Pop Culture & Media

A League of Their Own

A League of Their Own is a 2022 Prime Video series, based on the 1992 film, that centers the queer and racial stories the original movie only hinted at, following women in a 1940s professional baseball league.

Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian road comedy about two drag queens and a transgender woman traveling across the Outback to perform.

Alex Newell

Alex Newell is an American actor and singer who won a 2023 Tony Award for Shucked, becoming one of the first openly nonbinary performers to win in an acting category.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

Andy Warhol was an American artist and filmmaker who led the Pop Art movement and built a studio, the Factory, that became a hub for queer and outsider creativity.

Babadook

The Babadook is the monster from a 2014 horror film who became a tongue-in-cheek queer icon after a Netflix listing error and a Tumblr meme.

Bicon

A bicon is a bisexual icon, meaning a celebrity or public figure who is celebrated and admired within bisexual and bi+ communities.

Billy Porter

Billy Porter is an award-winning American actor, singer, and fashion figure known for the musical Kinky Boots and the television series Pose.

Birdcage, The

The Birdcage is a 1996 hit comedy about a gay couple who run a Miami drag club and pretend to be straight to impress their son's conservative future in-laws.

Boy Erased

Boy Erased is a 2018 drama, based on Garrard Conley's memoir, about a young gay man forced into conversion therapy by his Baptist parents.

Broadway

Broadway is New York City's professional theater district, long central to LGBTQ+ culture as a stage for queer artists, audiences, and stories.

Broadway Bares

Broadway Bares is an annual burlesque-style striptease fundraiser created by choreographer Jerry Mitchell in 1992 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama directed by Ang Lee about the decades-long love between two men in the American West.

Bros

Bros is a 2022 romantic comedy, one of the first gay rom-coms from a major Hollywood studio to feature an openly LGBTQ principal cast.

Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name is a 2017 coming-of-age romance about two young men who fall in love over a summer in 1980s Italy.

Chappell Roan

Chappell Roan is an American pop singer and songwriter, an openly lesbian artist whose drag-inspired, theatrical persona has made her a defining voice of contemporary lesbian pop.

Cher

Cher is an American singer, actress, and longtime LGBTQ+ ally widely embraced as a gay icon.

David Bowie (1947-2016)

David Bowie was a British musician and cultural icon whose gender-bending personas and open talk of his sexuality reshaped how queerness could appear in popular music.

Designing Women

Designing Women was a CBS sitcom (1986 to 1993) about four women running an Atlanta interior design firm, remembered for its sharp feminist politics and an early, sympathetic AIDS episode.

Drag Race

Drag Race, short for RuPaul's Drag Race, is an Emmy-winning reality competition series in which drag queens compete across design, performance, comedy, and lip-sync challenges.

Dykon

A dykon is a public figure regarded as a cultural icon especially by lesbians, blending the words dyke and icon.

Dynasty

Dynasty was a lavish 1980s ABC prime-time soap opera that became a camp touchstone in gay culture.

Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres is an American comedian and television host who came out as lesbian in 1997, a landmark moment for LGBTQ+ visibility on mainstream TV.

Elton John

Sir Elton John is a legendary British singer, pianist, and songwriter who is also one of the most visible and generous LGBTQ+ advocates in music.

Equalpride

equalpride is a New York-based, LGBTQ+ owned media company that publishes The Advocate, Out, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and other queer brands.

Feel Good

Feel Good is a semi-autobiographical British comedy-drama series created by and starring nonbinary Canadian comedian Mae Martin, following a queer romance shadowed by addiction and self-discovery.

Fellow Travelers

Fellow Travelers is a 2023 Showtime miniseries chronicling a decades-long gay love story that begins during the 1950s Lavender Scare.

Fire Island (Film)

Fire Island is a 2022 romantic comedy that reimagines Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice among a group of gay friends vacationing at the New York island.

Freddie Mercury (1946-1991)

Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) was the British singer and frontman of the rock band Queen, celebrated for his four-octave voice and flamboyant stage presence, who died of AIDS-related illness.

Futanari

Futanari is a Japanese term, literally "dual form," for fictional characters, mostly in anime and manga, who have both female and male sexual characteristics.

Gay Icon

A gay icon is a public figure, often a performer, who holds special meaning and affection within gay and broader LGBTQ+ communities.

Gaydar (App)

Gaydar is a social connection and dating app built by and for the LGBTQ+ community.

God's Own Country

God's Own Country is a 2017 British romantic drama about a closeted young Yorkshire sheep farmer who falls for a Romanian migrant worker.

Golden Girls

The Golden Girls is a beloved 1980s NBC sitcom about four older women sharing a Miami home, and one of the most enduringly queer-loved shows of its era.

Grabby Awards

The Grabby Awards are an annual Chicago ceremony honoring achievements in the gay adult film industry.

Hacks

Hacks is an acclaimed HBO Max comedy series whose lead writer character, Ava, is openly bisexual, played by out comedian Hannah Einbinder.

Heartstopper

Heartstopper is Alice Oseman's LGBTQ+ graphic novel series, later a Netflix show, about two British schoolboys who fall in love.

I Feel Love (Song)

"I Feel Love" is Donna Summer's 1977 disco single, produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, whose all-electronic sound reshaped dance music and became a lasting gay club anthem.

I oop

"I oop" is a viral catchphrase, coined by drag queen Jasmine Masters in a 2015 YouTube video, used to express sudden shock, surprise, or embarrassment.

It's Giving

"It's giving" is a slang phrase that names the vibe, energy, or impression something gives off.

Judy Garland (1922-1969)

Judy Garland (1922-1969) was an American singer and actress whose talent, resilience, and role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz made her one of the most enduring gay icons of the twentieth century.

Keith Haring (1958-1990)

Keith Haring was an openly gay American pop artist of the 1980s whose bold line drawings and AIDS activism made him one of the era's most recognizable creative voices.

Logo (Network)

An American cable channel launched in 2005 as the first ad-supported U.S. TV network aimed at LGBTQ audiences.

Milk (Movie)

Milk is a 2008 biographical drama, directed by Gus Van Sant, about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to major public office in California.

Moonlight (Movie)

Moonlight is Barry Jenkins's Oscar-winning 2016 drama tracing a Black gay man named Chiron across three stages of his life in Miami.

Musical Theatre

Musical theatre is a stage art form with deep, longstanding ties to queer culture, serving both as a creative outlet and a coded language of shared identity.

Out (Publication)

Out is an American LGBTQ+ magazine founded in 1992, the highest-circulating LGBTQ monthly in the United States.

Out100

Out magazine's annual list recognizing 100 of the most impactful and influential LGBTQ+ people of the year.

Paris is Burning

A landmark 1990 documentary directed by Jennie Livingston chronicling New York City's 1980s drag ball culture and the Black and Latino queer and transgender communities who created it.

Philadelphia (Movie)

Philadelphia is a 1993 drama, starring Tom Hanks, about a gay lawyer fired because he has AIDS who sues his firm for wrongful termination.

Pose (TV Show)

"Pose" is an FX drama series (2018 to 2021) set in New York City's ballroom scene that featured the largest cast of transgender actors in series regular roles in television history.

Punk

A countercultural music and aesthetic movement whose anti-establishment, DIY spirit has long overlapped with queer identity and gave rise to the queercore scene.

Queer As Folk

A groundbreaking gay-centered television drama that began in the UK in 1999 and was later adapted into a longer American series.

Queer Eye

A reality makeover series in which five LGBTQ+ experts, the Fab Five, help transform a nominee's style, home, and outlook.

Red White & Royal Blue

Red, White & Royal Blue is Casey McQuiston's 2019 bestselling queer romance novel, adapted into a 2023 film, about the U.S. First Son falling for a British prince.

Reneé Rapp

Reneé Rapp is an American singer and actress, known for Mean Girls and The Sex Lives of College Girls, who is openly lesbian.

Rent (Musical)

Rent is Jonathan Larson's Tony- and Pulitzer-winning 1996 rock musical about young artists in New York's East Village living under the shadow of HIV/AIDS, with LGBTQ+ love and community at its heart.

Robin Byrd

Robin Byrd is an American adult-film actress turned public-access television host whose sex-positive New York City call-in show became a queer cultural landmark.

Robin Byrd Show, The

The Robin Byrd Show was a long-running New York City public-access cable program that aired adult content and celebrated performers of all genders and sexualities.

RuPaul

RuPaul Charles is an American entertainer widely regarded as the most commercially successful and famous drag queen in the United States.

RuPaul's Drag Race (RPDR)

RuPaul's Drag Race is the Emmy-winning reality competition series, launched in 2009, in which drag queens compete to be named America's Next Drag Superstar.

Schitt's Creek

Schitt's Creek is a Canadian comedy series (2015 to 2020) praised for its warm, matter-of-fact portrayal of pansexual character David Rose and his romance with Patrick.

Showtunes

Showtunes are songs from Broadway and stage musicals that have a long-standing cultural association with LGBTQ+ audiences, especially gay men.

Sort Of

Sort Of is a Canadian dramedy co-created by and starring Bilal Baig as Sabi Mehboob, one of the first nonbinary lead characters on North American television.

Straight-Washing

Straight-washing is the practice of portraying or depicting a real person or fictional character who is LGBTQ+ as heterosexual or cisgender.

The L Word

The L Word was a Showtime drama series (2004 to 2009) following a group of lesbian and bisexual women in Los Angeles, notable as the first ensemble series centered on queer women.

Transparent

Transparent is an award-winning American comedy-drama series (2014 to 2019) about a Los Angeles family whose parent comes out as a transgender woman named Maura.

Troye Sivan

Troye Sivan is a South African-born Australian singer, songwriter, and actor who is openly gay and widely regarded as an LGBTQ+ pop icon.

Upstairs Inferno

Upstairs Inferno is a 2015 documentary by Robert L. Camina about the 1973 arson attack on the UpStairs Lounge, the New Orleans gay bar where 32 people were killed.

Village People, The

Village People are an American disco group formed in 1977, famous for their costumed macho personas and gay-coded anthems like "Y.M.C.A." and "Macho Man."

Village Voice, The

The Village Voice was an influential New York City alternative weekly newspaper, published from 1955 to 2018, widely regarded as the first alt-weekly in the United States.

When Ocean Meets Sky

When Ocean Meets Sky is a 2003 documentary by Crayton Robey chronicling the history of Fire Island Pines, the queer summer enclave off Long Island, New York.

Will & Grace

Will & Grace is an American NBC sitcom about a gay lawyer and his straight best friend that helped bring gay life into the mainstream of network television.