2024 was a great year for queer women on TV. But from \u2018The Last of Us\u2019 to \u2018Grey\u2019s Anatomy,\u2019 2025\u2019s Sapphic storytelling slid backward<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has been a stressful and downright depressing year for culture. From the ongoing circus of the Trump administration\u2019s attack<\/a> on any media that isn\u2019t explicitly conservative to the continued consolidation<\/a> of Hollywood and the onslaught of AI slop<\/a> permeating every facet of our daily lives, this year has left both creators and audiences feeling uncertain about the future of diversity in entertainment. This representation squeeze has resulted in Sapphic representation that feels like a pointed regression from last year\u2019s tour de force of toxic lesbian catharsis provided by series like Agatha All Along<\/em>, House of the Dragon<\/em>, Pretty Little Liars: Summer School<\/em> and so many others. While there have certainly been series to deliver well-written Sapphic characters (looking at you, Pluribus<\/em><\/a>), the boringly safe execution of shows like The Last of Us<\/em> and Gen V<\/em> alongside the shockingly brutal deaths to hit queer characters on The Wheel of Time<\/em>, Grey\u2019s Anatomy<\/em> and beyond highlight the troubling backward trajectory of LGBTQ2S+ characters on the small screen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In my year-end retrospective<\/a> from last year, praising both television and film\u2019s embrace of toxicity and complexity across specifically Sapphic representation, I kicked it off by bringing up the GLAAD Where We Are on TV Report<\/em>, a yearly study conducted by the media watchdog group to assess how many queer characters are on TV, the amount of representation for each sector of the community exists and, perhaps most importantly, how many characters will not be returning for next year\u2019s study. While this year\u2019s GLAAD report<\/a> begins with the positive news that queer representation on TV is up for the 2024-2025 season in comparison to the previous two years\u2019 declining numbers, there continues to be troubling trends across the representation of specifically queer women. Forty percent of all queer characters will not be returning for the 2025-2026 season, either due to cancellation, planned ending or character exit\/death. And of those not-returning characters, 52 percent of them are queer women. Despite seeing an increase in the sheer amount of queer women across the small screen, they are still more likely to be affected by cancellations and exits than their male counterparts, and that trend bleeds into the overall shadow that was cast across queer female representation throughout the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n