Though LGBT people are becoming more and more visible in mainstream culture, queer characters on broadcast TV (some of the most accessible images of LGBT people) aren’t offering a truly representative picture.
Of the 63 explicitly LGBT main or recurring characters BuzzFeed identified on primetime broadcast shows in 2014, 29 were gay white males: That's 46% gay white men vs. 54% everyone else.
More than half of broadcast LGBT characters (35 of 63, or 56%) were men.
In reality, as Pew reports, about half of LGBT Americans are women.
I mean, duh.
Only 17 of these characters — about one in four — were people of color.
In the real world, one in three LGBT Americans is a person of color.
According to UCLA's Williams Institute, LGBT Americans are more likely to live in poverty than straight Americans. But you certainly wouldn't know that from TV!
Granted, lots of TV characters skew rich. But images of rich straight people aren't reinforcing a stereotype (namely, that a rich gay urban white man is the "typical" LGBT person).
And lastly, of these LGBT characters, only one was transgender. (Thank goodness for Netflix.)
Do better, 2015. That is all.
Note: This SMH session made possible by assistance from a GLAAD staffer and their Where We Are on TV diversity report.
As reader lissa pointed out on Twitter, Unique (Alex Newell) was an important black transgender character on Glee in 2014. The numbers above have been changed to reflect the inclusion of this new character.