Sex Education (2019-)
Image Credit: Netflix.
As a show that fans applauded for its progressive portrayal of sex and sexuality, Sex Education doesn’t hold back when it comes to authentic queer representation.
This British teen drama centers on the life of Otis (Asa Butterfield), a socially awkward teen with an overbearing sex therapist as a mom, and his friends at Mooredale Secondary School.
Otis’ best friend, a charming and proud gay man named Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), is one of my favorite characters on TV today. He is a well-rounded character with a complex personality who faces troubles both related to and completely separate from his sexuality. Just like how queer people do in real life.
Eric isn’t the only queer character in the mix. Adam Groff (Connor Swindells), a hypermasculine jock who bullies Eric for being gay at the beginning of the series, slowly comes to terms with his sexuality. While Adam’s storyline follows the problematic trope of the secretly gay homophobic bully, his character becomes increasingly complex as the series evolves.
Gossip Girl (2007-2012)
Premise: Gossip Girl is an anonymous blogger who spills the secrets of an elite group of It Kids who go to private schools in New York’s Upper East Side. This includes Serena van der Woodsen, Blair Waldorf, Chuck Bass, Nate Archibald and the poor ‘outsider’ kids: Dan and Jenny Humphrey. They all fall in love, become embroiled in sex scandals and have very lavish parties. Gossip Girl was probably the first teen TV show to properly deal with the advent of social media and the impact this has in dictating young people’s lives (it also kind of glamourised cyberbullying, but that’s a different story).
MVP: Blair Waldorf. Blair was the culmination of every Melrose Place-esque vengeful, bitchy character, but she was also completely driven my ambition and academic excellence. She was often jealous of her pal Serena (just like the audience) who never really had to work that hard for anything. She wore a lot of headbands and had some great one-liners.
Teen TV canon moment: Gossip Girl was well known for its outrageous “omg” moments, in fact its was entirely based around them. The love triangles (Chuck/Blair/Nate, Nate/Blair/Serena, Nate/Serena/Dan, Dan/Serena/Vanessa) were always saucy, but the conclusion of the first season made it clear that this wasn’t your mumma’s favourite teen TV show. The conflict? Oh, just the fact that Serena killed someone and was being blackmailed for it.
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Ferris Bueller
Starring a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston as kid sister Jeannie and Charlie Schlatter in the titular role, this short-lived sitcom based on John Hughes’ contemporary classic was self aware in all the wrong ways. The pilot episode featured Ferris talking to the camera, directly referencing the original film. Turns out, TV Ferris was a bit peeved that Matthew Broderick portrayed him in a film, (?!) so he literally hacked away at a life sized cardboard cutout of Broderick in order to drive this point home.
Not only was this weird, it was off-putting and nonsensical, and the show never gained its footing due to its inability to find its niche or define what kind of show it wanted to be. Also missing was the charm and heart that the film had in abundance, making this version of Ferris one we sorta remember, but only after being nudged a few times.
Helps Queer Viewers Feel at Home
But Never Have I Ever is different because our protagonist is Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), a spunky and smart Indian-American teen who recently lost her dad when he suddenly collapsed during Devi’s recent band performance.
One of Devi’s best friends, Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez), is a kind-hearted robotics nerd who, throughout the series, comes to terms with her queer sexuality. In season one, Fabiola comes out to her mom in a heartwarming episode. She also finds her first girlfriend, Eve, and we watch her struggle to learn more about LGBTQ culture.
As Fabiola’s character develops, we see her enter new relationships, learn about healthy communication, and discover her boundaries. Fabiola is a loveable character who only adds to the zest of the entire show and helps queer viewers feel at home.
Glee (2009-2015)
Image Credit: Fox Broadcasting Co.
I went back and forth on whether or not to include Glee on this list, and ultimately, I decided it had to be here.
Ryan Murphy’s musical high-school dramedy was one of the most popular TV shows in the early 2010s. It was one of the first teen TV series to openly discuss LGBTQ+ and other controversial issues in a TV show aimed at high schoolers.
Glee does not do everything right by any means. There are tons of problems with Karofsky’s (Max Adler) character and the trope of the homophobic jock who turns out to be gay. When Karofksy and Blaine (Darren Criss) briefly dated, I was not the only queer person who wanted to hurl. Karofsky spends the vast majority of his time on-screen bullying Kurt (Chris Colfer) for being gay.
This trope is problematic because it shows masculine gay men that it’s okay to beat up less powerful gay men on their self-discovery journey and teaches straight men to fear that they may secretly be gay – something that shouldn’t be feared, but celebrated.
Musical Comedy-Drama With a Cute Gay Ghost Romance
When three teenage band members in the 90s eat some bad hot dogs and die, they come back to earth as ghosts in 2020 to form a band with current high schooler Julie (Madison Reyes).
One of the ghosts, Alex (Owen Joyner), is openly gay. All his bandmates and the people in 2020 accept him for who he is, though he does acknowledge the reality of the queer experience in the 90s. It’s mentioned that when Alex was alive, his parents weren’t accepting of his sexuality.
At the beginning of the series, Alex meets Willie (Booboo Stewart), another ghost, and they are immediately smitten with one another. The two are a significant side plot throughout the show. It’s refreshing to see a prominent display of authentic and upbeat queer romance in a show for young teens.
Zoe, Duncan, Jack, and Jane
Riding high on her post-Cruel Intentions fame, Selma Blair starred in this 1999-2000 series about four NYC prep school students trying to navigate the lives of the rich and the clueless. The show also starred a pre-Smallville Michael Rosenbaum, who replaced Jeremy Renner in the series (Renner starred as Jack in the pilot episode only).
Billed as Seinfeld for teenagers, the series changed drastically from the first season to the second in a blatant attempt to attract new viewers. It shortened its title to just Zoe… and moved the cast from high school to college, but none of the changes helped draw in more viewers, and the show was cancelled after its second season. Perhaps it didn’t help matters that Zoe aired opposite The X-Files, but the show was largely forgotten about shortly after its cancellation. We remember you, Zoe. We remember.
Latino Protagonist Coming to Terms With His Sexuality
While season one is focused on the process of coming out for Victor, season two shows life after coming out and the nuances and challenges that Victor and his family face. Throughout the show, Victor’s parents become more and more accepting of his sexuality.
The storyline of parental acceptance is very well done. It is complex in that Victor’s parents each have a unique way that they responded to his newfound sexuality. But over time, they both learn to accept their son for who he is.
Love, Victor is applauded for its treatment of cultural differences in mindset towards LGBTQ+ people and its discussions of masculinity and gender expression and how that relates to sexuality.
My So-Called Life (1994-1995)
Premise: Angela Chase is a melancholy 15-year-old who is struggling to forge a new identity. She becomes friends with rebel girl Rayanne Graff and her sidekick Rickie Vasquez, who expose her to a different and more rebellious scene. Angela’s old friends Sharon and Brian hate this change in her but she doesn’t care because all she can think about is kissing Jordan Catalano (like, same). My So-Called Life wasn’t ashamed of its own relentless emo-ness which is key, because it means that it wasn’t too embarrassed to let its characters wallow (flopping on a bed and listen to The Cranberries really loud, contemplating killing their own mother at the dinner table, et al.). This may seem trite to grown-ups, but to moody teenagers it’s more relatable than anything that ever happened on Saved By The Bell.
MVP: Rayanne Graff. Rayanne was the wild and cool girl that everyone wants to be in high school; she’s fearless but also generous and this is the basis of her and Angela’s obsessive friendship. There aren’t many TV shows that are able to capture the intensity of these kinds of teen relationships, but My So-Called Life depicted this platonic romance perfectly.
Teen TV canon moment: My So-Called Life only ran for one season, but there literally isn’t a bad episode in the bunch. One of the most heartbreaking and poignant moments came in the ‘Life of Brian’ episode, in which Rickie thinks that a boy named Cory had been flirting with him, only to find out that he really wanted Rayanne. Brian, who is perpetually in love with an unaware Angela, breaks a date with Delia in the hopes that Angela will ask him to the dance. Everyone is alone and miserable, and then Rickie asks Delia to dance, ARGH, MY HEART.
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Literature
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Harry Potter partially follows this. In the latter books, the teen characters go through lots of romantic drama and «snog» (i.e. passionately kiss or, in American slang, «make out») a number of times, but it’s simply never mentioned whether any of them go all the way. Cue fan debates over whether or not Harry lost his virginity to Ginny «off-screen» («off-page?») during Half-Blood Prince. They do swear, but the worst words are taken out with the Narrative Profanity Filter unless they happen to be Fantastic Slurs. The actors in the movies are pretty close to the right age, but they all have good skin. And according to IMDb
There’s still a scene in the fourth film where Dan Radcliffe’s acne is fairly visible, during the Second Task.
trivia, the actors’ skin was actually digitally cleaned up on the fourth film.
- All books which are in the category of «juvenile literature» in the United States until the 1970s.
- Judy Blume’s novels for teenagers in the 1970s were among the first to tackle such controversial matters as racism (Iggie’s House), menstruation (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.), divorce (It’s Not the End of the World, Just As Long As We’re Together), bullying (Blubber), masturbation (Deenie; Then Again, Maybe I Won’t) and teen sex (Forever), and as such have been the source of controversy over the appropriateness of such topics for her middle school audience. They have been banned often.
- Robert A. Heinlein’s early science fiction novels contained many teens who seemed rather clueless about sex. This was due to the fact that the publishers marked them as «juvenile» literature (which they pretty much were) and would not accept anything about sex in them. Heinlein was a vocal proponent of the notion that juvenile readers were far more sophisticated and able to handle complex or difficult themes than most people realized. Heinlein was always aware of the editorial limitations put in place by the editors of his novels and stories, and finally broke into adult novels where he could do as he mostly pleased.
- Averted hard in CHERUB, where the teens swear profusely, have fairly normal reactions to sex (and no resultant pregnancy, although James’ hormones do lead him to be kidnapped at one point), and on occasion, are only stopped from taking drugs by the threat of being thrown out of CHERUB and sent back to state care homes.
- Max Shulman’s Rally Round the Flag, Boys! goes so far as to mention that the teenage characters never actually engage in any sexual activity further than petting, though they do lie about going all the way.
An Animated Fantasy Series for Queer Teens
The creators of She Ra and the Princesses of Power say that the show does not take place in a heteronormative society like the one in which we live. Instead of assuming all characters are straight before proven gay, in the She Ra universe, it’s the other way around.
Queer relationships are the norm on Etheria, like Bow’s two dads and the adorable wives Spinnerella (ND Stevenson) and Netossa (Krystal Joy Brown). Also, She Ra is one of the only teen TV shows with a nonbinary character. Double Trouble is introduced in season four and uses they/them pronouns, just like their voice actor, Jacob Tobia.
I don’t want to spoil the entire show for you, but it’s clear that the tension between Catra and Adora throughout the show is far from platonic, and queer viewers won’t be disappointed with where the two best friends’ relationship ends up.
If you’re searching for a magical adventure with queer characters and queer themes, She Ra and the Princesses of Power is the perfect show for you.
Moesha
This show, starring singer Brandy Norwood, lasted six seasons, and was a hit for the UPN network, but it kinda feels like a blip on the memory radar now. Moesha was a stellar role model: smart, outspoken, always trying to do the right thing while sometimes being confused as to what the right thing even was.
The show itself had many hardcore plotlines, and would often waft between comedy and drama, often intermingling very serious storylines into a sitcom format (prime example: the time Moesha found out that the guy she thought was her cousin was actually her brother due to a decades old infidelity on her father’s side. Drama!). Despite its success, Moesha ended its run in 2001, and just sorta disappeared into obscurity after that.
Steamy Queer Sex Scenes & the Complexity of Polyamory
There are a few queer characters in the show, like Kirt (Nina Moran), a soft-butch lesbian who explores her sexuality throughout the series. The show’s main character, Camille (Rachelle Vinberg), deals with the challenge of rejecting traditional gender roles. The entire show attempts to redefine what being a girl truly is, which is queer in itself.
The show features steamy queer sex scenes and explores the complexity of polyamory. On top of that, it’s one of the only pandemic-era shows I’ve seen that acknowledges COVID as a real threat and shows characters wearing face masks.
Betty is determined to break down gender norms with their diverse cast of powerful women.
Friday Night Lights (2006-2011)
Premise: Eric Taylor has just started coaching the Dillon Panthers — one of the most successful high school football teams in Texas. After tragedy strikes, Coach Taylor has to figure out how to rebuild the team (which is made up of clashing personalities like brooding/drunk Tim Riggins, loudmouth Smash Williams and constantly petrified Matt Saracen) and deal with the expectations of the football-crazy small town. One of the remarkable things about Friday Night Lights was that it didn’t suffer from the dreaded ‘college curse’ like other shows. When the first lot of high school kids graduated, they just moved on to a new crop of teenagers who were just as good as the first. It helped that the second cast was led by a baby-faced Michael B. Jordan.
MVP: Tami Taylor. The ultimate teen TV mum, Tami was the kind of character who makes you care about the parent’s storyline as much as the kids. She is the only one who can put Coach Taylor in his place and seeing her try to care for her often bratty daughter, Julie, is kind of heartbreaking. She will make you feel bad for the way you talk to your mum.
Teen TV canon moment: Even though Friday Night Lights was definitely a teen show, it didn’t look like it. One of the reasons it’s still considered prestige television is because each episode looked and felt like a mini-movie. Its focus on the parents and the minutia of small town life was great, but it was the reluctant quarterback Matt Saracen who was the real heart of the show. Matt’s dad was in Iraq which made him the sole custody of his dementia-affected grandmother. Coupled with the pressure of the team, Matt was a ticking time bomb of anxiety ready to explode. After Julie Taylor dumps him and Coach Taylor leaves the team, Matt finally starts to show the cracks.
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A Reality Show With LGBTQ Representation
The judges, like Kieth Brymer-Jones, are excellent at creating an inclusive, loving environment among its diverse set of competitors. This reality show has some of the best LGBTQ representation of all time while simultaneously not being a show about LGBTQ issues.
Competitors of diverse ages, races, sexuality, and gender come together to create incredible projects. They are all incredibly kind to one another and often consider each other family.
There are LGBTQ+ potters in every season, including the show’s first-ever nonbinary potter, AJ Simpson. I love watching The Great Pottery Throw Down because the show does such a fantastic job displaying real queer people being creative and living fulfilling lives.
She Ra and The Princesses of Power (2018-2020)
Image Credit: Netflix.
This show changed my life. Showrunner ND Stevenson set out to create an animated fantasy series for queer teens, and they delivered.
When Adora (Aimee Carrero) discovers that the Horde, the group that raised her, is actually an evil force attempting to colonize all of Etheria, she joins forces with Princess Glimmer (Karen Fukuhara) and master archer Bow (Marcus Scribner) to take down the Horde and save the planet.
But when Adora leaves the Horde, she also leaves behind her lifelong best friend, Catra (AJ Michalka), who does not take the abandonment well. The story centers on the tension between Adora and Catra as they fight for their different causes and grapple with their deep feelings for one another.
Animorphs
Based on the YA book series, this late ‘90s Nickelodeon show featured a young Shawn Ashmore as Jake, the leader of a small group of rag tag teens who are given the ability to morph into animals in order to fight against the Yeerks, a group of aliens who have secretly infiltrated the human race. It seems as though humans morphing into animals was also a majorly ‘90s happening (see: like, every video Snoop Dogg ever made) and this show definitely tried to capitalize on that particular trend—the operative word being tried.
Animorphs lasted only two seasons, and it was limited by its wince-worthy special effects and dialogue. Fans of Ashmore are likely to remember the show, as he became Bobby Drake in the X Men film franchise a few years after, but it’s doubtful many others recall much about this one.
A Trans Girl Who Faces Trials and Tribulations in Middle School
For her role in First Day, Evie MacDonald made history as the first trans actor cast as a lead in a TV series in Australia. Having a trans actor play Hannah is one of the best things about the show because Evie brings authenticity and real-life experience to the character that cisgender actors could never achieve. (I’m looking at you, Eddie Redmayne.)
The showrunners created First Day with the specific intention of avoiding causing trans trauma and promoting authentic trans representation in the media. They consulted with GLAAD before the show’s release.
One of the most extraordinary things about First Day is that it’s a show about trans people that centers on the trans experience. Many depictions of trans people in the media aren’t focused on their lives but on how they impact the cis people around them. First Day rejects that notion and Hannah is the central character in the show.
One World
Remember that one Saturday morning show featuring a cast of diverse teens all living under the same roof with their adoptive parents? That would be One World. Set in Miami and centered on a former baseball player, his wife, and their adoptive family, One World aired after California Dreams ended, and it lasted three seasons (1998-2001).
It focused on typical teen plotlines (dating issues, shoplifting, making the team, etc.) but it also attempted to tackle more mature material, including an episode devoted to sexual harassment in the workplace, issues surrounding adoption, and racism. One World was one of the last TNBC shows that aired before Saturday mornings devolved into more kiddie-cenric fare (or weird fishing/hunting shows, depending on where you lived), and while it certainly tried, it wasn’t as memorable as many of its TNBC counterparts.
Skins (2007-2013)
Premise: A gritty teen drama that took a less sanitised look at drugs, sex, religion, mental illness and dysfunctional relationships, Skins was also remarkable for refreshing its cast three times (the first two generations were better than the last, but that’s still pretty good odds). Plus, these kids were actually teenagers! The first cast was led by arrogant Tony, his burn-out best friend Sid and Tony’s on-again-off-again girlfriend Michelle. The excessive drinking and drug-taking on the show apparently inspired “Skins parties” in England, which sound both exciting and disgusting.
MVP: Sid Jenkins. Even though Sid was a bit gross and never took off his beanie (was he kind of cute? Kind of?) his underdog story was the most relatable because he never really ‘won’; which is probably as realistic as it gets on teen TV. He always wanted girls who weren’t interested in him, was rarely interested in the ones who gave him attention, and had to deal with people comparing him unfavourably to Tony all the time. But, even now, he’s probably still the most popular character from the show.
Teen TV canon moment: When Sid gets together with Michelle, who he has been in love with for the whole series, and gets caught by his recently-dumped girlfriend Cassie, who has just returned from Scotland to make up with him. Cassie then tells everyone, including Sid’s best friend and Michelle’s ex-boyfriend, Tony. Phew!
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Queer Kids Deserve Happy Endings Too
It’s a refreshing tale of queer love in many ways. The show doesn’t rely on toxic love triangles to create tension and instead focuses on the loving side of the relationships between characters. On top of that, families accept their kids for being queer in this show, which is a breath of fresh air.
Nick is explicitly bisexual and actually states that out loud, which is uncommon for bisexual-coded characters. Heartstopper directly challenges biphobia by centering Nick’s bisexual identity.
Elle, a kind and creative trans girl, is one of the main characters in the show. She’s portrayed by Yasmin Finney, a trans actor herself. Because many trans characters aren’t actually portrayed by trans actors who understand what it’s like to experience gender nonconformity, Heartstopper is taking a step in the right direction.
Happy stories about queer teens are few and far between, which is why Heartstopper is an essential watch for any LGBTQ kids out there.
Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003)
Premise: Dawson is a fairly self-absorbed teenager who makes home movies and sits around talking about his feelings with his wise-cracking best friend Pacey, his childhood pal/soul mate Joey and his worldly once-girlfriend Jen. This show was pivotal not only because it was a pop culture phenomenon (Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes in particular dominated teen films in the late ’90s) but because it didn’t trivialise teenagers or their problems. It was also one of the first teen TV shows with a successful tie-in soundtrack.
MVP: Pacey Witter. He was the most quotable character on a show full of very verbose speeches and was pretty much the only one who you would want to hang out with IRL. Through his relationship with Joey, Pacey became one of the most popular teen TV crushes of the decade.
Teen TV canon moment: Although it kind of happened by accident, the pairing of Joey and Pacey revived the show and continued to have ramifications until its very last episode. Joey being pulled between between Pacey and Dawson remains one of the best teen TV love triangles of all time.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2q44Xk-ylNw
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Discusses Race, Gender, Religion, and Sexuality
One of the most compelling relationships in the show is that of Omar (Omar Ayuso), a poor Muslim student, and Ander (Arón Piper), a rich, white, tennis-playing champion. The two fall in love, but the world treats them very differently when it comes to expressing their sexualities. The show places intersectionality at the center of the conversation.
Another great thing about the show is its depiction of gay sex. Sex isn’t black and white in the real world, meaning that not everyone is a top or a bottom. The lines are more blurred than that, and Elite understands those complexities.
Elite also features important topics like facing internalized homophobia, the challenges of polyamory, and HIV awareness.