LGBTQ Characters on TV Fell by a Quarter in 2025-26, GLAAD Finds
LGBTQ characters on scripted television fell by a quarter in the 2025-26 season, according to a new report from GLAAD, the LGBTQ media advocacy group that tracks how queer people appear on screen.
Scripted series are shows built on written scripts, as opposed to reality or other unscripted formats. GLAAD counted 369 LGBTQ characters across streaming, broadcast and cable scripted series in 2025-26. The season before, it counted 489. Broadcast means programmes on free over-the-air channels, while cable means channels that come with a paid TV package.
The steepest fall came among transgender characters. GLAAD counted 33 of them in 2024-25 and seven in 2025-26. All seven appeared on shows that are not returning this season. Some of those shows were limited series, meaning they were told in one fixed run of episodes with no plan for more. Others had been cancelled or had ended.
The share of LGBTQ characters who are people of color also dropped. It fell from 51 percent in 2024-25 to 44 percent in 2025-26, the lowest level in eight years, according to the report as published by The Hollywood Reporter.
For viewers, the change is easy to miss from one episode to the next. Across a full year of television, though, it means fewer stories about LGBTQ lives, and fewer characters for audiences to follow from one season to the next. Many of the characters counted in the 2025-26 figures were on shows that have since finished, so their absence from new seasons is not a sign of a single decision by one network or platform.
They tell us how many LGBTQ people were on screen in scripted series over one season, and how that number moved from the last one. The people behind the shows will be watching the next count closely.
