We’ve had quite a fascinating little year as a queer community, one in which we were not alone in declaring ourselves at the very forefront of cultural production. In April, Cosmopolitan magazine suggested 2024 was ‘the year of lesbianism’ in an article boldly headlined, The lesbian pop culture boom is in full swing. Buckle up! In September, Vogue Australia asked if we needed to talk about the “lesbian renaissance. In June, Rolling Stone christened 2024 Sapphic Pop’s Banner Year.

As the year came to its natural conclusion, this phenomenon was again certified and celebrated in yearly retrospectives. At The Cut, queer culture writer Cat Zhang called 2024 “The Year of the Bisexual,” tracing accurate lines between cultural phenomenons like Miranda July’s All Fours, that sexy Challengers Love Triangle and the ongoing excellence of Hacks. The New York Times declared 2024 the year in which “Sapphic Stars Ruled Pop Culture,” citing evidence like Chappell Roan, Renee Rapp and Kristen Stewart proudly embracing the lesbian label, reality TV stars coming out and dating other high-profile queer artists as well as the rise of the Handsome Pod and irresistible power couples like Niecy Nash-Betts and Jessica Betts. Gay Star News affirmed 2024 as The Year of the Lesbian Renaissance. Them.us noted that in 2024, due in part to widespread celebrity adoption, “the word ‘lesbian’ was so back.”

As a publication devoted to this topic full-time and thus possessing a great deal of data, we can affirm that most of these statements are in fact true, but not necessarily across every field of pop culture — it wasn’t an exceptional year, volume-wise, for television inclusive of a diverse array of queer women and trans characters, although we certainly had some stand-out moments in both genres. But when it came to music, sports, literature, podcasts and celebrity visibility, we definitely did rule the year.

We’ve been working on this piece for a few weeks — and it’s a list that could be one hundred items long (with at least 20 of those items being WNBA-related), so we had to settle for presenting just some of the many iconic, transcendent, important or otherwise memorable pop culture events of 2024 that involved bisexual, queer or lesbian humans or characters. The moments that changed us and surprised us, the times in which we looked around and thought “yes, that behavior is on brand for our community.” Let’s get into it.

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That Close-Up of Tracy Chapman’s Fingers At The Grammys

The 2024 Grammys were pure gay glory. Boygenius swept the awards in their white tuxedos and trophies were bestowed upon Miley Cyrus, Victoria Monét, Meshell Ndegeocello, Brandy Clark and Brandi Carlile. But somehow more important than all of that (and that’s a lot) was the gay glory enabled by close-up of Tracy Chapman’s fingers as she played the opening chords of her 1988 hit “Fast Car” with Luke Combs. The entire lesbian community was riveted, and we may in fact never recover.

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Kristen Stewart Says She Wants To Do “The Gayest Fucking Thing You’ve Ever Seen In Your Life” on the Rolling Stone Cover for Love Lies Bleeding

“As a community, we’ve all known Kristen Stewart to be a sex symbol for a long time now, but that sentiment finally went more mainstream during the Love Lies Bleeding press tour, during which K Stew was able to not just be extremely hot but extremely hot in a gay way. Her Rolling Stone cover is one of the most sapphically erotic mainstream magazine cover photoshoots I’ve seen since Vanity Fair’s iconic kd Lang/Cindy Crawford cover. The fact that the cover made conservative men upset? The cherry on top.” —Kayla

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WNBA Stars NaLyssa Smith and Dijonai Carrington’s Relationship Heats Up the Court

Like does everybody realize the quality of the lesbian storylines currently being told in the WNBA? In May, Dijonai Carrington (Connecticut Sun) and Erica Wheeler (Indiana Fever) almost got into a fight after a shot block but NaLyssa Smith (Fever) got in between them to shut it down. Wheeler gave Smith a nod of acknowledgement. “As she should,” Carrington tweeted after. Carrington was, after all, Smith’s ex. (Maybe — the timeline on “when they got back together” is fuzzy, and some internet sleuths suggested that game was a turning point after which both girls re-followed the other on social media.) Then the whole internet revisited the transcendent moment from the 2023 season when Smith helped Carrington up with a little extra linger. By the time the Fever played the Sun in the WNBA Playoffs, Carrington and Smith were publicly back together. Also on the Sun? Actual engaged couple, Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner. Earlier in 2024, DeWonna Bonner passed her ex-wife Candice Dupree on the WNBA’s all-time scoring list. After the Sun defeated the Fever to advance to the next round of the tournament, Carrington and Smith didn’t just slap hands like they did with all the other opposing team’s athletes — they hugged and they posed for pictures.

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Chappell Roan Becomes the Kentuckiana Pride Headliner, Sells Out the Festival

“Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise in popularity following her Coachella sets meant the rest of her appearances this year were extremely big events. She wasn’t even supposed to headline Kentuckiana Pride, a typically well attended but modest Pride event held in Louisville. But headliners Icona Pop dropped out at the last minute, and Chappell stepped into the position, resulting in an attendance record-breaking crowd in Louisville that highlighted just how much the artist means to her Midwestern and Southern fan bases. I spoke to some of the people in attendance — including my sister and her girlfriend! — for my look at that subsection of her fans.” —Kayla 

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Queen Latifah Takes Eboni Nichols to the Met Gala for Date Night

Queen Latifah’s gradual coming out story has been a long one, and in recent years we’ve been gradually blessed with acknowledgments and a few red carpet walks with her partner Eboni, including the 2022 Oscars. But their appearance on the Met Gala red carpet and their interview with Emma Chamberlin, in which Queen teased Eb about her burning desire to attend the gala, went straight for the heart of so many fans of this titan of entertainment.  “On some level I intellectually know… we have been here before,” wrote Carmen at the time. “But somehow still, the Met felt different. Walking the world’s most famous carpet, with every camera trained on you and your partner in matching black & white gowns, felt different. [My tweet about it] ended up with over 45 thousand likes in a day. And that’s when I knew — I wasn’t alone.”

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Reneé Rapp Gets Introduced at Coachella by L Word Stars

“It’s hard to choose just one standout Reneé Rapp moment from the year, as she had quite the good time on the Mean Girls press tour. But one of the most delightfully bizarre moments has to be when she brought out Leisha Hailey, Kate Moennig, Jennifer Beals and Ilene Chaiken to the Coachella stage. Reneé was four years old when The L Word premiered, but the impact of Shane echoes across generations. To make the whole moment even more surreal, there was a giant pair of scissors on the stage behind them.” —Kayla

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‘I Kissed a Girl’ Out-Lesbians Itself

Priya and Naee were the first couple to lock lips on the UK’s lesbian dating reality show I Kissed a Girl, sharing an immediate attraction that wasn’t necessarily dimmed by Priya’s revelation that she’d very recently gotten engaged to someone she’d been dating for two months whomst she’d never met. At the reunion, the vibes on Priya and Naee’s sofa were… off. Turns out that after the show, Pirya checked out of the relationship, flew to the US to meet her ex-girlfriend, and got married two weeks later.

“This really did leave me open-mouthed that things soured so incredibly quickly for the show’s golden couple,” wrote Sally. “As miffed as I was on Naee’s behalf, I was mostly worried about Naee’s mum who deserves only happiness! Moral of the story: Never underestimate ex-appeal!”

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Gracin Inspires Julia Fox to Come Out

In one of many iconic TikToks , queer comic @emgwaciedawgie (aka Gracin) remarked “I love when I see a lesbian with their boyfriend. It’s like, aw you hate that man. You literally hate him.” Imagine her surprise when Julia Fox stitched it, declaring, “That was me. I was that lesbian. So sorry, boys, won’t happen again,” thus effectively coming out. Of this surprising turn of events, Gracin told Betches: “I thought I was hallucinating or on drugs. It’s literally so funny and random that I’m part of such a big moment in lesbian pop culture. I love it though! Seeing my name or my face, randomly next to ‘Julia Fox has come out as lesbian’ is so funny and not real.”

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Jonquel Jones Gets Her Flowers

She was the WNBA’s reigning VIP in 2022, but as a Black, masculine lesbian, Jones never got the attention or brand deals that she deserved. “She has the game; she has the personality,” wrote Katie Barnes in 2022. “She even has a compelling origin story. Yet few people outside of the WNBA faithful even know who Jonquel Jones is.”

Now they know. After the New York Liberty won the WNBA Championships after a series that saw uneven performances from Jones’ popular teammates Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, Jones secured the MVP trophy. She’s was at the head of the victory parade in New York City, she got a hero’s welcome and a 30-foot mural back in her home country of the Bahamas and now she’s got a new State Farm spot with fellow queer icon Ellie the Elephant. She always takes time to thank her fianceThe third slide in this carousel from the Liberty’s appearance on The Tonight Show where Jonquel is in her best Lesbian Dad ‘fit and Megan Thee Stallion is laughing with her whole body and everyone is so happy??????

Delayed but NEVER denied.

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The MCU Finally Lets Two Women Kiss in Agatha All Along

“With Agatha All Along, the MCU finally lets two women kiss,” headlined Valerie’s final review of Disney+’s buzzy, twisted, star-studded, gay-as-fuck Agatha All Along. This was mere weeks after another noted headline, “Last night’s Agatha All Along’ was the gayest thing the MCU has ever done.” Aubrey Plaza playing death (the role she was born to play), Kathryn Hahn as Agatha, subtext becoming text? As Nic wrote: “How I’ve dreamed of this!” (Also exciting was Agatha star Sasheer Zamata coming out!)

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Megan Thee Stallion Raps About Her Strap

“This May, Megan Thee Stallion dropped her weekly #MeganMonday freestyle to the classic “Like a G6.” This one caught us off guard in the best way possible by opening with the line, “You know I gotta stay fly like 36. Got the strap in my bag like a freak bitch.” I beg your finest pardon, Miss Pete? With a flow and cadence that already assert her dominance, these opening lyrics make us blush in the best way possible. Right when we thought we couldn’t love her anymore, she reveals that she loves to give as much as she likes to take.” —Tima

Tima’s Tiktok about Megan’s G6 freestyle was our most viral TikTok of the year.

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JoJo Siwa Allegedly Invents Gay Pop With “Karma”

JoJo Siwa’s new single Karma was going to be ADULT and was going to be SEXY and was going to be HUGE and nobody believed in “Karma” more than JoJo Siwa herself, cruising L.A in her Lamborghini, telling us that she was entering her adult era, as if just saying it could make it so. Her frenetic, aggressive Karma dance went wildly viral. Everybody dragged JoJo because it was easy and people are mean and seemingly starving for low-hanging fruit. But none of it stopped her from continuing to hype herself, hype her music video, and even confidently declare she was inventing a new genre of music, “gay pop.” It was easy to forget that underneath it all, Siwa was a young, 20-year-old lesbian who wanted to be seen as hot and cool, who wanted to be taken seriously, and wanted to do something new. The music video was wild, the product of an unprecedented type of lesbian celebrity — one with the privilege, wealth and nerve to take some pretty big risks. She is resolutely unapologetic about who she is, and who she is is very gay. Nothing she does makes sense to me but bless her heart. The “Karma” music video currently boasts 51 million views on YouTube. I wrote this thing about all of the discourse around it and I think it was pretty good!

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That Women’s-Only Usher Tribute at the BET Awards

“The BET Awards had a star-studded women’s-only tribute to Usher that brought the house down. However, we did not expect such a perfectly sapphic moment between icons Teyana Taylor and Victoria Monét. Taylor, rocking a slick suit, serenades and yearns after Monét with a cover of Usher’s Bad Girl. Any R&B head knows that this song is usually performed with a retro Smooth Criminal-esque heteronormative flair, so the fact they opted to use two talented women was absolutely everything. With sexual tension thick enough to slice, Monét and Taylor show us that bad girls aren’t just for the boys.” —Tima

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Queer Creator Kelley Heyer Gives Us and Charli xcx the “Apple Dance”

“Even if she still only has bi vibes, Charli xcx gave us plenty of viral queer moments this year. In addition to the gay feelings she inspires in me every time she does anything, she also toured with Troye Sivan and released a cheeky remix with Billie Eilish. And then there was the “Apple” Dance. It was such a joy to find out Kelley Heyer, the person all over my FYP due to their viral dance, was queer and an even greater joy to get to chat with them about their acting, their fashion, and going viral. To quote Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress, “I’d like to do something especially significant in my lifetime, the sort of thing that could change the course of human history — such as starting a new dance craze.” Congrats, Kelley. You did it.”  —Drew

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Anjali Chakra and Sufi Malik Break Up

“Now, normally I wouldn’t really want to include a scandal like this on a list like this, because I don’t want people to assume I’m just feeding the toxic gossip machine. But the reason I wanted to highlight it is because I actually really liked what I ended up writing about the situation, because I avoided taking sides and actually celebrated the fact that we were seeing authenticity, vulnerability, and mess from influencers instead of a carefully packaged and curated view of their lives. I mean, sure, we still don’t and can’t know what really happened, but the way this breakup played out on such a large stage made me think a lot about the current culture of queer influencer couples and what we expect from them. I find the whole scandal to be really emblematic of the limits and dangers of this type of “representation” and “visibility.” —Kayla

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I Hate Gay Halloween: Chappell Roan and the Passenger Seat Costume Goes Viral

“There are three types of Halloween costumes: basic, esoteric, and then esoteric done so well it needs no explanation. That last category is a rare feat and what a thrill for this year’s most viral gay example to have been done by my very own coworker. Motti and his girlfriend Britt Migs — both comedians obviously — won Halloween this year as Chappell Roan and a passenger seat. It was an incredible idea executed to perfection and I’m thrilled they got the praise they deserved.” —Drew

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Racquel Chevremont Throws a Ballroom-Themed Engagement Party on Maligned Season Of Real Housewives

Kayla wrote in November that Season 15 of the Real Housewives was “hands down the dykiest a Real Housewives series has ever felt.” RHONY welcomed its first lesbian cast member, Jenna Lyons, last year — and this year doubled the amount of lesbians on its program by introducing model and art curator Racquel Chevremont (and her hot wife Mel), and they’ve gone so far as to take their pals to a dyke bar.

Of course, it’s happening again — a franchise finally gets gay just as overall fandom sours on it. Don’t blame the lesbians for this one, though —that manufactured Rebecca Minkoff pregnancy rumor / prank was not our doing.

Meanwhile in our own private heaven, Racquel brought not just queerness, but queer culture, to Real Housewives, inviting her heterosexual cast mates and Brynn to a Ballroom-themed engagement party. The degree of “understanding the assignment” varied dramatically, of course. It’s one thing to have lesbians on the show, but another to present them with actual queer culture and history. Let’s just hope they take Kayla’s advice and “just gradually replace everyone in the RHONY cast with dykes.”

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Billie Eilish Wants Her Face in a Vagina

“It was a great year for queer Billie Eilish fans, and even though the artist didn’t seemingly come out on her own terms, once she started talking about her queerness, she didn’t stop. In her interview for Rolling Stone, she even said she wants her face in a vagina. It was a perfect interview to coincide with two of my favorite lesbian pop releases of the summer: “Lunch” and her guest spot on the “Guess” remix with Charli.” —Kayla

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Rugby, Football, Hockey and Basketball Compete For Gayest Sport at the 2024 Olympics

The 2024 Olympics were a triumphant moment in sports history, particularly for us as lesbians due to how gay everybody was. In fact there were so many lesbian, bisexual and queer women competing in the olympics that we had to break out our list of athletes into three separate lists, with special posts devoted just to football and just to basketball. There were even multiple couples! 55 LGBTQ+ women athletes took home medals from this year’s game. It was a huge year for Rugby, in which we as a community really took notice of

New Zealand pulled off a triumphant gold medal for Rugby, as they did in Tokyo. Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, an lesbian athlete of Māori descent who also competed in Rio and Tokyo, retired after the Paris Olympics. Her Rugby Sevens went viral for performing the Haka after winning their second straight gold medal in a match against Canada.

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Thailand Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage as Thai “Girls Love” Series Explode Worldwide

Many factors aligned in the U.S. this year to lead to a decline in Sapphic representation on television: corporate consolidation, shifting content objectives, and the intolerable pay inequity that led to lengthy SAG and WGA strikes in 2023. Meanwhile in Thailand, a whole different set of industry conditions led to an explosion in sapphic content, all of it easily accessible worldwide on YouTube. After several years of growth for BL (“Boys Love,” gay content), the success of the 2022 GL (“Girls Love”) series “The Gap” inspired ramped-up GL production, leading to the “Thai Girls Love Renaissance” we’re all lucky enough to be alive to experience. GL caught on here the old-fashioned (read: early ’10s) way we used to discover under-the-radar gay content —  through gif sets on tumblr and twitter and fanvids on video sharing platforms. If you are queer and used social media, at some point in 2024 GL content has crossed your path. As a search term, “Thai GL series” charted briefly for two days in 2020 and one day in 2023, but has remained steadily popular since June of this year. The percentage of Thai production company GMMTV shows produced each year focused on queer storylines skyrocketed to 55% in 2024, up from 5% in 2016. Then, in September, Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, a law that will go into effect in January of 2025.

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Ludmilla and Brunna Gonçalves Announce Their Pregnancy At a Live Show

It was another banner year for babies — Brittney and Cherelle Griner welcomed their first, Francesca Farago and Jessie Sullivan created twins named Locket and Poetry. Brazillian superstar Ludmilla and her wife, Brunna Gonçalves, delighted fans with their extremely gay announcement of their pregnancy at her Numancie 3 show in São Paulo — the singer projected a gauzy highlight video of their relationship intermixed with some footage of Ludmilla painting a picture that turns out to be a picture of the baby. The crowd went wild!

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LESBOPALOOZA

Washington-area indie music festival All Things Go landed in Queens for the first time since its 2014 launch for a lineup in which every top-billed act and most of the rest were LGBTQ+ women and/or non-binary people — Janelle Monae, Julien Baker, Ethel Cain, Muna, Reneé Rapp, Remi Wolf, Maren Morris, Towa Bird, Allison Ponthie, Soccer Mommy. Perhaps most lesbian of all was the packed-to-the-gills stadium singing Chappell Roan in the rain, led by onstage drag queens — Roan herself had to skip the festival for mental health reasons, but the community inspired by her existence didn’t let them stop them from having a good-ass time.

In 2018, All Things Go partnered with the Women’s March to book a womens-only day of its festival. The commercial success of that initiative inspired them to keep going in that direction, with subsequent festivals including queer acts like Tegan & Sara, Fletcher, Girl in Red and boygenius. Now fans affectionately call it GAYCHELLA.

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Queer Media Holds Space for Defying Gravity

Tracy Gilchrist has been a journalist for LGBTQ+ publications since as long as we’ve been doing the work here — heading up SheWired (RIP) and now writing for and doing on-air coverage for Out and The Advocate. But this year she became a household name by pioneering one of the year’s most viral moments, telling Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in an interview about Wicked that in the wake of the presidential election, she’d seen many people “holding space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity.” She followed up Cynthia and Ariana’s reaction with the seemingly speaks-for-itself assertion, “I’m in queer media, so.” It was one of so many life-changing moments from this legendary press tour. (We got another gift when Cynthia and Ariana broke the moment down for us.) Were we holding space for the lyrics of defying gravity in the wake of the election? Truly no. But this meme did wonders for the internet’s post-election mental health.