It is the month of April 2024 and you are wondering where to watch lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters on television, and I am here to share with you information on that exact topic!
Netflix’s LGBTQ+ April 2024 Shows and Films
Wild Things (1998) // April 1
This classic thriller arrives on Netflix with the kind of bisexual behavior that we really clung to with all of our mights back then.
Heartbreak High // Season 2 // April 11
Every now and then a truly inventive and undeniably queer teen television show full of chaotic teens actually succeeds and gets additional seasons and Heartbreak High is one of those shows! Kayla writes that Season 2 of this Australian series is even gayer than the first, and is also “deceptively complex” with “sharp tonal shifts genuinely echo the fraught emotions of teenage experience.”
Baby Reindeer // Limited Series // April 11
Nava Mau, an award-winning trans filmmaker and actress who you might recognize from Genera+ion, plays Teri, the love interest of a struggling comedian dealing with a stalker, in this British series. “This still feels groundbreaking to have a trans woman be one of the main characters in a series that feels like it’s written in a respectful and loving and nuanced way,” Nava told Diva Magazine.
Killing Eve // Seasons 1-4 // April 15
Our bodies are not ready for this
Black Sails // Seasons 1-4 // April 17
This is a show about PIRATES and some of them are GAY!
Ahead of the Curve (2020) // April 22
A documentary about Franco Stevens, who started seminal lesbian publication Curve, a magazine I read religiously while dreaming of one day starting my very own lesbian magazine! Franco is a powerhouse and her story is really compelling, I’m excited for this!
Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (2024) // April 22
Bisexual autistic comic, podcaster and award-winning memoirist Fern Brady’s comedy show “Autistic Bikini Queen” is coming to Netflix and I think it’s going to be very good.
Hulu’s Queer April 2024 Content
Blockers (2018)
One of my favorite queer movies of all time, Blockers follows a group of teenage friends who’ve made a pact to lose their virginity on prom night and their overprotective parents, who really hate this idea! It’s so much cuter and funnier than the description suggests.
Boys on the Side (1995)
Whoopi Goldberg is Jane, a lesbian musician moving from New York to Los Angeles after breaking up with her girlfriend and her band who joins Robin (Mary Louise Parker) and Holly (Drew Barrymore) on a cross-country road trip that gets messy after the women band together to protect Holly from her abusive boyfriend.
Under the Bridge // Limited Series Premiere // April 17
Riley Keough is Rebecca Godfrey, whose book — about the brutal murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritka Gupta), who left home for a party with the terrible girls she longed to be accepted by and never came home— inspired this series set in 1997 in Victoria, Canada. Lily Gladstone is Cam, a local police officer working the case, which brings both her and Godfrey into the world of the “Bic girls” — allegedly troubled teens sent by their parents to live in a local home for girls. Amongst them is Dusty, played by queer actor Aiyana Goodfellow. Queer producer Quinn Shephard described the project as “three years in the making,” beginning with her working with Godfrey (who passed away in 2022) on adapting the book into a project produced by Shephard, Samir Mehta and Liz Tigelaar (the bisexual showrunner ofLittle Fires Everywhere. I’ve seen the first four episodes and I really loved them for many reasons including Cam and Rebecca being queer and Lily Gladstone in a tight white t-shirt and also because Archie Panjabi plays Reena’s mother.
Starz Bisexual Show of April
Mary & George // Miniseries Premiere // April 5
This British “x-rated period drama” from Killing Eve writer D.C. Moore is based on a book about the affair between James VI and I and George Villers (Nicholas Galitzine) and stars Julianne Moore as George’s mother, the ruthlessly ambitious Mary Villers, the Countess of Buckingham. Niamh Algar is a brothel-keeper who has an affair with Mary. “Nearly everyone on-screen is a bisexual sex fiend,” writes Drew of the series. “Nearly everyone on-screen would kill blood, boo, or bestie to rise in society.”
Peacock of April 2024
Drive-Away Dolls (2024) // April 12
The “raunchy lesbian caper” from Tricia and Ethan Coen landed triumphantly with our community as a “a queer film that isn’t trying to be everything to everyone.” It follows Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), an uptight lesbian in 1999, and her best friend Jamie (Margaret Qualley), a serial cheater from Texas, who get roped into a caper that sends them in the direction of Florida — Marian to visit some family, Jamie to get away from her abusive cop ex (Beanie Feldstein) — and things take a turn when they discover a mysterious suitcase in their trunk.
Paramount+
Star Trek: Discovery // Season Five Premiere // April 4
The final season of this groundbreaking Star Trek franchise series finds its crew in the 32nd century, racing forward on a hotly contested galactic adventure to find a mysterious power hidden for centuries. Non-binary actor Blue del Barrio is returning as genderfluid character Adria Tal and Tig Notaro as Jett Reno is slated to appear in a guesting capacity.
The Challenge: All-Stars // Season Four Premiere // April 10
There is a LOT of gay chaos on this star-studded season of The Challenge: All-Stars. The Challenge: Fresh Meat II alum Laurel Stucky will be competing and so will her ex-girlfriend, Nicole Zanatta of Real World: Skeletons. (Who also famously competed on Clone Wars, in which she was given the opportunity to date seven girls who looked like her dream woman, Ciara.) And then we have formative reality television event Rachel Robinson, one of the first out bisexuals we ever saw on teevee when she debuted in the 2002 series Road Rules: Campus Crawl (she was also a special guest at Autostraddle’s 2010 Rodeo Disco). And Rachel’s ex, Vanessa Portillo (Road Rules: Semester at Sea) will also be on this season of The Challenge: All Stars. So.
Apple TV+
Loot // Season Two Premiere // April 3
Maya Rudolph returns as Molly Novak, a billionaire fresh out of a high-profile divorce who is determined to give her entire fortune away with the assistance of her foundation director Sofia Salinas (played by Pose‘s Michaela Jaé Rodriguez) and her devoted assistant Nicholas (Joel Kim Booster).
Girls State (2024) // April 5
This “political coming-of-age story” asks “what would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls?” by bringing together teenage girls from a wide variety of backgrounds from all over Missouri to collaborate on “a stirring re-imagination of what it means to govern.” The documentary follows a small cross-section of the invited participants and amongst them is Maddie Rowan, an openly gay activist who’s been attending protests all her life and is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights. But the girls have a lot to say not just about the country and its politics, but the differences between the Girls State program compared to the Boys State that’s simultaneously underway.
Sugar // Season One Premiere // April 5
There is no actual real lesbian content in this program about a private eye named John Sugar (Colin Farrel) investigating the disappearance of Olivia Siegel, granddaughter to a legendary Hollywood producer. There’s technically not any lesbian content in this series but Paula Andrea Placido has a small part working with Sugar in what I believe is a surveillance capacity and in my personal opinion, her character is a lesbian. But that’s just my opinion!
The Big Door Prize // Season Two Premiere // April 24
Heather enjoyed Season One of The Big Door Prize, set in a quirky small town where a magical machine lands and promises to give users a glimpse into their future. It’s centered on Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) and his wife, Cass (Gabrielle Dennis), the latter of whom has a gay Mom, Izzy, played by Crystal Fox. Apparently, Izzy will be “finding romance” this season!
MGM+
Beacon 23 // Season Two Premiere // April 7
Despite this sci-fi series featuring Lena Headey in a lead queer role, we have thus far been underwhelmed by the series and its tendency to play into the worst queer tropes. According to Screen Rant, Season Two trailer “hints at a larger conflict on the horizon as the Beacon is attacked by military forces.”
HBO Max
Black Swan (2010)
Ballet! Homoeroticism! Natalie Portman! Swans! Mila Kunis!
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
This is Drew’s favorite movie and maybe it could be yours! This genre-bending fictionalized documentary / rom-com follows Cheryl, a version of filmmaker Cheryl Dunye, a film buff working in a video store while pursuing a passion project about an obscure Black lesbian actress of the 1930s pigeonholed into stereotypical “mammy roles” of the era. “When Dunye didn’t see her story, she made it herself,” wrote Drew. “But The Watermelon Woman isn’t just her story on screen — it’s also the searching, the wanting, the necessity of that story.”
Velma // Season Two Premiere // April 25
Heather wrote that “even Velma and Daphne’s queer romance can’t save” this Scooby-Doo prequel, which she described as “a cringy, eye-rolling slog that doesn’t seem to have any idea who its audience is, yet seems to despise them all the same.” But indeed we are getting more Velma!
We’re Here // Season 4 Premiere // April 26
It’s our fourth turn around the sun with the drag queens who invade a small town and recruit its people into putting on an epic drag performance. This season they’re headed to Tennessee!
Prime Video
Fallout // Season One Premiere // April 11
This Prime Video series based on a beloved video game is the platform’s big push for the month, and I’ve learned from all of you that although there were LGBTQ characters in various iterations of the game, the series is presenting new characters. The Verge writes that Fallout has “such a pitch-perfect tone and its vibes are so postapocalyptically immaculate, that it doesn’t really matter what story the show is trying to tell,” while The Hollywood Reporter said it “captures the fun of simply getting to explore a strange new world, meeting colorful characters and going down mysterious rabbit holes” but “its eight hours take an awfully long time to get where it’s going.” There is a non-binary character, Dane, played by trans actor Xelia Mendes-Jones, who appears in two episodes, but otherwise there’s not much gay there.
For Black Sails (spoilers) i would like to clarify that, some of the pirates die but the gay pirates don’t. Also the show ends with a bonus gay pirate and a surprise returned from the dead gay. This show famously unburried their gays.
oh excellent thank you for the note i will adjust!
Came back to say that i was correct in saying none of the gay pirates die but after talking to some friends they all agreed that a pirate adjacent gay does in fact die and stay dead. Sorry.
But you are still more likely to survive and/or return from the dead if you’re queer in this show.
well that’s sort of a win, i think?
I played Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas ages ago and while there are crazy characters (a gang of guys who dress like Elvis, an entire army of Roman soldier cosplay, etc) none are sticking out as gay. Doesn’t mean the show won’t be! Seeing Jackie from Yellowjackets as the main character has me hyped!
yeah at first i was like wait where do i know her from and then when i realized where i knew her from i was very excited
New Vegas has too many gay and bisexual characters to list. Most prominent is probably a recuitable companion character named Veronica Santangelo, voice acted by Felicia Day and her girlfriend / ex Christine Royce(who’s also a recruitable companion in a dlc)
Fallout 2, which came out in 1998, is the first western video game to feature the player character having the option of a gay marriage for both men and women.
Now, wether this means there’ll be gayness in the tv show is anyone’s guess.
For the sixth month in a row, Netflix has no new shows for us :)
I just hope no one tells Netflix it’s Gayflix again because it really isn’t.
The most anticipated shows this month for me are Mary & George and Fallout, I’m really hyped for them.
yeah it blows! they are debuting Ripley this month, which is based on the Patricia Highsmith novel and has gay men … but no lesbians
I haven’t really looked into this but i have a faint memory that Netflix had a lesbian manager who left and this seems to coincide with this reduction in queer content? Am i making this up?
By the way, I am really grateful for this list that you prepare every month.
It really helps me what to watch during the month and…
I should also say that the Fallout game series has almost always had queer characters, but I don’t know if the show will have queer characters or not?
https://lgbtqia-characters.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Fallout_Characters
thank you for the thanks! <3
I haven’t watched the challenge in years but damn, vanessa, laurel, AND rachel??? Crazy. (Never liked nicole lol)
The Fallout series isn’t an adaption of any of the games, but rather it’s being billed as Fallout 5. A new iteration taking place in the Fallout universe, that will be canon to the lore. As such, we can’t know if any of the characters are queer or not.
PS – Are you going to talk about Disney+, because I need a place to specifically talk about Renegade Nell.
i haven’t heard anything about it! it looks like it came out in march last friday… is it gay? should we get someone to cover it? it does look gay, she looks gay in those knickers
I’ll just post this. (spoilers obviously)
https://twitter.com/sunkiss236/status/1774232542125629616
oh also interesting about it being fallout 5 rather than an adaptation of the original game (s?), does that mean it will have all new characters?
As far as I know, all of the characters should be brand new.
I second talking about Renegade Nell!!!!
Dear Riese,
Thank you for your monthly tips. Besos!
There’s also this interesting series from Australia.
‘High Country’ with Sara Wiseman and Leah Purcell as Helen x Andie.
It’s about a detective transferred to Victorian High Country who investigates 5 missing persons. She uncovers a complex web of murder, deceit and revenge.
And yes, the detective has got a sapphic relationship.
https://fero.tips/videos/tv/high-country-s1/
Killing Eve is coming to Netflix on April 15th to scar a whole new audience, if you want to count that. Thanks for these lists – even though they make me sad. BTW, Renegade Nell is filling some kind of hole in my heart right now. I think it just feels queer because the show runner is Sally Wainwright (Gentleman Jack).
in fact i do want to count that thank you betty!
Renegade Nell has Xena like vibes, with the same female choral during the fight scenes etc. Her companions are her sisters, otherwise it would be super gay. Also it’s gender non conforming with the male fairy entering her body and turning her into a martial artist?? It’s wild :D
Hi! Just adding to the bunch, HBO Max is having the Season 2 premiere of “Velma” on April 25th!
Thanks for the amazing list, here every month for it!
oh wow ok! i will add it!
I don’t think it’s been covered here on Autostraddle, but Ark the Animated Series on Paramount is SUPER GAY! The main character is a lesbian and her love interest is voiced by Michelle freaking Yeoh! It also has Devery Jacobs from Reservation Dogs and a bunch of other great actors in it. You should really be covering it here!
oh yeah i hadn’t even heard of it but i will look into it!
Not sure if it’s been covered but Deadloch on Amazon Prime is super gay as well. Australian, comedy and a murder mystery. One detective has a wife and the town is full of gay women and feminists! The writing is hilarious – you just have to forgive that the other detective is annoying. Synopsis: Two vastly different female detectives are thrown together to solve the murder of a local man in the sleepy seaside hamlet of Deadloch. Check it out!
yes we loved deadloch! valerie did a review:
https://www.autostraddle.com/deadloch-season-1-review/
and it also ranked #6 on our best shows of 2023 list!
https://www.autostraddle.com/the-25-best-tv-shows-of-2023-with-lesbian-queer-and-trans-characters/
Just watched all of Renegade Nell and it was brilliant! By Sally Wainwright, there’s no overtly queer romance storyline, but there is adventure and magic and I can strongly recommend. Would love to hear what everyone thinks of it!
Dumb Money on Netflix has a lesbian couple in it. And Ripley stars Eliot Sumner, in which I understand to be a nonbinary interpretation of a canonically male character. Also, anything with Patricia Highsmith as the source material is gay.
Great List! Would love to see MUBI included when there is something there :)