"Ugh, these preconceived notions about gay people. It's time to dispel that stereotype—through a lavish musical number!"
— Greg Corbin, American Dad!
Characterization, narrative and sexuality tropes commonly applied to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer characters.
While in the real world, LGBTQ+ persons are just as varied in personality and traits as straight/cisgender ones, it has suited television writers to use common stereotypes for their gay characters in lieu of actually making them "real people". In general, gay TV characters have become more realistic since the 1990s. But the stereotypes still remain the favorite tool of the hack writer—or the comedy auteur looking to parody or shock. Even some LGBTQ+ people perpetuate the stereotypes by criticizing those who fall outside of them as "not really gay" or words to that effect.
In contrast to gay characters and their stereotypes, bisexual characters are virtually unknown on TV. Writers don't seem to know how to portray them, although when they do appear they tend to be The Casanova or Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, at best. It's also not uncommon for their same-sex attraction to only be mentioned, while their onscreen love interests are always the opposite sex. And even when bisexuality is depicted, it's almost never called by name.
Within media intended for gay audiences, gay writers have their own subculture of stereotypes that occasionally leak into the mainstream.
See Gender and Sexuality Tropes for tropes dealing with sexuality in general.
Trope Name is a pun on the English idiom "there's nowt so queer as folk", used for the trope-subversive British and American shows of the same name.
Tropes
Subcategories:
- Adaptational Gender Identity: When a character's gender alignment is changed in an adaptation, e.g. cisgender to transgender.
- Adaptational Sexuality: When a character's sexuality is changed in a work's adaptation. Often happens to gay characters.
- Agent Peacock: A feminine male character of any sexuality whose feminine traits serves to make him more badass.
- All Gays Love Theater: The idea that all gay men are theater fanboys, and everyone who works in theater is naturally gay.
- All Gays Are Pedophiles: The idea that all gays (especially men) want to molest children.
- All Gays are Promiscuous: The idea that gay men have no self-control when presented with the possibility of sex.
- All Lesbians Want Kids: The idea that all lesbians want to get pregnant and have biological children.
- All the Good Men Are Gay: Searching for love in all the gay places.
- Always Camp: Certain occupations attract certain personalities.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Are they trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, intersex or simply a crossdresser? Who knows.
- Ambiguously Bi: A character may seem bi, but no one knows for sure.
- Ambiguously Gay: A character may seem gay/lesbian, but no one knows for sure.
- Armoured Closet Gay: The self-loathing gay guy who hides behind a macho facade.
- Bait-and-Switch Lesbians: Two female friends appear to be lesbians, but aren't.
- The Bear: Gay men who sport a glorious Carpet of Virility.
- The Beard: When a gay person dates the opposite sex to appear straight.
- Big Beautiful Man: A man whose full size is attractive. Usually a gay trope these days, and often also The Bear.
- Bisexual Love Triangle: A character is caught between a same-gender and opposite-gender option.
- Bury Your Gays: No happy endings for LGBT+ characters.
- Butch Lesbian: A masculine lesbian.
- But Not Too Bi: Bisexuality that is tilted to suit the sexuality and gender of the target audience.
- But Not Too Gay: Gay affection/love not being shown as if not to offend anyone.
- Camp Gay: A feminine male homosexual.
- Camp Straight: A feminine male heterosexual.
- Campy Combat: A feminine male straight, gay, or bisexual, tends to fight in a flamboyant way.
- Cast Full of Gay: When most of the characters in a work are gay or not straight.
- Closet Gay: An LGBT+ character is hiding their orientation.
- Closet Key: An attractive character who helps another character of the same sex realize that they're gay or bisexual.
- Club Kid: A personification of the worst stereotypes about male homosexuals.
- Coax Them Out of the Closet: Someone tries to convince a closeted LGBT+ person to come out.
- Coming Of Age Queer Romance: A younger character (late tweens to early teens) realizes they are queer and enters a relationship with another queer character.
- Coming-Out Story: A character reveals to other characters that they're gay (or otherwise queer).
- Coming Straight Story: A straight character has an inverted Coming-Out Story after pretending to be gay.
- Creepy Crossdresser: A character crossdresses, and it is portrayed as creepy, shocking, or outright evil.
- Criminal Found Family: Characters rejected by society find family with each other and in acts outlawed by society.
- Crossdresser: Someone who regularly wears clothing normally associated with another gender.
- Cure Your Gays: Gays must be made straight!
- Depraved Bisexual: A psychopathically violent bisexual character.
- Depraved Homosexual: A psychopathically violent gay character.
- Discount Lesbians: It's not gay if they aren't human.
- Drag Queen: A man who puts on flamboyant woman's clothing on special occasions.
- Dude, She's A Lesbian: A person is informed that the person he is hitting on is gay.
- Everyone Is Bi: Gender does not factor into the characters' formation of relationships.
- Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite: An intersex character has the most admirers.
- Experimented in College: Trying homosexuality or bisexuality in college. Like Gay Romantic Phase, it might be just a phase.
- Extreme Omnisexual: A character will have sex with anything.
- Fag Hag: A straight woman who prefers the company of gay men to that of straight men or other women.
- Family of Choice: When a group of characters who've been disowned by their own families decide to be each others' family instead.
- Faux Yay: An extended ruse where characters pretend to be gay.
- Flaming Devil: An implicitly or explicitly gay depiction of Satan.
- Flying Under the Gaydar: When a gay (or bisexual) character, who is normally very flamboyant, acts in a far less stereotypical manner to avoid suspicion.
- Forced Out of the Closet: When a character is outed by somebody else.
- Gay Aesop: A work teaches its audience that gays are people, too.
- Gay Bar Reveal: The hero goes to a random bar for drinks, and Hilarity Ensues when he finds out it's a gay bar.
- Gay Best Friend: A gay person whose main lot in life is to shout "You go, girl!" to the hetero hero.
- Gay Bravado: Characters making homoerotic comments and suggestions to one another is Played for Laughs, because of course they're too macho to really be gay.
- Gay Conservative: A conservative and usually affluent gay.
- Gay Cowboy: A gay or bi man who is a Western-flavored character or just a fan of the genre.
- Gay Cruising: Men seeking out anonymous casual sex with other men, oftentimes in public.
- Gaydar: The ability to detect gay people who haven't outed themselves to you.
- Gay Euphemism: Avoiding direct usage of homosexuality-related terms
- Gay Groom in a White Tux: Gay weddings as portrayed in the media.
- Gay Guy Seeks Popular Jock: The gay guy wants to hook up with a top athlete.
- Gay Moment: A man has a moment with another man with unintentional homoerotic undertones, then affirms in response that he is not gay.
- Gay Option: When a player character in a video game can pursue romantic relations with a member of the same sex, if the player is so inclined.
- Gayborhood: A neighborhood where everyone is gay.
- Gayngst: Being miserable because you are gay.
- Gayngst-Induced Suicide: Suicide for reasons relating to being gay.
- Gayngster: A gay person involved with organized crime.
- Gay Romantic Phase: The idea that gayness is a phase that one goes through before growing up and getting into a heterosexual relationship.
- Get Back in the Closet: When a work jumps up the rough framework for what's "inappropriate" because it contains gay content.
- Girlfriend in Canada: A character says he has a girlfriend, but she doesn't exist.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: When sexual relations between two females are used as fanservice.
- Girls Behind Bars: A women's prison setting played for fanservice, typically with strong lesbian overtones.
- Gorgeous George: A professional wrestler who takes on many homosexual mannerisms but stops short of admitting to being a homosexual.
- Guy on Guy Is Hot: Same as its Distaff Counterpart, but for the other half of the audience.
- Gym Bunny: A gay man who works out a lot, likely just to look good and/or meet guys.
- Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: A work repeatedly says a character is gay, but we never see them engage in homosexual activities.
- Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: "Have you tried being straight?" or "Have you tried dating a man/woman?"
- Hello, Sailor!: Men in the Navy go gay due to lack of female options.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: Homo- or bisexuality runs in families.
- Het is Ew: Yaoi Fans and Yuri Fans view heterosexual ships as "gross".
- Hide Your Lesbians: Homosexual relationships/people hidden under a veil of subtext.
- Homoerotic Dream: an Erotic Dream involving homosexual relations, generally from a straight character.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Gay subtext without either character being gay.
- Homosexual Reproduction: Two characters of the same sex somehow have a child that is biologically related to both of them.
- Ho Yay: Fans see homoeroticism unintended in a work.
- If It's You, It's Okay: When a gay or straight character makes a single exception for sex or romance with someone outside their normal gender preference.
- Incompatible Orientation: Two characters would make a good couple, if it wasn't for their different sexuality.
- Last Het Romance: The heterosexual partner/relationship that results in a gay or lesbian character realizing they're queer and coming out.
- Late Coming Out: A character comes out as queer later in life.
- Leatherman: A (usually gay) man who wears leather.
- Lesbian Jock: A lesbian who plays sports. Alternatively, the assumption that all women who play sports are lesbians.
- Lesbian Vampire: A female vampire who preys on young women. Alternatively, the assumption that all female vampires are lesbians.
- LGBT Awakening: A character realizes their sexuality or gender identity for reasons unrelated to falling in love with someone.
- LGBT Fanbase: When a work—with or without intentional homosexual undertones—attracts an LGBT fanbase.
- Lipstick Lesbian: A feminine lesbian.
- Lover and Beloved: A (sometimes ambiguously) gay couple in which one partner is much older than and acts as a mentor to the other.
- Macho Camp: A man is very large and muscular, but acts Camp Gay.
- Magical Queer: A (usually camp) gay man who is Closer to Earth.
- Manly Gay: A masculine male homosexual.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: A same-gender couple where one partner is quite masculine and the other is quite feminine.
- Mentor in Queerness: A, usually older, out character who acts as support for a newly-out or questioning character.
- Mistaken for Gay: A character or a duo are mistaken to be gay by other people.
- More Diverse Sequel: A sequel can be more gender and sexuality-inclusive than its predecessor.
- No Bisexuals: There are no bisexuals, only straight people and gay/lesbian people.
- Non-Heteronormative Society: An entire society that is mostly composed or at least accepting of various different sexualities and gender identities.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: A non-binary character is also a non-human character.
- No Love for the Wicked: A villain that has no interest in sex or romance.
- One True Threesome: Because it requires that people be attracted to the same gender, more than one gender, or both.
- Out of the Closet, Into the Fire: Coming out can cause dangerous bodily harm.
- Pair the Suitors: May occur if at least one member of a Love Triangle is gay or bisexual.
- The Pastor's Queer Kid: A religious official has a child who isn't heterosexual.
- Performance Artist: A Camp Gay who loves acting, singing, and/or performing in general.
- Pragmatic Pansexuality: Regardless of your sexuality, you're willing to sleep with anyone to achieve your goals.
- Preserve Your Gays: An inordinate survival rate of LGBT characters who regularly face death.
- Pride Parade: An annual parade (and subsequent festival) celebrating gay life and culture.
- Prom Is for Straight Kids: Gay teenagers are discouraged or prevented from going to their high school prom.
- Psycho Lesbian: A psychotic lesbian, dangerous to others.
- Queer Character, Queer Actor: The characters are played by someone of equivalent (queer) orientation.
- Queer Colors: The use of specific color palettes to symbolize non-heterosexuality or non-cisgenderism.
- Queer Establishing Moment: A scene that first shows that a character is LGBT, in a work where their orientation isn't the main focus.
- Queer Flowers: When literal or metaphorical flowers imply homosexuality in subtext.
- Queer People Are Funny: Where every reference to same-sex attraction is a joke.
- Queer Show Ghetto: When works featuring LGBT themes end up with a small single-community audience.
- Rainbow Lens: A character has a queerness-unrelated trait that can be interpreted as a metaphor for queerness.
- Rape and Switch: A character is raped and becomes gay as a result.
- Secretly-Gay Activity: A character with a same-sex attraction uses an "innocent" activity to pretend that the attraction is platonic.
- Seme: Active person in a homosexual relationship. Counterpart to the Uke.
- Settled for Gay: A girl settles down with a gay man because she can't connect emotionally with a straight man.
- Sissy Villain: A male villain is shown to be villainous because he displays feminine traits.
- Situational Sexuality: Characters engage in same-sex relationships for a lack of opposite sex characters to do so with.
- Sorry, I'm Gay: A character says they are gay to counter a seduction-in-process, regardless of whether or not it's true.
- Speculative Fiction LGBT: There is a greater presence of queerness in SF than other genres.
- Straight Gay: A gay character with no stereotypical gay mannerisms.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Supernatural happenings confirm that a trans person is the gender they identify with, beyond all reasonable doubt.
- Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss: Promoting a same-sex kiss as a Ratings Stunt, regardless of context.
- Token Lesbian: A Token Minority lesbian in a Cast Full of Gay men.
- Transgender Fetishization: An ambiguous, non-conforming or fully-transitioned character is hypersexualized or fetishized above and beyond most of the cast in the work.
- Transparent Closet: Everyone knows a character is gay except the character himself.
- Trans Audience Interpretation: A character shows signs of possibly being trans, but it’s never specified.
- Trans Equals Gay: The mistaken notion that homosexuality and transgender identity are one and the same.
- Trans Relationship Troubles: A transgender character has difficulties with their romantic life due to being trans.
- Trans Tribulations: Being miserable because you're transgender.
- The Twink: A young, thin gay Pretty Boy. May or may not be camp.
- Uke: Receptive person in a homosexual relationship. Counterpart to the Seme.
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: A gay bar/club will always be very gay.
- Word of Gay: Word of God claims that a character is gay, but it's never explicitly shown in the work itself.
