People die. Characters die. This is perhaps life’s most unfortunate fact: that people will die and leave the rest of us behind. It’s incredibly rare that any dramatic television series lasting over three seasons will never kill a main or recurring character, and all those deaths have driven a stake through the heart of fandom: Joyce on Buffy, Lady Sybil on Downton Abby, Charlie on Lost, Ned Stark on Game of Thrones, Jen on Dawson’s Creek, Nate on Six Feet Under — but when the person who dies is a lesbian or bisexual character, queer fandom takes it pretty hard.
The history of lesbian representation on television is rocky — in the beginning, we seemed exclusively relegated to roles that saw us getting killed/attacked or doing the killing/attacking. And until the last five or so years, lesbian and bisexual characters seemed entirely unable to date an actual woman or stay alive for more than three episodes, let alone an entire run, of a show. Gay and lesbian characters are so often murdered on television that we have our very own trope: Bury Your Gays. We comprise such a teeny-tiny fraction of characters on television to begin with that killing us off so haphazardly feels especially cruel.
Not every death listed below was wholly uncalled for. In many genres, like soap operas and shows about vampires, zombies, criminals, or games of thrones, characters are killed on the reg. That’s a different trope — Anyone Can Die. Furthermore, shows composed entirely of queer characters will inevitably kill one. But regardless, they still add to the body count weighing down our history of misrepresentation.
And, due to the recent untimely death of Lexa on The 100, this week seemed like a good one to count down everybody we have lost over the years.
This list contains every television death of an OPENLY lesbian or bisexual or queer female character on a television show. With a handful of exceptions, these are all characters who appeared for more than one episode. The exceptions were deemed exceptional because something about the characterization still fits in with the Bury Your Gays trope. Victims-of-the-week from crime procedurals (Law & Order, Cold Case, CSI, Criminal Minds or older shows) or patients-of-the-week from hospital dramas (Chicago Hope, E.R.), aren’t on this list, as that is an entirely different kind of list, but recurring characters from those shows are on this list. Nor is subtext on this list, because we’re not gonna give Xena showrunners Queer Character Credit for a character they refused to make openly queer when she was really so obviously queer. You know? [ETA: Okay, I’ve added Xena after doing further research and because if one more commenter takes up space on this thread — a thread I’m using to find more characters to add, and also to engage with thoughtful/funny readers who have opinions and feelings — to tell me that I “forgot” Xena without reading this introduction, I will become the 200th dead lesbian and the cause of death will be “Walked off a cliff with a commenter in her arms. Murder-suicide.” But Xena will be the one and only inclusion based on subtext.] Also, although I’ve done tons of research, I haven’t personally seen all of these shows, so mistakes may very well exist, and feel free to politely inform me of them in the comments, or tell me about characters I may have missed — it’s especially helpful if you can tell me the cause of death and the year.
Unsure if this needs to be said but… SPOILER ALERT.
Special thanks to the LezWatchTV Database for providing info on shows I haven’t seen or heard about directly!
Every Regular or Recurring Lesbian or Bisexual Female Character Killed On Television
Julie, Executive Suite (1976)
Cause of death: Hit by a car. Her love interest had just walked into traffic after realizing her lesbianism and Julie was chasing her.
Franky Doyle, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1980)
Cause of death: Shot by a police officer after escaping from prison
Sharon Gilmour, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1980)
Cause of death: Pushed down the stairs by a corrections officer
Karen O’Malley, Casualty (1987)
Cause of death: Head Injury
Cecília, Vale Tudo (1988)
Cause of death: Car Accident
Cicely, Northern Exposure (1992)
Cause of death: Shot by a gunman employed by the town’s evil overlord who doesn’t want to let the lesbians change his town. The shot was intended for her girlfriend Roslyn, but Cicely, who was already sick, blocked the bullet and died in Roslyn’s arms, thus magically healing the town’s long-simmering feuds and leading them to re-name the town “Cicely.”
Talia Winters, Babylon 5 (1995)
Cause of death: Activated a sleeper personality that wiped out her actual personality, effectively killing her
Beth Jordache, Brookside (1995)
Cause of death: Genetic heart condition, died in prison
Susan Ross, Seinfeld (1996)
Cause of death: Toxic envelope glue
Naomi “Tracy” Richards, Band of Gold (1996)
Cause of death: Stabbed herself
Lucy, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996)
Cause of death: Caught thieving and hanged
Kathy, NYPD Blue (1997)
Cause of death: Shot by a hit man hired by her girlfriend Abby’s ex, who wanted to get rid of Kathy so she could get back together with Abby. Abby was pregnant at the time.
Sondra Westwood, Pacific Drive (1997)
Cause of death: Murdered by a serial killer
Jadzia Dax, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998)
Cause of death: Blasted by an alien-possessed alien
Sonia Besirky, Lindenstraße (1998)
Cause of death: Drug overdose from medication given to her by her ex-lover’s husband
Leila and Rafaela, Torre de Babel (1998)
Cause of death: Explosion in a shopping mall
Susanne Teubner, Hinter Gittern (1999)
Cause of death: Shot during a bank robbery (she was a customer)
Shaz Wiley, Bad Girls (2000)
Cause of death: Bomb, died in resulting fire
Laura Hall, Shortland Street (2000)
Cause of death: Heart attack
Diamond, Dark Angel (2001)
Cause of death: Used as a lab rat for research that killed her
Xena, Xena the Warrior Princess (2001)
Cause of death: Beheaded
Beate “Bea” Hansen, Hinter Gittern (2001)
Cause of death: Injuries from an explosion
Jule Neumann, Hinter Gittern (2001)
Cause of death: Suicide
Frankie Stone, All My Children (2001)
Cause of death: Murder Mystery!
Bridgit, 24 (2001)
Cause of death: Shot by a man in front of her girlfriend
Tara Maclay, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002)
Cause of death: Shot in the heart by a stray bullet
Kelly Hurst, Family Affairs (2002)
Cause of death: Pushed down the stairs by her lover’s husband
Megan Hartnoll, At Home With The Braithwaites (2003)
Cause of death: Electrocuted in the bathtub
Juliet Becker, The Bill (2003)
Cause of death: Stabbed
Tina Greer, Smallville (2003)
Cause of death: Impaled through the chest on a large piece of wood during a fight with a male character
Sandy Lopez, E.R. (2004)
Cause of death: Injuries sustained from fighting a fire in an abandoned warehouse
Al Mackenzie, Bad Girls (2004)
Cause of death: Poisoned
Hanna Novak, Verbotene Liebe (2004)
Cause of death: Stroke, died in her girlfriend’s arms
Ines Führbringer, Hinter Gittern (2004)
Cause of death: Throat slit, died in girlfriend’s arms
Thelma Bates, Hex (2004)
Cause of death: Murdered by a demon
Flora, Deadwood (2004)
Cause of death: Beaten by a man who then forced a woman to shoot her with his gun
Brenda Castillo, Charmed (2004)
Cause of death: Stabbed with a cursed blade by a man, causing her to rapidly age and then die
Tosha, The Wire (2004)
Cause of death: Shot during a heist gone wrong
Marissa Cooper, The O.C. (2005)
Cause of death: Car crash after being driven off the road by her drunk ex-boyfriend
Servilla, Rome (2005)
Cause of death: Stabs herself in front of her rival house, inhabited by the mother of her lover
Dusty, Queer As Folk (2005)
Cause of death: At a benefit at a gay club when a bomb went off
Dana Fairbanks, The L Word (2006)
Cause of death: Breast cancer
Helena Cain, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Shot by her ex-lady-lover
Manuela Wellmann, Hinter Gittern (2006)
Cause of death: Stabbed, died in girlfriend’s arms
Maya Robertson, Hex (2006)
Cause of death: Hit by a car
Natalie, Bad Girls (2006)
Cause of death: Bludgeoned to death with a brick
Gina Inviere/#6, Battlestar Galactica (2006)
Cause of death: Set off a nuclear weapon
Eve Jacobson/Zoe McAllister, Home & Away (2006)
Cause of death: Inside a building when it was blown up
Van, Dante’s Cove (2006)
Cause of Death: Killed by the Shadows
Angie Morton, Stritctly Confidential (2006)
Cause of death: Suicide. Jumped off a building.
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What about D’anna Biers (number 3) from Battlestar Galactica?
Helena G Wells was killed when the Warehouse got blown up in Warehouse 13. Later resurrected to shack up with a man.
Lucy Lawless and Mia Krishner died twice!…
I think Lucy was on the list 4 times.
It’s bizarre to me when they make characters gay afyer they’ve killed then off. Such as with Cain, its like they suddenly decided that they should include some representation but do it with a character they’ve already written off so they don’t have to put any time or effort into it.
These writers must know about the dead lesbian trope why so blatantly add to it?
What shocks me the most about the 100 is that they acknowledged the trope existed and then proceed to basically reenact one of the most famous cases of it. Am I supposed to believe that’s a coincidence? These sci-fi writers have never seen Buffy? I also think purposely releasing bts shots of Lexa in the finale and dismissing the idea she will die in twitter is too far. You’re not clever you’re exploiting a passionate group of people, mostly teenages who watch your show, for shock value. At the point you’ve lost sight if what’s important.
I could rant about this forever. It’s soo beyond frustrating.
It makes me so angry. “Hey young vulnerable girls! Look at this amazing relationship between two confident women! You can have this! Oh wait just kidding lol.” Fuck you, dude.
Sorry to repeat the below but it looks like it was missed the first time:
American Horror Story Hotel – Ramona dies; Sally is the dead the whole time and she is revealed to be queer eventually; and Natacha Ramobva dies.
wait everything i read said that Ramona didn’t die? can you tell me how Ramona died and also how Sally and Natacha died?
Natacha Rambova was shot by Elizabeth, but, as far as I can tell, she was only present in one episode (Flicker, 2015).
My bad, she’s listed on wiki/wikia only in Flicker.
Sally gets pushed out of a window by Iris before the events of Hotel, but we see it happen. She’s a ghost/whatever most of the characters in Hotel are for the whole season, and that’s what the Countess also becomes after the death that you’ve mentioned for her. We find out Sally’s queer when we see a flashback to her human days late in the season, she has a threesome with a man and a woman but is genuinely into both of them, and loves them so much she sews them to her while they’re all high, but then the man and the woman (Tina Black) both OD and die – so Tina is another dead queer woman, though she’s only in one ep.
Natacha is in three episodes: Flicker, She Wants Revenge and She Gets Revenge. I think she’s originally a vampire/”afflicted” like the Countess is, but after she’s trapped in a secret part of the hotel for decades and released, the Countess shoots her so she can die far away from the Cortez and the Countess can have her husband Valentino for herself. So Natacha’s death is the final kind.
I thought Ramona also went from being “afflicted” to being a ghost like the Countess does and I thought it was after she told the Countess to “kill me but screw me first”, but you’re right I can’t find any evidence. It must have been interrupted by the Countess’ own death.
Ana and Teresa from Amar en tiempos revueltos got a happy ending where they ran off into the sunset with their son. This show was sold to another network and came back as ‘Amar es para siempre’. In that show, it was stated that Ana Rivas and the couple’s son died on a fire, while Teresa García died in the hospital as a result of the injuries. This death happened off-screen. 2014.
added!
I’m still mad about Maya on PLL and Shay on Chicago Fire. I quit both of those shows when those deaths happened. The one time Bianca Lawson plays a character I actually like…
I hated Jenny on the L Word so I was glad she died.
Xena wasn’t a lesbian/bi. Neither was Claire from Heroes. That one’s so random.
Delphine is not dead! I refuse to believe that.
Claire had a relationship with a woman on Heroes and was declared bisexual
As for Xena, take that up with the rest of the comments left before yours
Claire was not in a relationship with a woman on Heroes. A woman (Gretchen) kissed her, and Claire said she didn’t know how she felt about it, and after a few episodes they dropped that storyline and Claire & Gretchen remained friends and roomates, but nothing more.
I don’t know what happened on Heroes Reborn but from what I gathered, Claire wasn’t part of that show, other than it being said that she died off screen. I haven’t heard anything about it being confirmed that she ever dated a woman…
You are right, Claire is not part of Heroes Reborn. If I remember correctly the show started at the hospital (in flashbacks) where she died in childbirth.
For what it’s worth, the story is basically centered around her twins.
There is also Carly, a character on Charmed. She was one of three confirmed LGBT characters on the show. She only appeared in the episode Charrrmed!, where she was quickly killed off with a cursed blade and forgotten.
For Marissa Tasker- All My Children it was more than that. She was shot by her jealous ex-husband. The show ended with a mystery, who did JR shoot, but when it came back briefly online 2 years later, they answered that question with having Bianca cry over Marissa’s tombstone. We had 2 years to forget and think Marissa and Bianca and the kids were a happy couple. But no.
Don’t forget Monroe in the 100 that got killed one week before Lexa. She gor killed asphyxiated by a poisonous smoke during the attack of a grounder village…
Apparently Monroe was never confirmed queer though
The title bugs me: bisexual characters seems to include men as well. I know the website is clearly about women, but since this situation has exceeded the clexa fandom to raise the issue of lgbt representation, i feel like we’re constantly forgetting about gay men. Is that just me? As a simple suggestion: i would have specified ‘bisexual female characters’ to avoid the exclusion since there is no men cited. Or are they not victims of that trope?
This is a website by and about queer women, tackling a topic that affects women because of the intersections of homophobia and misogyny, so it’s understandable that they are focusing on female characters.
I keep checking back, weirdly eager to see how high this list will go. I mean, it’s terrible. But I also kind of want to place bets on whether it’ll hit 110 or 125?
And while I get the frustration that so many comments ignored the title of the article and/or the introduction, I found it really endearing how passionate so many queer women get about Xena.
where the fuck are all these cars and serial killers coming from, jesus christ
also all that childbirth death???
also who else is real sad that so much of that list had 2015 on it
brb i’m gonna go continue writing my own shit with LGBT people who live
Another one just popped into my head! In “The fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders”, Moll (played by Alex Kingston) has a relationship with a thief, Lucy (played by Nicola Walker). Lucy eventually gets caught thieving and hanged. This all happens in Episode 4, of a 4 episode British tv series (adapted from the book by Daniel Defoe).
It’s from back in the day (1996) but another example of the trope from the 90s?
oh my god i thought you meant maude flanders and i was like WHAAAA
added!
Well that’s maddening. Alex Kingston in a relationship with Nicola Walker is very relevant to my interests.
Thanks for putting this together Riese – it’s exhausting to read through this, so I can only imagine what it must have been like to been like to write.
Helena Wells on Warehouse 13 died saving her friends from an explosion, but they used time travel to save her life because in that timeline just about everyone died. I don’t know if that counts, but…
So many faves… Dana Fairbanks, Tara Maclay, Tamsin, Lucy Westenra (the only reason I watched that trash show), Lexa, Rachel Posner my baby, ugh this list kills me. It’s also reminded me of the many rage blackouts I’ve had in the past 10 years due to TV shows stabbing me in the heart.
:(
Thank you for doing this. There is some number crunching going on and supposedly 20% of lesbian/bisexual women on mainstream TV have been killed in the past 12 months. Which if confirmed, is disgusting.
I felt emotional seeing Lexa at the end of this list. What a waste. Some of you won’t have watched the show and it’s hard to explain why this death, when placed among so many, cuts particularly deep. This show did its passionate gay fans harm. It actively queer baited them for 12 months, invited them to believe in a progressive LGBT vision and then instead gave them one of the horrendous lesbian death scenes ever put on TV. If only one good thing comes out of it, let us hope the industry takes a good look at the mess they continue to condone over and over. It’s long overdue.
Whooooooah, source? If someone is doing this research I feel like we should know about it.
A couple to add:
Lily Baker (Supernatural, died 2007) attacked and hung on a windmill by a demon.
& since youre including cliffhangers such as delphine:
Alex Vause (Orange is the New Black, 2015) cornered by boss of her intl drug cartel after naming him to the court
I’m convinced that Lolly saves Alex, convinced that she is being attacked as part of a government conspiracy.
In any case, I won’t write her off unless the new season proves it, season 3 definitely left it a cliff-hanger.
She actually didn’t die… but they killed Pousse in 2016
that one is on the list already! to stop people from doing this spoilers on the homepage thing.
lalalala
Oh god the Sarah Barnes Hollyoaks one pissed me off so much when it aired?
Like, her ex sabotaged the parachute… for Sarah’s friend. Because she was jealous. But then the packs got mixed up, so Sarah got killed instead.
Hollyoaks has a *particularly* bad track record for The Evil Gay, during the time that I’ve been watching it. Which is, disappointingly, a while. Shame on me.
Couldn’t this include Thirteen from House? She clearly dies prematurely from Huntington’s disease even if it wasn’t in the show itself.
But the show lets her leave happy and in love (with a woman!!) and I’m forever thankful.
I had something relevant to say but then I got to a bunch of characters I didn’t know where dead yet and so now I’m just sad.
Lisa(Rachel’s gf) from House of Cards too. you should do a list with all the baiting too and queer who are threated bad, like Marisa Tomei character on Empire. this is so much more then the Lesbian Death Trope, respect and rappresentation comes from these mis-threatment as well.
Lisa is still alive…?
I don’t know if it counts, but Cara from Legend of the Seeker also was killed (throat slit). Fortunately she was brought back to life at the end of the same episode. It was in 2010.
thank you for writing this article and: wow, what an utterly infuriating and depressing list.
some miscount must have happened somewhere along the way though, because currently there are 115 dead women on it, with three of the posts/pictures standing for two deaths at once.
Not a miscount – there were originally 65. But the list kept growing, and is still growing exponentially (I’m seeing 123 entries). I’m sure at some point there will be a true “final count.”
If we’re including trans women, Angelique from Penny Dreadful (poisoned by her male lover). Evelyn Poole from Penny Dreadful as well, death by werewolf-beheading.
Doreah from Game of Thrones, sealed inside a vault.
We aren’t, unless that trans woman is a lesbian or bisexual — the list of trans women would be a different list because the source of the problem is different (homophobia vs. transphobia/trans misogyny), I think that would oversimplify the issue to include them here. I’m working on a longer piece about the history of trans representation on television though, and those deaths will absolutely be mentioned. and here’s a great piece we did about trans representation onscreen in 2015.
Carmelita Rainer (Candis Cayne), from Dirty Sexy Money, has to be in that list.
yup!
Angelique needs to be on a list when that’s discussed (omg was so fucking mad), but Evelyn isn’t trans or in any way clearly bisexual (it might have been SORTA hinted at with the Cut-Wife, but definitely not more overtly than Xena).
Evelyn kisses Hecate quite sexually (which makes her incestuous, but also bisexual), and it’s very heavily implied with the Cut-Wife, using similar sexual imagery that is used with the male!demon/Vanessa relationship.
I MISS LEXA. SHE DON’T DESERVE THIS DAMN. SHE’S THE ONLY LESBIAN CHARACTER I ACTUALLY RELATED AND LOVED WITH ALL MY LIFE.
In the German tv show “Hinter Gittern” there were 5 lesbians and one bisexual who were killed. Here’s the list:
– Susanne Teubner (1999): shot at a bankrobbery, she was a customer
– Jule Neumann (2001): committed suicide
– Bea Hansen (2001): murdered, died of her injuries from an explosion, died in her girlfriend’s arms
– Ruth Baechtle (2002): died in a cold storage room (accident/suicide?)
– Ines Führbringer (2004): slit throat, died in her girlfriend’s arms
– Manuela Wellmann (2006): stabbed, died in her girlfriend’s arms
I think I got them all except Ruth, ’cause I can’t figure out the cause of death for sure!
I didn’t know how many lesbian/bi characters died on that show. That’s horrible. I only watched for one couple, Sascha & Kerstin, and luckily, they both survived. I wonder why there was never an outcry about all those deaths.
Ruth Baechtle was the nun, right? I don’t remember her sexuality being defined, but in my defense, I only caught glimpses of the show after 2001.
As for her cause of death, she developed schizophrenia, her second personality (Lilith?) strangled an inmate (Mona Suttner, kind of the prison’s head of shady business like drug dealing and prostitution) and then locked herself in the cold storage room, freezing to death (One of the few post 2001 episodes I saw).
I have two more. From the spanish soap opera “Amar en tiempos revueltos” and it’s sequel “Amar es para siempre”: Ana and Teresa (2014).
– Ana: dies in a fire in a hotel with her son, Alejandro. Her girlfriend (wife, basically), Teresa, gets badly injured.
– Teresa: dies after suffering from 3rd degree burns in the 40% of her body.
they’re on there!
Thanks so much for doing this. Another addition – In 2004 the lesbian character Al Mackenzie on Bad Girls (UK) was poisoned to death.
added, thank you!
omg 118 already. This is ffffed up. Just a suggestion, can we do this same thing for gay/bisexual women who did NOT die (yet…), just to have a statistic of which is the actual percentage that dies? Cause I could bet is not lower than 30%
Mac from bad girls died as well just before she was going to turn her life around.
Tina Greer Smallville impaled with a metal rod.
added!
That chic from the oc. Havent watched the show but 90 percent sure ahe was bi and 70 percent sure ahe died
she’s been on the list since it was first posted
bless you kayla
“That chic from the oc.”
Thank Jebus she was already on the list because with this info, I don’t know about Riese, but I would have a stroke searching for the character.
Marissa Cooper, she’s already on the list
Bea from Hospital Central. COD suicide from jumping off a building.