New York Times
Last year was a remarkable time when it came to the representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer regular characters on television, according to the latest Glaad report monitoring diversity on the small screen. But that milestone, along with more accurate story lines and fewer stereotypes, has been a long time coming — a turbulent 45-year trajectory from television movies to single episodes involving secondary players to fully fleshed-out characters central to a show’s story line. “All of these moments are very important in one way or another, either in progressing our lives as L.G.B.T.Q. people, or being able to help people understand who we are, especially in those times when so many people lived hidden and invisible,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of Glaad (formerly known as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). The following are some of the most momentous.
1972 — ‘THAT CERTAIN SUMMER’ A divorced father (Hal Holbrook) hides his lover (Martin Sheen) from his teenage son in Lamont Johnson’s movie for ABC, considered the first sympathetic depiction of gay people on television. (In 2015, Mr. Sheen partnered with Sam Waterston on Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie.”)
1977 — ‘THE JEFFERSONS’ Norman Lear, who had already shaken up the staid sitcom with shows like “All in The Family” and “Maude,” did so again on this CBS sitcom. In the episode “Once a Friend,” George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) learns that his old Army buddy Eddie is now a transgender woman named Edie (Veronica Redd). (In 1975, Mr. Lear had introduced one of the first gay couples on network television in the short-lived ABC series “Hot l Baltimore.”)
1977 — ‘SOAP’ In this ABC sitcom, Billy Crystal plays Jodie Dallas — a gay man having an affair with a famous quarterback and contemplating gender-reassignment surgery — who becomes one of the first gay dads on television.
1985 — ‘AN EARLY FROST’ A Chicago lawyer (Aidan Quinn) returns home to reveal to his parents that he’s gay and has AIDS in this NBC movieby John Erman, setting the stage for feature films like Jonathan Demme’s “Philadelphia.”
1994 — ‘THE REAL WORLD’ Pedro Zamora, the MTV reality show’sfirst HIV-positive cast member, brings awareness to the illness and commits to his boyfriend, Sean Sasser, in the first same-sex ceremony on television.
1994 — ‘MY SO-CALLED LIFE’ In the episode “Life of Brian,” this ABC drama about high school angst deals with young gay love when Rickie (Wilson Cruz) develops a crush on his new classmate, Corey (Adam Biesk).
1994 — ‘ROSEANNE’ Mariel Hemingway locks lips with Roseanne Barr in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — an early same-sex kiss that 30 million viewers tuned in to watch.
1996 — ‘FRIENDS’ In “The One With the Lesbian Wedding,” the marriage of Ross’s ex-wife, Carol (Jane Sibbett), to her partner, Susan (Jessica Hecht), draws 31.6 million viewers to this NBC sitcom — even though the women don’t seal their vows with a kiss.
1997 — ‘ELLEN’ Ellen DeGeneres comes out on “The Puppy Episode” on her ABC sitcom — the first lead character to do so on television — and draws a staggering 42 million viewers. The episode also earns Ms. DeGeneres a Peabody.
1998 — ‘WILL & GRACE’ Two gay men plus two straight women equals 83 Emmy nominations and 16 wins for the show that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in 2012 on “Meet the Press,” said “probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far.”
2000 — ‘QUEER AS FOLK’ Showtime breaks new ground with the first hourlong drama in the United States about gay men and women, including a character who is H.I.V. positive. The cable channel does it again in 2004 with “The L Word,” giving lesbians visibility they hadn’t previously had.
2009 — ‘MODERN FAMILY’ This ABC sitcom — featuring a gay couple, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), and their adopted daughter, Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons), as part of a larger family — “is genius in the way it integrates comedy and inclusion, and is able to educate and open people’s hearts and minds,” Ms. Ellis said.
2013 — ‘ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK’ This Netflix series tells the story of a women’s correctional facility and its diverse cast of inmates, including the transgender Sophia (Laverne Cox) and the lesbian Poussey (Samira Wiley), who is killed off in Season 4 — the latest fatality in a 40-year string of lesbian deaths on television, beginning with Julie (Geraldine Brooks) in “Executive Suite” in 1976.
2014 — ‘TRANSPARENT’ This Amazon show stars Jeffrey Tambor as the patriarch of a California family who is transitioning late in life to the woman he has always identified as. Inspired by her own transgender parent, the show’s creator, Jill Soloway, makes a point of putting transgender people both in front of and behind the camera.