Some shows give you LGBTQ+ characters as a cute side dish. The best ones make queerness part of the main course—woven into who the characters are, how they love, what they’re scared of, and what they’re willing to risk. With that in mind, here are the best current TV shows that do LGBTQ+ storytelling especially well—not just by “including” queer characters, but by actually letting them be messy, specific, romantic, funny, flawed, and fully human.
Euphoria
If Euphoria does one thing better than almost any modern drama, it’s this: it refuses to make identity tidy. Jules (played by Hunter Schafer) isn’t treated like a “Very Special Episode” lesson—she’s allowed to be impulsive, romantic, defensive, brave, wrong, right, and heartbreakingly real, all in the same season. The show’s queer characters exist inside the chaos of adolescence, where desire and insecurity can feel like the same emotion. It’s not always comfortable viewing, but it’s rarely shallow.
Heartstopper
Heartstopper is what happens when a show decides that tenderness is not “soft,” it’s radical. The series centers on Charlie and Nick’s relationship, but it also builds a full community around them—queer friendships, first crushes, awkward conversations, quiet support, and the slow learning curve of becoming comfortable in your own skin. It’s one of the rare teen shows where LGBTQ+ joy isn’t treated like a plot twist—it’s the foundation.
Good Omens
Aziraphale and Crowley are the definition of a slow-burn that rewires your brain: centuries of devotion, bickering that’s basically foreplay, and a love story that’s been hiding in plain sight until it finally stops being “subtext.” By Season 2, the series goes there—including a kiss in the finale—and it lands because the emotional groundwork has been laid for years. If you’ve ever loved a relationship built on loyalty, history, and “I would end the world for you, but I will complain the whole time,” this one’s for you. The wrap-up has also been widely reported as shifting to a 90-minute finale rather than a full season.
Yellowjackets
Yellowjackets gives you queerness in the middle of horror, survival, and long-term psychological fallout—and somehow makes it feel organic, not performative. Taissa and Van’s relationship isn’t just “representation”; it’s a bond shaped by pressure, fear, intimacy, and the kind of shared experience that permanently alters a person. The show also doesn’t limit its queer characters to one “type” or one storyline—it lets attraction and identity live alongside the narrative’s darkness, instead of being separate from it.
The Last of Us
Ellie’s queerness isn’t treated as an add-on—it’s part of her emotional DNA. In the Last of Us world, love is never just romance; it’s a reason to keep going, a reason to lose your mind, a reason to be brave when you’re terrified. Ellie’s relationships (including with Dina, depending on where the adaptation is in the story) hit hard because the show understands that queer love stories don’t need to be tragic to be powerful—they just need to be true.
Harley Quinn
This series is proof that a show can be absolutely unhinged and emotionally sharp—sometimes in the same sentence. Harley and Ivy’s relationship works because it’s not framed as a “shock”; it’s framed as a partnership between two chaotic people trying (and often failing) to grow. The show plays with queer joy, queer mess, and queer domesticity—and it does it with the confidence of something that knows it’s allowed to be fun.
Interview With a Vampire
This is one of the clearest examples of a modern adaptation taking “queer subtext” and making it unmistakably text—with all the obsession, tenderness, toxicity, power struggle, and longing that implies. Louis and Lestat’s relationship is intense in a way that feels operatic, but it’s also specific: the series asks what it means to love someone who can ruin you, and why you might go back anyway.
Dead Boy Detectives
If you like your queer representation with a side of ghosts, this one’s a treat. Dead Boy Detectives leans into character-driven storytelling—the kind where sexuality and identity don’t need neon arrows pointing at them, because they’re simply part of how these people move through the world (and the afterlife). It’s playful, dark, and surprisingly warm—especially when it lets its characters be emotionally sincere instead of just snarky.
Abbott Elementary
In a quieter, more everyday way, Abbott Elementary nails something important: being queer doesn’t have to be a “storyline” to matter. Jacob is written as a full person—earnest, awkward, occasionally insufferable (affectionately), and genuinely caring—and the show treats his sexuality as one facet of his life, not the whole biography. It’s inclusive without turning into a sermon, which is harder to pull off than people think.
Overcompensating
This one earns its spot because it tackles a very specific queer experience: the performance of masculinity as camouflage. Created by Benito Skinner, it follows a closeted former high-school jock trying to survive college by being the person everyone expects—even when that persona is exhausting him from the inside out. It’s funny, awkward, and emotionally sharp about the gap between who you are and who you pretend to be.
Heated Rivalry
A sports romance that doesn’t punish its characters for desire—honestly, bless. Heated Rivalry takes a classic setup (rivals, secrecy, tension) and uses it to explore what it costs to stay closeted in hyper-masculine spaces—without making the story nothing but suffering. The relationship is the point, the chemistry is the engine, and the show’s popularity has been loud enough to break out beyond its original platform. It premiered on Crave and has been making big waves since.
Doctor Who
Even when the show is doing aliens and time paradoxes, Doctor Who has a long-running habit of making space for queerness—sometimes explicitly, sometimes with that classic “time is fluid, so is everything else” energy. Captain Jack Harkness remains a landmark example of an openly non-heterosexual character in the modern era of the franchise, and the current era (kicked off with Ncuti Gatwa’s first full episode as the Fifteenth Doctor in late 2023) continues the series’ push toward broader representation.
Queer Eye
And then there’s Queer Eye, which is basically a weekly reminder that kindness can be transformative—and that chosen family is a real thing, not a Pinterest quote. The show’s impact comes in the way it lets vulnerability be cool and self-respect be aspirational. Also, it’s officially heading toward a farewell—Netflix has announced it will end with Season 10.