Bagoas did, in fact, win a dance contest and the Macedonian troops urged Alex to kiss him, which he did. Make of it what you will. It is possible he was bisexual as he seems to have married Roxana out of love but other than Greek culture at the time there is nothing to say he was. Due to this, the documentary would have been operating on popular belief.
  • Hans Christian Andersen, starring Danny Kaye (the filmmakers were denied the rights to this because the studio mistakenly thought the documentary would claim that Kaye was gay, rather than Andersen).
  • Night and Day, starring Cary Grant as a straight Cole Porter.
• The first film adaptation of the play The Children's Hour, These Three, changed the story of two teachers having their lives ruined due to rumors that they are having a lesbian affair to rumors that one of them slept with the other's fiance. This is because The Hays Code outlawed even the slightest hint of homosexuality. Even the title had to be changed (to These Three) because the stage play was so well known as a work that dealt with lesbianism. There were other changes as well such as Martha not being Driven to Suicide.
• The Color Purple did not include the lesbian relationships detailed in the book. In the book, Celie explicitly has a crush on Shug and they eventually have a (brief) relationship, however, in the movie, this is mostly reduced to subtext.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo, Eugenie Danglars is a lesbian who runs away with her lover Louise d'Armilly. In the Soviet film adaptation The Prisoner of Château d'If, she is straight and elopes with bandit chief Luigi Vampa instead.
• Ron Woodroof, the straight homophobic protagonist of Dallas Buyers Club, was likely bisexual in real life.
• In the Kenneth Branagh version of Death On The Nile, Miss Bowers turns out to be Marie Van Schuyler's secret lesbian lover rather than simply her nurse.
• Emmanuelle portrays the titular character's mentor, Mario, as ostensibly straight. In the original novel, upon which the movie was based, Mario was bisexual, with a strong inclination towards other men.
• Eternals depicts Phastos as a gay man with a husband, in contrast to the comics, where he had a human wife.
• Fried Green Tomatoes portrayed the relationship between Ruth and Idgie (which is quite clearly a lesbian union in the book) as friends, with strong implications of romance.
• Get Carter: Peter the Dutchman is a misogynistic homosexual in the book.
• The Green Knight: In the original legend, Gawain kisses the unnamed lord in repayment for kissing his beautiful wife. In the film, the lord himself is the one who kisses Gawain.
• The Handmaiden: In the Fingersmith novel Gentleman was gay, and his interest in Maud was entirely monetary. His movie equivalent Fujiwara has an overwhelming desire for Hideko.
• The Robert Wise version of The Haunting (1963) has an Ambiguously Gay/Ambiguously Bi female character. The Haunting (1999) makes the same character openly bisexual. In the 2018 Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House the same character is introduced as checking out a girl at a bar, her utterly ignoring the guys who check her out, and her and the girl ending up in bed. So full circle one guesses.
• It: Chapter Two reveals that Richie is gay, and has been in love with Eddie since they were children.
• This shows up from time to time in the James Bond franchise:
  • From Russia with Love eliminates Rosa Klebb's scene from the book of outright trying to seduce Tatiana. In the movie Klebb plays uncomfortably with Tatiana's hair while talking of "a labor of love".
  • Pussy Galore's lesbianism is downplayed in the film version of Goldfinger, where she merely tells Bond she is "immune" to his charms. Tilly was also a lesbian in the book and in love with Pussy, but is depicted as purely heterosexual in the film.
  • Bond himself is of course a dedicated heterosexual in the books, but Skyfall reveals Bond while he mainly prefers women has indeed slept with men in the past, as he’s completely unfazed by Depraved Bisexual Sliva coming onto him. Given Bond is an international spy, him having to go under cover as a homosexual man at some point is hardly surprising.
  • No Time to Die implies that Ben Whishaw's incarnation of Q is gay or bisexual when he mentions that he was having a date with another man as Bond and Moneypenny come to him.
• The biopic Killer Nurse depicted serial killer Charles Cullen as a necrophiliac, despite there being absolutely no evidence he was one in real life.
• Kiss of the Spider Woman: Molina is gay here, not straight like the book had it.
• The film adaptation of David Gerrold's autobiographical novel Martian Child had the openly gay Gerrold played as straight by John Cusack, giving him Amanda Peet to flirt with.
• The McKenzie Break: Berger is a suspected homosexual, while his book counterpart is an accused defeatist and enemy sympathizer.
• My Summer of Love: In the book any possible attraction between the two beyond just-friends affection is only distantly implied, if present at all. The movie, however, unambiguously plays their relationship out as a romantic affair that is explicitly sexual too.
• Willy Rumson, the antagonist of One Fat Summer was shown to have two girls in his gang he would readily hit on, as well as making a pass at Michelle Mark's (mostly to get under Pete Marino's skin). In the movie adaptation Measure Of A Man, however, while he still makes passes at a few of the female characters, the climax of the movie has Bobby discover Willy on a secluded section of beach having a quiet moment with his boyfriend.
• In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Harding was as heavily implied to be gay as was possible in 1960s literature, depicted as effeminate and forced into the asylum for unnamed sexual acts, and getting a long speech about the ridiculousness of the society that condemned him. In the movie, however, he's reduced to a background character who gets at most three lines, which might not count as this trope if not for the fact that his appearance is totally different—and far more masculine—as well. Book readers usually don't even recognize him until the nurse uses his name.
• The Other Boleyn Girl (both the film and the book) portray George Boleyn as gay. In real life, he was a notorious womanizer due to his shrew of a wife. In the book, he is having an affair with a male courtier while in the film it is mostly subtext, his wife challenging him about why he never sleeps with her.
• In Power Rangers (2017), Trini the Yellow Ranger is hinted to have been in a relationship with another girl, and the movie's creators have said that she's at a point where she's questioning her sexuality. It is confirmed that she's not straight, at least.
• Supposedly, the producers wanted to remove all homosexual allusions from the film adaptation of Queen of the Damned, so Louis (Lestat's long-suffering fledgling) wasn't included in the movie despite playing a fairly pivotal role in the book, and Lestat was given a female love interest in Jesse (who showed absolutely no interest in him in the book).
• In Rope (the original play) Brandon, Philip, and Rupert were explicitly gay. In Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation (which was made in 1948) it was reduced to subtext between Brandon and Rupert with Brandon also referring to a past relationship with Janet implying he's possibly bisexual.
• Rosaline: Count Paris, Juliet's earnest suitor in the original Romeo and Juliet, is gay here, and only courts Juliet to get his father off his back and help Rosaline. He's pleased that Juliet's age means the wedding won't have to take place for a couple of years.
• Saving Mr. Banks makes no mention of P.L. Travers's girlfriend even though the two were living together when Travers wrote the first Mary Poppins book.
• In Star Trek Beyond, Sulu is shown as a gay man in homage to Sulu's original actor George Takei, who is openly gay in real life. However, some people, including Takei himself, thought it would've been better if they'd created a brand new character who was LGBTQ.^note Takei has elaborated on other occasions that he'd always portrayed Sulu as straight.
• In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche's story about her ex-husband's suicide changes from homosexuality (as in the play by Tennessee Williams) to "weakness".
• In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Peter Gulliam is portrayed as gay, and though he was never said to be explicitly straight in the novel it's never elaborated on. Not that it makes much of a difference in either since his sexuality is relevant for all of six seconds. Word of God for the movie is that they made him gay because the idea of him being closeted fit in well with the themes of secrecy and concealment throughout the entire story.
• The Tomie films portray the title villain as a Depraved Bisexual who has several schoolgirl lesbian lovers. This is in sharp contrast to the manga, where Tomie outright hated other girls, and was very contemptuous and territorial around them.
• In the original graphic novel for Alena, the title character is bisexual; she has a romantic encounter with Josefin but later falls for Fabian, a boy. In the movie, Fabian is now Fabienne and Alena falls for her instead. There is no indication of any interest in boys in the film.
• Thirteen Women: In the film, Hazel Cousins is a married woman who kills her husband and goes to prison. In the original book, Hazel is a virgin who remains so simply because she is considered too beautiful; men are either too intimidated to approach her, assume she is married or engaged, or believe that she will break their heart. Hazel eventually becomes a lesbian after she is seduced by the wife of the doctor treating her for tuberculosis. Hazel starves herself to death in a sanitarium while suffering the heartache of having been abandoned by her lover Martha.
• Director, Danny Boyle and actor, Robert Carlyle both say they consider Begbie from Trainspotting to be an Armoured Closet Gay. Something Irvine Welsh didn't intend when writing the book.
• Tromeo and Juliet: Juliet has a girlfriend, Ness, before Tromeo in this version.
• V for Vendetta: In the book, Gordon is straight and he has a relationship with Evey. Here, he's gay and hides himself through having pretty young women like her over to his house, as the regime persecutes gays. Possibly this was done to match up with Stephen Fry's orientation, along with lending more drama.
• With a Kiss I Die: Juliet is portrayed as heterosexual in the original play. Here, she's bisexual.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Mystique has been bisexual in the comics from her earliest appearances with Chris Claremont intending the mutant Destiny to be Mystique‘s lover from get-go but due to the comics code at the time had to make them just partners instead. In the Fox films, Mystique is straight in both timelines showing no interest in other women.
  • In The New Mutants Dani Moonstar and Rahne Sinclair aka Wolfsbane fall for each other and kiss. In the comics, they’re both attracted to guys and only see each other as friends.

Literature

• Dear Evan Hansen: Connor states that he considers himself "fluid," being attracted to both girls and guys, which is not in the musical.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
  • Some of the Missing Adventures portray the Doctor (mainly shown as asexual in the classic series) as bisexual or omnisexual. For instance, the First Doctor Missing Adventure "The Plotters" involves a sequence where the First Doctor gripes about the outrageously gay King James I's interest in his crossdressed female companion over him, acting jealous and complaining that on his home planet "I had been considered quite a looker". The "Shada" novelization also gives the Fourth Doctor a few lines that allude to him having an interest in men, such as saying the villain is trying to kill "[Clare and] all the other lovely girls. And all the lovely boys".
  • The original pitch for rejected book Campaign would have made Ian bisexual through placing him in a romance with Alexander the Great—the pitch document even specifies that "his feelings about bisexuality could provide a good forum for modern viewpoints, seen through a Sixties mentality". The book that eventually got written is so far removed from the original pitch that these elements were excised except as backstory, with the only remaining parts being Alexander calling Ian 'my beloved', and a scene where Ian talks to Susan about how beautiful he found Alexander, saying that he got drunk with him and 'gave him my all'. Both of these happen fairly early on in the story when it's still possible it could be purely historical and are soon abandoned once it goes into a metafictional Jigsaw Puzzle Plot—possibly even subverting this trope as it turns out the more important relationship Ian had on Alexander's campaign was with a Persian Queen who seduced him, while the Alexander relationship is firmly restricted to innuendo and Susan being Shipper on Deck. (Ian does get involved in a married relationship with another version of himself in the Great Fire of London, though this is influenced by Theory of Narrative Causality and it probably isn't gay if it's with yourself.)
  • The Target novelisation of "The Power of the Daleks" goes out of its way to give Lesterson, who in the serial was Married to the Job and seems to display a mild sexual fascination with the Daleks if anything, a crush on Janley that he tries to ignore. It seems to be mostly there so Janley's beauty can be described through Lesterson's internal monologue.
  • The Target novelisation of "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" makes Professor Whitaker into a giggling Sissy Villain implied very heavily to be gay (such as gushing over how when he masters time travel he will collect Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward from history to keep to himself, and saying admiring things about the physique of the tied-up Doctor). His on-screen portrayal was not at all like this.
  • The novelization of "Shada" also gives Named by the Adaptation Victim of the Week David an internal monologue where he thinks about going to a gay club and worries that being a Cilla Black fan is a bit stereotypical. Part of the reason he gives the Villain of the Week a lift is because he finds him attractive.
• In the Tomoe Gozen Saga Jessica Amanda Salmonson re-imagines the title character as a lesbian.
• In-universe in the Hercule Poirot novel Mrs. McGinty's Dead: Ariadne Oliver says her fictional detective Sven Hjerson "never cared for women", while the writer of the stage adaptation has given him UST with a female character, insisting "But you can't have him a pansy, darling. Not for this sort of play."

Live-Action TV

• In 13 Reasons Why, Tony, Ryan, Courtney, and Alex are all gay^note The latter isn't revealed to be gay until the final season, whereas the other three are shown to be gay in Season 1. The Adaptation Expansion of the series caused this since in the book very few details were provided about them, whereas the TV series gives all of them backstories.
• The 100:
  • Clarke Griffin is straight in the books, but bisexual in the TV series.
  • Octavia Blake gets a girlfriend in the books but is only explicitly interested in boys in the TV series. Though it can be argued she is Ambiguously Bi.
• The 2015 BBC miniseries adaptation of And Then There Were None added heavy implications that Emily Brent was attracted to her maid Beatrice which gave her additional incentive to spurn Beatrice when she became pregnant and also made William Blore's victim a gay man with some subtext that Blore himself might be an Armoured Closet Gay.
• Anne with an E's version of Aunt Josephine is a lesbian who was in a longtime relationship with a woman named Gertrude.
• Arrowverse:
  • Arrow:
    • Nyssa al Ghul (Nyssa Raatko in the original comics) is a lesbian. More significantly, she was in a relationship with Sara, the first Black Canary. This would indicate that Canary is likely either bi or pansexual in the show, though the creators avoided putting an exact label on her sexual orientation. In the original comics, Black Canary is generally depicted as heterosexual and the longtime lover of Green Arrow, though longtime writer Gail Simone has stated she considers Canary to be bisexual, even if it's never been made canon. (Although, strictly, the Canary who was in a relationship with Nyssa isn't the series's version of Black Canary from the comics, but her sister.)
    • Curtis Holt (Michael Holt/Mr. Terrific in the comics) is gay, with a husband. In the comics, Michael's primary motivation as a hero was the death of his wife and their unborn child.
    • Played with by Adrian Chase, who is still straight, but is made a Composite Character with Prometheus, who seduced a male superhero.
  • In the Legends of Tomorrow episode "Camelot/3000", Queen Guinevere regards King Arthur as a good friend and has The Big Damn Kiss with Sara Lance.
  • During the crossover event Crisis on Earth-X the Earth-X version of Leonard Snart is in a relationship with Ray Terrill. In the comics, Leonard Snart has been shown to be heterosexual.
• The Baby-Sitters Club (2020):
  • Dawn's father only dates and marries women in the book series, while he's gay in the adaptation and has a male partner after his divorce. Apparently he and Sharon knew for a while but were too co-dependent on each other to do anything about it at first.
  • Alex, who along with his cousin Toby befriends Mary Anne and Stacey in Sea City, is not explicitly assigned a sexuality in the books (although he was very likely straight or bi, seeing as how he has a brief summer romance with Mary Anne and mentions having a girlfriend back home). In the series, he is openly gay (or possibly bi) and talks about his crush on a boy at theater camp.
  • Charlotte Johanssen has a mother and father in the books, making them a heterosexual married couple. In the Netflix series, Charlotte has two moms, making the original Dr. Johanssen at least no longer straight.
  • Janine, who had a boyfriend named Jerry in the original books, has a girlfriend named Ashley Wyeth in this version.
  • Dawn shows exclusive attraction toward boys in the books. She doesn't date anyone in the TV series but mentions that whoever she falls in love with could be anywhere on the gender spectrum, indicating that she's pansexual (though she doesn't use any labels while describing herself).
• In Bad Sisters, Bibi is a lesbian, despite having a husband in the original Belgian series Clan.
• In order to illustrate how good Blackadder's lawyer is, Blackadder Goes Forth makes a spirited attempt at convincing us Oscar Wilde was the most heterosexual man in Britain.
• The Boys (2019):
  • At first it's left unclear if Queen Maeve is a closeted lesbian or bisexual as she dated Homelander (in terms of him, it was to keep her public image acceptable) and dated a civilian woman before, even though she is only involved with men in the comic. Homelander outs her as a lesbian in Season 2, on national TV no less (she's actually bisexual, but Vought's PR team just sticks with "lesbian" as it's "easier").
  • Popclaw is a closeted lesbian in the comics, but straight (or at least only shown having sex with men) in the show.
• Brave New World: The series implies most if not all New Londoners are bisexuals, given their orgies show people pairing up without regard to genders, plus Lenina's interactions with her friend Frannie and Bernard's comments, while the book has them as strictly heterosexual libertines. As he begins to enjoy himself more and more in New London, John is shown hooking up with a few men despite being heterosexual in the book, although admittedly some of them have masks on their face, implying a level of discomfort.
• Cowboy Bebop (2021) does this with Faye Valentine. In the original anime Faye was clearly into men with her using her feminine whiles to tease and manipulate multiple men, having previously loved conman Whitney Haggis Matsumoto (before he betrayed her) and showing interest in Cowboy Andy (until finding out he's a narcissistic bore) and Spike (all but stated to have fallen in love with him by the end of the series). Her being fairly captivated by Julia and describing her mysterious beauty to Jet with awe could suggest an attraction to women as well, but could also be chalked up to jealousy (her voice actress Megumi Hayashibara has indicated she was going for the latter). In the 2021 show however, Faye is unmistakably bisexual with Canon Foreigner Mel being the first (as far as Faye can remember) woman she’s slept with.
• Cursed: Morgana is portrayed as only having relationships with men in other stories. Here, her only portrayed relationship was with another woman.
• Daisy Jones & The Six: Simone's exact sexuality in the book is unknown, and she eventually marries and has a daughter. In the show she has an explicit lesbian romance with a woman named Bernie.
• Doom Patrol (2019):
  • Prior to becoming Negative Man, Larry Trainor was a closeted gay man, and was having an extramarital affair with one of his fellow airmen at the military base where he was stationed. In the comics he was straight.
  • For the reverse, in the comics, The Brain was most notable for being in a gay relationship with Monsieur Mallah. In the series they appear to just be close partners, with Brain even going after old women when he gets Cliff's body. Monsieur Mallah himself has not been explored enough to showcase any sexuality or attraction one way or the other, though based on one of his interactions with Madam Rouge he at least appears to not be a fan of women.
• The 2013 Dracula TV show reimagined Lucy as a lesbian with a secret crush on her best friend Mina. Although at least one adaptation has had Lucy and Mina make out before.
• Game of Thrones:
  • In the books, Jon has some clear erotic undertones with Satin, a former male prostitute serving at the Wall, leading some people to speculate Jon might be bisexual. None of this is present in the show.
  • In the books, Daenerys occasionally has sex with her handmaid Irri as a kind of stress relief (indicating that she's bisexual since she also enjoyed having sex with Daario), but in the show, she's discomforted when she gets a little too into Doreah's tutoring on lovemaking in "The Kingsroad".
    • It is actually pretty hard to confirm whether Dany is bi or straight. She doesn't desire women, and she had no intentions to have sex with Irri the first time, and the second time she still feels uncomfortable, and sees Irri as more of a sex toy than a lover. It's much more probable for her to be straight.
  • In the novels, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is noted to only have eyes for his pretty slave boys, even when Daenerys is around. He even confirms his sexuality to Dany when she confronts him about it once. In the show, he has no such preference, was caught with Doreah, and a deleted scene shows him with a female lover.
  • The Tyrells are much more liberal about sexuality in the show. In the books, the Reach is the heartland of both chivalry and the Faith, both of which put a premium on chastity and heterosexuality.
    • In addition to playing The Vamp rather than the Princess Classic, Margaery offers to let Loras help consummate her marriage, implies she's experimented widely herself, and strolls right into her brother's chambers during one of his trysts, none of which is even implied in the novels.
    • Likewise, Olenna declares openly that Highgarden doesn't view "a discreet bit of buggery" as a scandal and even teases Tywin that he might just be Armoured Closet Gay.
  • In the books, Ramsay's relationship with the first Reek, and his subsequent torture of Theon to turn him into a Replacement Goldfish for Reek, is full of homosexual undercurrents and Ramsay shows no interest in women and is thoroughly incapable of attracting any woman into a consensual relationship, with Ramsay and his men preferring to rape and torture with abandon. In the show, the homosexual undertones with Theon/Reek are downplayed (though still very much present) and he consensually attracts Monster Fangirls who share in his sadism until he tires of them, and the only person he explicitly rapes is Sansa Stark on her wedding night.
  • The show entirely side-steps the (unconfirmed) hints from the novels that Brynden Tully might be gay or asexual.
  • Although she is quite kinky, Asha Greyjoy takes only male lovers in the books and has a monogamous relationship with a man named Qarl. Her TV counterpart Yara is only seen with female lovers, and is more or less confirmed to be bisexual when she states that she has "a boy or girl in every port."
• Gossip Girl:
  • Chuck Bass is a Depraved Bisexual in the books, but is straight The Casanova in the TV series.
  • Eric Van Der Woodsen, is straight in the books and even has a short lived relationship with Blair, is gay in the TV series.
• Gotham:
  • James Gordon's fiancee Barbara Kean is reimagined as a bisexual woman who used to date Renee Montoya.
  • The Penguin has romantic feelings for the Riddler and thus seems to be gay (as he isn't shown being into women) like his actor.
• The Handmaid's Tale: Ofglen is a lesbian here, and was in a same-sex marriage. Her sexuality is not mentioned in the book at all.
• Hanna: The movie hinted at Hanna being a lesbian, rejecting a boy but kissing Sophie later on. In the series, Hanna and Sophie are vying for a boy's attention.
• High Fidelity: Rob in the series, along with being female, is bisexual, while both the previous incarnations were straight.
• Francis Urquhart from the original House of Cards is heterosexual, while his Transatlantic Equivalent, Frank Underwood, is bisexual.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In the Interview with the Vampire novel, Louis de Pointe du Lac had feelings for a woman named Babette Freniere. His TV counterpart is gay.
• The Irregulars, a show that is based on side characters from the Sherlock Holmes book series, features a gay Dr Watson, who was originally a straight man in the novels.
• Jeryn Hogarth is a straight male in the comics, but in the Jessica Jones live-action show, Hogarth is Gender Flipped into a lesbian woman.
• Amanda from Lost in Austen gets Trapped in Book Land, specifically in Pride and Prejudice. Miss Caroline Bingley is a closeted lesbian in this version. (True, there are some Les Yay moments in the book when Caroline gushes about how perfect Miss Darcy is, but it's done mostly for Mr. Darcy's benefit.) Her coming out to Amanda was triggered by Amanda's 'Sorry, I'm Gay' gambit on Bingley who found her refreshing and was hitting on her, but she shipped Bingley/Jane which is consistent with Jane Austen's pairing. Amanda wonders what Miss Austen would have thought and whether she had any idea who she had created in Caroline Bingley.
• The NBC sitcom Love, Sidney made waves when it was first announced, as it would be the first major television show to feature an openly gay main character. However, the show later faced criticism from the gay community because aside from some very subtle Sub Text, Sidney's sexuality was never mentioned outside of the pilot (a TV movie based on a short story by Marilyn Cantor Baker).
• The Magicians has main character Quentin Coldwater as mostly straight but Ambiguously Bi. The Magicians (2016) TV series makes him bisexual unambiguously.
• M*A*S*H: Richard Hornberger complained at length about the TV version of Hawkeye being Anything That Moves.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • The show reimagines Mulan as a bisexual woman who is in love with Aurora.
  • The show's vision of Red Riding Hood was also revealed to be bisexual after she formed a relationship with Dorothy Gale.
  • The spinoff Once Upon a Time in Wonderland featured Alice, born in the world of Victorian England until she went to Wonderland, fell in love with the genie Cyrus, and eventually returned there to rescue him from Jafar. Season 7 introduces an alternate version of Alice, who was born in the New Enchanted Forest, spent time in the alternate New Wonderland, and eventually developed a relationship with Zelena's daughter Robin.
• Our Flag Means Death depicts Stede Bonnett, Edward Teach, and Israel Hands as gay men, with Bonnett and Teach romantically involved with each other, while historically there is little evidence that shows any of them as anything but straight or Bonnett and Teachs' relationship as anything more than platonic. But they were pirates, so really, who knows for sure?
• Perry Mason (2020): Della is portrayed as a closeted lesbian here, who secretly has a girlfriend. In the original books and later, she is shown having significant sexual tension with Perry.
• ITV's Poirot (1989) and Marple (2004) make some of the exclusively straight cast members gay, for example in Five Little Pigs, The Body in the Library and Cards on the Table (in the last one it was done to at least three characters). In A Murder Is Announced, a subtle lesbian subtext in the original novel is made much more explicit.
• The Power (2023): Roxy here likes women, with this not shown in the book (though her sexual orientation wasn't explored). It's later shown she also likes men.
• Preacher (2016) depicted DeBlanc and Fiore as a gay couple, when the original comic book had Jesse Custer interrupt DeBlanc while he was having sex with a woman near the end.
• In Pretty Little Liars, Emily Fields went from bisexual in the books to a lesbian in the television series.
• The ITV adaptation of Christopher Brookmyre's Quite Ugly One Morning turned gay police officer Jenny Dalziel into the (male) main character's love interest—an odd and unnecessary move, considering his actual love interest from the book wasn't even Adapted Out (though her role was significantly reduced).
• Riverdale:
  • Moose in Archie Comics has never been presented as anything but straight. In Riverdale he is sleeping with Kevin behind his girlfriend's back and hiding his bisexuality due to being an athlete.
  • Cheryl Blossom and Toni Topaz have only ever been interested in boys in the comics-here they're interested in each other.
• In the books Roswell High and the first TV adaptation Roswell, everyone is straight. In the 2019 readaptation Roswell, New Mexico, Michael and Isobel are bisexual and Alex is gay.
• The Sandman: In "Dream a Little Dream of Me", Constantine undergoes a Gender Flip from the comics but his ex Rachael doesn't, meaning that Rachael's heterosexual relationship with John Constantine becomes a homosexual relationship with Johanna Constantine. (Both versions of Constantine are bisexual.)
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017): "The Penultimate Peril" reveals that Jerome Squalor is bisexual and that Babs from Heimlich Hospital is in love with a woman (implied to be Mrs. Bass from Prufrock Prep). In the books, neither Jerome nor Mrs. Bass showed any evidence of same-sex attraction, and Babs's sexuality was never specified (not that it's important, as the books imply that she was killed by Count Olaf without the Baudelaires even getting to meet her properly).
• Eretria is bisexual in The Shannara Chronicles, flirting with Amberle at one point and shown to have a past relationship with Zora, a Canon Foreigner villainess. Later in Season 2 she is seeing Princess Lyria. She also had (satisfying) sex with Wil previously. In the books there was no hint of her being anything but straight.
• Irene Adler, who is straight in the original Sherlock Holmes canon, is a self-professed lesbian in Sherlock, though she does suffer from If It's You, It's OK where Sherlock is concerned.
• In the TV adaptation of She's Gotta Have It, Nola Darling is changed from straight to pansexual, and one of her many lovers is a woman.
• Honorable mention: prior to Starz taking on co-production duties, the UK series Torchwood was farmed around to the Fox network. It was reported in the media that had a Fox series been made, the pansexual character of Captain Jack Harkness would have likely been rendered straight for the series. Not surprisingly, the Fox deal fell through and soon after not only did cable network Starz get the rights, but the subsequent season ramped the sexuality (and the gay aspects of Jack's character) up.
• In the original Tom Swift novels, Tom had a girlfriend who he eventually married. In Tom Swift (2022), Tom is an openly-gay man.
• The Tunnel: Unlike Saga and Sonya, Elise has been established as a bisexual woman rather than straight, having shown attraction to men but also one women (while she mentions sleeping with a girl in the past as a teenager).
• The Umbrella Academy (2019):
  • Vanya is interesting case of this, leaning towards with Real Life Writes the Plot. In the comics she’s straight having UST with Diego and the first season has her being in a (admittedly twisted) relationship with Leonard. However since Elliot Page came out as gay, Season 2 accordingly has Vanya in a lesbian relationship with newcomer Sissy. Season 3 goes even further with this, transitioning "Vanya" to "Victor" lining the character up with the actor.
  • Klaus is a played with case, in the comics it’s not clear at all if he’s straight, gay, bi or pansexual. In Volume 2: Dallas Luther is taken aback seeing his brother father a Vietnamese baby, uttering a "I thought you were-" before being cut off with the implication Luther assumed his brother was gay. This only conflated by other moments that in the comics, where Klaus acts effeminate and seems interested in men. The show to its credit removes the ambiguity, with Klaus being unmistakably pansexual.
• Hooded Justice was speculated to be gay in the original Watchmen comic. In The HBO series, about the only thing Hollis Mason's In-Universe speculation got right was HJ being romantically involved with Captain Metropolis — only that was an extramarital affair, as the HBO version of Hooded Justice, Will Reeves, was also married to a woman at the time who he seems to feel attraction for, indicating he's bi rather than gay.
• The Wheel of Time (2021):
  • In general, the Two Rivers characters are way more comfortable with having sex than they were so early in the books, where they all come from a much more conservative culture and don't have sex until much, much later in the books, especially Nynaeve and Egwene. The main female characters in the books spend quite a bit of time being shocked at revealing necklines on characters from other cultures, which doesn't seem like it would be the case here.
  • Here Alanna's two Warders are both in a relationship with her and each other, which isn't the case in the books.
  • Moiraine and Siuan's relationship in the books was Situational Sexuality, but here is based on their genuine attraction which endures over many years.
• Wonder Woman (1975): The lesbian Carolyn Hamilton turns out to be an adaptation of Nubia, who had shown no romantic interest in women whatsoever in the comics.

Podcasts

• Criss Angel and David Blaine are presumably straight in real life, but in the fiction of Interstitial: Actual Play the two of them are ex-boyfriends. By the end, they're clarified as gay and bisexual respectively.
  • In the one-shot A Touch of Evil, Kim Possible and Betty Cooper are girlfriends.

• But Make It Scary:
  • In Love Actually, Billy Mack and his manager Joe are depicted as lovers.
  • Their But Make it Christmas version of Halloween (1978) features a version of Laurie Strode who is a lesbian.

Theater

• For the stage version of 9 to 5 Roz is made bisexual. Her attraction to Franklin Hart becomes more explicitly romantic. However, in the epilogue, Ros ends up with his wife after his disappearance.
• Happens to Judas in Jesus Christ Super Star, in the Gospel while he kisses Jesus as a signal for the Romans he still only sees Christ a teacher and leader. In the musical it’s pretty clear (especially by his suicide song) he loved Christ romantically and 2000s film version outright shows Judas’ jealousy of Mary Magdalene‘s closeness with Jesus, fuelled his betrayal.
• For the stage adaptation of High School Musical, Ryan was made gay. In the film he is Ambiguously Bi at most, being very flamboyant and fitting many gay stereotypes yet falling for a female character.
• A Very Potter Musical has the Sorting Hat (which is a hat, but voiced by a man) in love with the Scarf of Sexual Preference (again: an object, but voiced as male). Scarfy declares Harry to be metrosexual and Ron to be bi-curious.
• Mozart's first true opera, Apollo et Hyacinthus is based on a myth involving a gay love triangle (Apollo and Zephirus are both in love with Hyacinthus). Rufinus Widl, the librettist who adapted the myth for Mozart, didn't think this would go over well with an eighteenth-century audience, so in his adaptation Apollo and Zephirus are both in love with Melia, Hyacinthus' sister, while Apollo's just best friends with Hyacinthus.
• In the Reduced Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (abridged), which blends characters from all the Bard's works, Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing and Kate from The Taming of the Shrew end up together. When Richard III has his hump temporarily cured by magic and becomes Richard II, he becomes gay (a reference to claims about the earlier Richard by Thomas Walshingham) and starts a relationship with John Falstaff.
• Some productions of Cabaret make the Emcee bisexual, with one of the women he has a threesome with during the "Two Ladies" number being a man in drag instead. Some go as far as implying he will eventually die in the concentration camps for his sexuality.
• Glinda in the The Wicked Years books is Ambiguously Gay. She's married to an older man but it was for the money and they have a Sexless Marriage. She doesn't show any particular interest in boys, instead having a Single-Target Sexuality towards Elphaba. The Wicked musical changed her to Ambiguously Bi as they kept the Homoerotic Subtext with Elphaba but added in a Love Triangle with Fiyero.
• Uncle Fester is usually depicted as being straight but The Addams Family stage musical has him saying that he has no specific sexuality before declaring his love for the moon.
• The writer of Be More Chill admits he removed any reference to Michael's girlfriend from the book to make him Ambiguously Gay for Jeremy. In addition, Rich is now bisexual and Brooke and Jenna end up together at the end. None of this happens in the book.
• Otho was implied to be gay in the original Beetlejuice and this was still the case in the Beetlejuice musical, but one scrapped song from an earlier draft, "I am Very Good at Running Cults" had Otho brag about bedding a lot of women. In addition, Beetlejuice showed no attraction towards anything but women in the original movie but appears to be very interested in both of the Maitlands in the musical, and the actor has stated that he plays the character as pansexual.

Video Games

• In Fate/stay night, Rin discovers that she's bisexual in the Fate route. The anime that adapts that route doesn't include this, leaving Rin as heterosexual.
• The bachelors and bachelorettes in Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, its GBA version Harvest Moon: Friends Of Mineral Town, and their Distaff Counterparts were all straight. In the remake Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, you can marry them as the opposite gender and "best friend" them as the same gender.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Tanya in the original timeline showed no attraction to anyone beyond some mild Foe Romance Subtext with Liu Kang. In MKX and MK11 it’s made clear she’s bisexual showing attraction to multiple male characters as well as Mileena.
  • Mileena gets this in the new timeline. In the original games she became Baraka’s queen in her MK2 ending signifying she’s straight. In the new timeline Mileena Desperately Craves Affection so sleeps with a multitude of people and flirts with everyone who isn’t related to her. Mileena‘s MK11 ending has her start a family with Tanya.
• In the French translation of Hollow Knight, the Grey Mourner refers to her canonically female lover as male.
• In I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Benny was a homosexual scientist who AM robs of his identity by turning him into a well-endowed, dumb, ape-man for Ellen to take advantage of. In the video game adaptation, he's an Adaptational Jerkass who's instead suffering a Karmic Transformation, as he was a Rated M for Manly Colonel Kilgore. According to game designer David Sears they initially planned for a "gay angle" but it was dropped from the final script.
• Lara Croft has generally been straight, flirting with a few men in her previous games. In Tomb Raider (2013) however it was intended by the game’s writer Rhianna Pratchett for Lara be a lesbian and have a relationship with Deuteragonist Samantha, however, Executive Meddling got involved and Samantha became The Not-Love Interest instead. While nothing is concrete, given Lara’s aforementioned intimacy with Sam and kissing Amazon Chaser Alex whom she calls “sweet”, she’s possibly bi.
• While Kim Pines from Scott Pilgrim is merely Ambiguously Bi in the original books, one of her primary moves in the video game is calling Knives out for a quick kiss. Her ending also has her walk off into the sunset with her, implying a Relationship Upgrade.
• The 2023 remake of Dead Space makes Kendra Daniels and Jacob Temple lesbian and bisexual respectively through some off-hand dialogue related to their characters.

Webcomics

• In Arthur, King of Time and Space, Sir Kay (noted for his boorish behavior towards women in the original stories) is in a relationship with Bedivere in the contemporary and space arcs (in the baseline arc, he's still noted for his boorish behavior towards women, explaining in one Fourth Wall Breaking strip "Yeah, like we're going to be openly gay in the Middle Ages. We probably don't even realize ourselves.") And contemporary and space Tristram is still in the canonical relationship with Isolde... only Tristram's female.
• In Elwood, Mr. Ratburn is married to Paige Turner, which was shown before the show the comic is a Fan Sequel to revealed he's canonically gay,^note Although since the episode where this is revealed never actually uses the word "gay" in reference to him, him being bisexual is also a possibility. and the author decided not to make a retcon to make the comic's continuity match the show's.
• Learning with Manga! FGO: Official materials for Fate/Grand Order state that Mash Kyrielight's feelings for the female protagonist/Gudako are meant to be platonic, compared to how she canonically has a crush on the male protagonist/Gudao. Learning with Manga instead has Mash and Gudako portrayed as sexually-involved girlfriends with Gudako molesting both Mash and Olga being the only thing keeping them from being an Official Couple, and even then Mash averts Single-Target Sexuality by getting aroused by Olga (while in a Paper-Thin Disguise of Gudako, but Mash later insists that she keep wearing it) and a VR version of herself.
• Whereas Rosalina's sexuality was never alluded to in the Super Mario Bros. games. The sequel to The 3 Little Princesses depicts her as being Ambiguously Gay as she falls for Daisy's classic form and is shown to have plastered several pictures of her on her wall at the end.

Web Original

• Can You Spare a Quarter?: In the Nifty version Graham is homosexual and that means it will be more difficult for him to obtain the guardianship for Jamie. In the newer ASSTR/PZA version, his sexual orientation is never mentioned.
• Dark Secrets Of Garry's Mod: Vaggie (canon lesbian) is shown thirsting after Reptile (a male) in the Szerelmi háromszög (Love triangle) Story Arc.
  • Lampshaded by Reptile in part 6.
    Reptile: Are you not supposed to be lesbian?
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  • Zarbon is so camp that he can't seem to say three words without using some sort of Double Entendre but it is later revealed that he has a steady girlfriend, making him simply Camp Straight. That being said nobody believes it as talked about during Freeza's rant in Episode 21.
    Freeza: ...the latter of whom spent 400 credits making long-distance calls to his "girlfriend", WHO I AM CONVINCED IS NAMED "CHUCK"!
  • Korin and Yajirobe are depicted as a same-sex couple (with the former being gay and the latter Ambiguously Bi), and the Broly movie opens with their wedding reception.
• In the shift from If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device to Hunter: The Parenting, the series moves from Ho Yay subtext to text, making Marckus, Big D and Kitten canonically queer. In TTS Kitten was alluded to having sex with other Custodes, but it never went beyond jokes and he also was said to have been in a relationship with Shadowsun which he vehemently denied, while Magnus never expressed romantic affection to anyone (though he was disappointed to find out the non-Fabulous Custodes wore actual armor). In Hunter, they're engaged. Big D is based on the Emperor, who only expressed interest in women, and the Fabulous Custodes, who were Macho Camp, so he's pansexual.
• Naruto: The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show gives Naruto a very unambiguous love for Sasuke.
  Naruto: Love me, you sexy ninja bastard!
• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series states or implies that many characters are either bi or gay. Yami Yugi has openly stated he goes both ways and Yami Bakura has openly stated he is gay. Meanwhile, Marik and Bakura have both denied being gay, which may be true for Bakura, ^note his interactions with Téa and Yugi imply bisexuality, so him denying that he is gay may be more on an Exact Words level. but definitely not Marik. Duke Devlin, a ladies' man in the show, is omnisexual here. Averted, surprisingly, with Pegasus, played straight with Croquet. Also, Kaiba is dragon-sexual.
  Kaiba: A Blue-Eyes White Dragon-train? I have the weirdest boner right now...
• NicoB's Let's Play of Ace Attorney ups sexuality of several characters.
  • Phoenix is straight in the games, in the LP he and Egdeworth are referred to as gay lovers. His canon relationship with Iris is present, although spiced up a bit, making him bi.
  • The Judge is straight and Happily Married in the games. Here he's lover of Nagito Komaeda from Danganronpa (don't ask).

• In Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, Don Corneo seeks out brides like in the original game but flirts with Cloud both before and after finding out that he was Disguised in Drag.

Web Videos

• Dubbed By Strangers dubs of Animal Mechanicals change Komodo and Sasquatch from friends to boyfriends.
• The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a Setting Update of Pride and Prejudice. Colonel Fitzwilliam in the book likes Elizabeth a lot and flirts with her, which might make Mr. Darcy a bit jealous. Fitz Williams in this vlog version is gay, and he and Lizzie become great friends. The authors did lots of changes for this adaptation (set in the modern-day USA, they had a very diverse cast with Age Lifts and Race Lifts). Word of God claims that they didn't want to involve Fitz in any romantic plotlines and therefore decided to give him a boyfriend. It worked.
• In Lovely Little Losers, a loose modernized adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost, two of the main male characters are a gay man and a bisexual man, and theirs is the main romance of the story. It probably goes without saying that that was not the case in the 16th-century play.

Western Animation

• In Young Justice (2010), the canonical tie-in comic depicts Beast Boy's mother Marie Logan as attracted to women, as she can fall under Queen Bee's thrall. Word of God is vague about whether she's also attracted to men. Interestingly, Beast Boy's father is never mentioned, though he and Marie were married in the source material.
• Static Shock. Richie/Gear is based on a character from the comics who was gay, though he didn't share that character's full name. He was portrayed as straight during the series but declared gay by a writer sometime after it ended.
• Word of Gay from Greg Weisman stated that Irma Lair of W.I.T.C.H. was supposed to be a lesbian, though the only real hints towards this was Irma's suggestive hand positioning when she passes out with Cornelia in one episode and the fact that, by the end of the series, Irma's the only one without a boyfriend.
• In Freedom Fighters: The Ray, Ray Terrill is gay, drawing on the Ray of Earth-10 in The Multiversity over his straight pre-Flashpoint version.
• Castlevania (2017):
  • Alucard is the original canon has only Maria as an Implied Love Interest, which is made official in the questionably-canonical radio drama Nocturne of Reflection. In the show it’s revealed in the third season Alucard is bisexual engaging in threesome with Japanese twins Sumi and Taka. It goes horribly wrong though.
  • Carmilla, despite being based on the most famous Lesbian Vampire in literature and even displaying at least bisexual interests in the games, in the show only sleeps with (multiple) men according to her allies. Although there are actual lesbian vampires in the series: Striga and Morana.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender: In the original version, Sven ends up having a romance with Romelle. In this incarnation, Shiro is revealed to have had a boyfriend named Adam on Earth. It was confirmed in a convention that Shiro is gay.
• In the original English version of Beast Wars, Tigatron and Airazor are pretty clearly boyfriend and girlfriend. Airazor's a dude in the Japanese dub. The romantic relationship is still there, however.
• Jellystone!:
  • Mildew Wolf is gay and have a crush on Shazzan.
  • Jonny Quest and Hadji were friends in the original. Here, they're a married gay couple.
• In the original Rugrats, Betty DeVille is a masculine feminist woman who is married to a submissive feminine man named Howard. In the 2021 reboot, she's a lesbian who mentions having an ex-girlfriend in the first episode. This has the side-effect of making Howard adapted out of the reboot.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Spinnerella and Netossa are Happily Married lesbians, unlike in She-Ra: Princess of Power, which would not have been able to get canonical non-straight characters on the air in 1985. The Grand Finale also confirms Adora and Catra are lesbians with the two of them becoming an Official Couple, while the 1985 series saw them both attracted to Sea Hawk.
• In Cleopatra in Space, Akila's parents are lesbians, unlike in the titular graphic novels, where they were heterosexual.
• Scooby-Doo: In most Scooby-Doo media, Velma Dinkley is either explicitly heterosexual or her sexuality isn't mentioned at all, with Fanon often suggesting that she's a lesbian. Word of Gay confirmed that Velma is homosexual in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, with Shaggy being her Last Het Romance which led to her being in a relationship with Marcie Fleach. The live-action film makes Velma Ambiguously Bi, implying that she has crushes on both Fred and Daphne. In Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, she's unambiguously sexually attracted to Coco Diablo.
• Batman: The Animated Series: Every male Clayface in the comics was either straight or had no indication made of their sexual orientation, while this continuity's Matt Hagen is indicated to be bisexual due to his male associate Teddy in his debut episode being heavily implied to be his lover (which was later confirmed by director Kevin Altieri) and being in love with a woman named Stella Bates in "Mudslide".

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