It’s been an amazing year for LGBTQ+ people in geek culture.  Every year seems better than the last in regards to representation and, while we have a long way to go before non-heteronormative characters are as mainstream as heterosexual ones, we’ve made some amazing strides in the past twelve months.  Here are some of our personal favorites, but feel free to add your own in the comments!

Clarke and Lexa (The 100)

Nominated by: Angel

With one kiss, Clarke became the first bisexual protagonist on US network television. Clarke was already a powerful young woman and an excellent figure to look up to, but she became an LGBTQ+ icon as well thanks to her partnership with Lexa. Though their relationship has a lot of bumps in the road (being the leaders of opposite factions isn’t easy, guys), it’s still an amazing piece of representation and I hope to see more come of it in future seasons.  Better yet, I hope that the supportive attitudes from the creators and actors sets a standard for creative teams going forward.  I’ve never felt so welcomed by a mainstream TV network before!

Carmilla

Nominated by: Angel

Vampire? Badass lady vampire? Badass queer lady vampire? You have my attention.

Carmilla is revolutionary in many ways, and the fact that it prominently features a majority female cast, many of whom identify somewhere on the queer spectrum, is only one of the reasons why.  The structure, format, and venue are also all unique and worth a watch.  It takes theater style performances, mixes it with new media techniques (webcams, etc), and delivers an interesting one of a kind story of a college student and the vampire she falls in love with.  We got a second season this year and I hope there are many more seasons to come.

Annalise Keating from How To Get Away With Murder

Nominated by: Farid-ul-Haq

While How To Get Away With Murder already hit the jackpot with the gay pairing between Connor and Oliver, and not shying away from showing sexually intimate gay scenes on TV, the writers further developed their queer representation by revealing Annalise Keating’s bisexuality in the premiere of Season 2.

Famke Janssen joined the show as Eve Rothlow, Annalise’s former lover from her law school days, and the two locked more than just lips as the season continued. Viola Davis earned an Emmy for the role of Annalise, and her chances for another win look strong next year as well. Not all TV shows can do justice to bisexual characters, but HTGAWM dealt with the whole thing impressively. The interactions between Eve and Annalise came across as natural and I hope to see their relationship develop further once the mid-season break ends next year. Here’s to seeing more POC queer characters in 2016!

Sense 8

Nominated by: Angel

Sense8 has one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly casts I’ve ever seen.

First we have Nomi Marks, a transwoman from San Francisco, and her girlfriend Amanita. This is important threefold: we have a lesbian couple, a trans character, and a trans character that is actually played by a trans actress.  But enough about my thoughts on trans representation on Sense8.  Many people from the community had their own thoughts about it in a roundtable discussion.

Next we have Lito and his partner Hernando.  Their story is wonderfully written and very realistic, especially given their unique set of circumstances.  It didn’t take Lito and Hernando long before becoming an extremely popular pairing.

Due to the very nature of sharing consciousness, there’s also that wonderful orgy scene that brings into question many other characters’ sexualities. It can be safely assumed that a large portion of the Sensates are somewhat fluid in their sexual preferences after the orgy scene. It was kind of amazing.

Aaron from The Walking Dead

Nominated by: Angel

Aaron isn’t really doing much to further LGBTQ+ causes. All he’s trying to do is survive the zombie apocalypse, and that’s kind of why he’s perfect. If he hadn’t kissed his boyfriend, nobody would have ever known he was gay at all. He’s just a survivor of the apocalypse and, hey, he likes dudes – end of story. However, his introduction caused some people to pitch a fit online (curiously, these people didn’t say anything when Tara was revealed as a lesbian the year before), which revealed some blatant homophobia in The Walking Dead fandom. Really? This is ‘no longer a family show’ now that two dudes kissed? But rotting zombie dismemberment, graphic hetero sex scenes, and violent murder are totally ‘family friendly?’ Yeah, leave the fandom please. We don’t need that here. We’ll keep Aaron and his boyfriend and keep on chugging along without you.

Seconded by: Tara

I actually think that the inclusion of Aaron’s character in TWD and the way the show has handled it has been close to perfect. The kiss wasn’t forced or shoved in anyone’s faces (despite the ridiculous outcry about it) – it was an embrace between two people who love each other and thought they’d lost each other. And outside of the kiss, Aaron and Eric simply exist together. Aaron is a trusted member of the Alexandria community and no one mentions or questions his sexual orientation. And isn’t that kind of the way we want things to be?

Charlie Bradbury

Nominated by: Angel

The death of Charlie Bradbury caused a huge outcry from the Supernatural fandom. Many of us saw a bit of ourselves in her. She was a woman. She was geeky. She was queer. Killing her made a lot of us feel personally hurt by the show, but right now? Now is the time to celebrate her and proudly declare her one of our favorite queer characters in 2015. Charlie Bradbury was one of the best creations of the show and brought a much needed female and LGBTQ+ presence to the show. Her sexuality was never an issue with anyone and was just an aspect of who she was as a person. I don’t feel like a secondary character has resonated with the audience as much as she has since the introduction of Castiel six seasons back. With a show infamous for bringing back long dead characters, there’s always hope that she’ll grace our screen once more. Can we have her back in time for her to make it on our 2016 list? Please and thank you.

Honorable Mention:
Will & Hannibal from Hannibal

Nominated by: Angel

Ah, Hannigram.  The little slash ship that could.  Bryan Fuller gave us the most canon queer romance between the two that he could without having the outright kiss.  They confessed their love for each other, embraced each other repeatedly, and knocked out so many romantic tropes that it’s hard to say that it’s not canon at the end of season 3.  The only reason it’s left as honorable mention is because there’s still a layer of ambiguity (you know, among those who don’t have eyes, or something) and thus the debate rages on about whether this was a legitimate queer pairing or just an extremely heavily catered to slash pairing that got a chance to flourish on mainstream television before being chopped down in its prime.  #FannibalsForever #SaveHannibal #ItsTotallyCanonGuys

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What are some of your favorite LGBTQ+ moments from 2015?  Let us know in the comments!

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They’ve also written for Friends of Comic Con and is a 2019 Hugo Award winner for contributing fanfic on AO3. They identify as queer.

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