Autostraddle’s Favorite LGBT TV Characters Of 2013

It’s been a groundbreaking and occasionally disappointing year of television for the queer lady contingent. On the one hand, we were gifted with Netflix’s Orange is The New Black, which features more LGBT women than any American program since The L Word, as well as the most racially and generationally diverse cast of women in recent memory. We got The Fosters, a triumphant departure from traditional coming-of-age lesbian narratives with its nuanced portrayal of lesbian parenthood. We got a bunch of queers on non-US programs like Lost Girl, Orphan Black and Wentworth. We were surprised to get some minor lesbian characters on shows like The Killing, The Walking Dead and Masters of Sex, as well as on misogynistic horrific programs like Ray Donovan and Two and a Half Men. Meanwhile, shows like True Blood and Grey’s Anatomy basically maintained their queer lady characters’ status quo. But we also saw queer female characters mistreated, ignored, killed or written out on Mistresses, Under the Dome, Defiance, Once Upon a Time, Chicago Fire, The Good Wife and Skins FireProminent lesbian storylines on Glee and Pretty Little Liars had their moments but often took an unfortunate backseat to hetero necking.

It was a year of many ups and downs! So we gathered some of our most prolific teevee watchers to share their personal favorite characters of the season.


Kate, Contributing Editor

Recaps: Orange is the New Black and Once Upon a Time, formerly Bomb Girls

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Betty McCrae (Ali Liebert), Bomb Girls 

Betty McCrae of Bomb Girls is number one lesbian of my heart, top of the tops, my gay sister from another mister, etc. I think she’s the best lesbian on television but psh who am I to talk? My bias is already showing. I have such strong and intense feelings for her that it often caused my recaps to devolve into keyboard smashing and gifs of children crying. 2013 was the year of Betty McCrae finally getting laid and going to jail so the woman she loves has a shot at a normal and happy life. We all cried about it, we’re probably still crying about it. What I love about Betty is everything, but if I had to give concrete reasons, I’d probably talk about her unapologetic confidence, how she thinks with her heart and her gut and rarely anything else, and the fact that she appears in a period drama where the hard truth of her sexuality is handled realistically and endearingly. I will root for her no matter what. I am her cheerleader now and forever. I wish she was real and lived in my time period so I could be her co-conspirator in everything she does. I wish she wasn’t going to probably die early and miserably as a result of all the hazardous chemicals she and the other characters are constantly being exposed to in the factory. I have a lot of feelings about Betty McCrae. I think she’s the best, I really do.


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Franky Doyle (Nicole da Silva), Wentworth 

Franky Fucking Doyle, ladies and gentlehomos. Oh, Wentworth, you pushed all my buttons this year and oh man were those buttons ever right. If you thought Shane was too soft and easy-going, let me introduce you to Nicole da Silva’s portrayal of the inmate who could beat the shit out of Alex Vause any day of the week. Franky’s far from perfect, and she’s all kinds of trouble, but the sexual tension between her and the warden is maddeningly thick. I’m so stupidly into it and Franky is so stupidly amazing.


I dunno I heard you guys kinda like this show? Confirm/deny?

The entire cast of Orange Is The New Black

Everyone on Orange is The New Black, basically. I couldn’t pick one, so I just picked everyone. You have your favorites, I’m sure, because maybe you were like me and your little butch heart felt just a little more validated every time Big Boo was onscreen. Or maybe you’re obsessed with Poussey because you have a pulse, or maybe it was all about Nicky or maybe “Crazy Eyes” is crazy amazing or maybe you just want Alex to sex you up, I don’t know. But the queer ladies of Orange is the New Black were a huge deal this year for a lot of reasons, and I know a heck of a lot of you have a special place in your heart for this show and its cast.


Riese, Television Editor

Recaps: Glee, formerly The L Word franchise, Pretty Little Liars and Skins

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Betty DiMello (Annaleigh Ashford), Masters of Sex 

I came for the lesbian sex worker and Janis Ian, I stayed for Margaret Scully and Dr. Lillian DePaul, and I gouged out my own eyeballs in honor of William Masters. Although she vanished into the Lesbian Netherworld after Episode Three, I had high hopes and great affections for Betty and her friends at the brothel — let’s just say I have a special relationship with that whole universe and it was so cool to see it portrayed on screen in a different era. The show seems relatively committed to exploring the different ways in which women of the era accessed (or didn’t) independence and mobility in, and that’s an investigation that, in my opinion, benefits greatly from the inclusion of female sex workers. Here’s hoping that Season Two features a lot more Betty and hopefully William Masters dying of some terrible plague so I never have to listen to his boring egotistical nonsense or look at his stupid weasel face again.


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Bo (Anna Silk), Lost Girl

There’s lots to hate about Lost Girl, but its portrayal of bisexuality isn’t one of them — and I’d argue it’s the best portrayal of a bisexual female in the history of television. It’s amazing, episode after episode, to see no privileging of male-female relationships over female-female ones, no wrought-out discussions of which gender she prefers, and no shying away from serious girl-on-girl action. That being said, as I wrote in I Just Now Saw, I was devastated to see the Lauren-Bo union in Season Three transform from the sexually electrifying and emotionally complex coupling we’d fallen for and replaced by the standard media depiction of lesbian relationships as tedious, passionless and high on emotional processing. They got off to a good start — those early-season sex scenes, for example — but as Season Three prodded on I was repeatedly frustrated by how intensely it seemed the show wanted us to favor Bo and Dyson.

But then Season Four happened, and Bo and Lauren reunited, The Morrigan made a scissoring joke, and Bo got drugged by Vex and said ten million adorable things about getting back together with Lauren. This “getting back together” situation turned out to be short-lived, but at least the lesbian sex train hasn’t slowed down this season (thank you Ali Liebert, Professional Gay) and last week we were treated to Bo and Lauren hooking up in period costumes! Bo makes the best Robin Hood EVER, y’all.

But honestly my favorite think about this character isn’t who she sleeps with: it’s who she doesn’t. The most important relationship in Bo’s life is, undoubtedly, her relationship with her best friend Kenzi. I imagine they’ve got passionate ‘shippers out there, but I prefer them as besties. I think it really speaks to the concept of “chosen family’ and an increasing cultural trend amongst young women to privilege their female friendships above boyfriends, girlfriends, and even blood relations, and we don’t see enough of that on television.


o-UZO-ADUBA-facebookSuzanne Warren (Uzo Aduba), Orange is The New Black

Orange is The New Black is awesome for so many reasons and Suzanne manages to encompass just about all of them:

  1. Gay.
  2. Woman of color.
  3. Evolves far beyond the initial stereotype she seems to be.
  4. She’s more than just her background/circumstances— she’s determined to independently manage her mental illness within an unfriendly institutional system.
  5. Her storyline consistently surprises the audience and bucks expectations.
  6. Brilliant.
  7. FUNNY AS HELL

Also I cheated the system and got my hands on some sides for Season Two, and I’m super-excited for all the fleshing out of her character we’re gonna see next year! But really can we just see Sue do Shakespeare forever? I would really appreciate that.


Mey, Contributing Editor

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Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox), Orange is The New Black

In a lot of ways I feel like Sophia Burset is the TV character I’ve been waiting for my entire life. She’s a trans woman of color who’s in a relationship with another woman, she’s played by an actual trans actress (and a super talented one at that), she’s on a show all about women, and in a cast filled with powerful performances and brilliant characters she stands out as the breakout star. Before Sophia, the only place I could regularly watch a trans woman of color on a fictional TV show was Glee, and I think we all know how absurdly problematic their treatment of Unique is.

With Sophia it’s different. Laverne Cox fills her performance with so much reality and life that Sophia is instantly one of the most sympathetic and likable characters on a show filled with women that you can’t help but feel for and root for. Although we do see some of the regular tropes, for instance other characters misgender her and a lot of jokes are made about her genitals, she is anything but a one dimensional character. She has complicated relationships with her wife, her son, Piper and later on Sister Ingalls, and these relationships are filled with moments that range from being hilarious, to touching, to downright intense. She sends the viewer on a trip through every imaginable emotion. Seeing what happens when she bumps into an old coworker when out shopping with her son devastated me. Watching her cleverly figure out a way to get a visit to the doctor so that she can get her much need hormones made me laugh and cheer.

One of my favorite moments comes when Sophia is early in her transition and she’s still getting a hang on the way she wants to dress. Her first outfit is a bit immature for her, to say the least, but when her wife picks out a dress for her and Sophia gets a look at herself in the mirror, a shift takes place. She says, “Holy shit, I look hot,” and you can tell that for the first time she really feels it. As a trans woman I don’t think I’ve ever related to a TV moment more than that one. Sophia is gorgeous, smart, funny, driven and strong. She knows what she wants and what she deserves, and she’s willing to fight to get it.

She’s not a there to be comic relief, but she has some of the funniest lines in the show. Aside from all of this, her character points out a very real issue that trans women (mainly trans women of color) face. The American prison system is impossibly stacked against trans women. Whether it’s access to hormones, safe living environments, protection from harassment or even just getting to stay in a women’s prison as opposed to a men’s one, trans women are struggling. Thanks to Sophia Burset (and Laverne Cox who has appeared many times outside the show advocating for trans women’s rights) people are starting to pay attention to a group of women who are often forgotten and ignored. This is a a character who isn’t just changing TV, she’s helping to change the lives and livelihoods of women in the real world.


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Ms. Hudson (Candis Cayne), Elementary

If you’re not familiar with Elementary it’s sort of like an American version of the BBC’s Sherlock except Watson is played by the incredible Lucy Liu (several other prominent characters are people of color as well), Sherlock isn’t a total jerk and Moriarty is a woman. Oh, and also Miss Hudson, whom Sherlock Holmes fans will recognize from the original books as Holmes’ landlady is a trans woman played by a trans actress. It’s kind of a shame, but instances where trans characters are played by trans actors and actresses are still few and far between. So when I heard that actress Candis Cayne was going to be playing a character on one of my favorite shows I was overjoyed. When her character was treated with respect and had a storyline that didn’t resolve around her transition or her being violently murdered because of her trans status I was elated.

Miss Hudson appeared in just one episode, episode 19 of the first season, titled “Snow Angels,” and wasn’t even necessarily the main focus of the episode. Perhaps that’s part of what makes her so remarkable. She seems like such a casual part of the universe, she’s just another person in Sherlock’s life, not a character whose entire existence revolves around her being trans or who is there to shock viewers and ramp up ratings. Her trans status is brought up only once, by Watson when she’s asking Sherlock who their new temporary roommate is. Unlike most trans characters on TV, Miss Hudson has a surplus of interesting qualities aside from her transness. According to Holmes, she’s an expert in Ancient Greek, an autodidact, someone who’s helped him solve cases in England and a woman who works as a “muse” for powerful men who need inspiration. She’s charming and helpful (she arranges Sherlock’s books in order of “academic rigor”), she has a rich and full love life and she gives Watson a female friend to talk to.

Her first appearance was fun, but altogether too short. Since the episode ends with her being invited to clean Holmes and Watson’s house on a biweekly basis, we’ll hopefully be seeing her again very soon.


Chelsea, Writer

Recaps: American Horror Story

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Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), Orange is the New Black 

Piper Chapman, the over-privileged protagonist of Orange is the New Black, was met with a chorus of eyeball rolls when she first appeared. Many viewers found her unlikeable and uninteresting. Even OINTB creator Jenji Kohan admitted that Piper’s whiteness and blondeness was a Trojan horse she used to sneak in stories of women of color, of queer women… stories she couldn’t get financing for otherwise. But also, in my opinion, Piper Chapman is one of the (fuck it, IS) the most nuanced portrayal of a bisexual woman on television. Ever. Most shows with bisexual characters frame their queer relationships as experimental, a pit stop on the road to eventually “finding the right guy.” In OITNB, Piper has deep, meaningful relationships with both Larry and Alex — neither are a fling or an experiment or a drunken hook-up that is quickly explained away so as not to alienate a mostly straight audience. Each relationship holds tremendous emotional weight for Piper, which is why it is so gut-wrenching when (Spoiler Alert!) she loses them both. Many people take issue with the fact that Piper doesn’t identify herself as bisexual, calling herself a “former lesbian” and describing sex on the Kinsey scale. But if actions speak louder than words, then Piper Chapman is the de facto bisexual character we’ve all been waiting for. Bitches gots to learn indeed.


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Pam Swynford De Beaufort (Kristin Bauer van Straten) and Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), True Blood

Hey, remember in the summer of 2012 when Tara and Pam hooked up in the True Blood season finale and we all thought, “Finally! A lesbian relationship on what is arguably the gayest show to ever exist?” And then remember last summer when they proceeded to give us NO STORYLINES OR ACKNOWLEDGMENT that they were a couple? What the hot interracial relationship lesbian vampire fuck happened?! So they had time to devote a whole storyline to Andy Bellefleur’s fairy children and give Terry Bellefleur a fucking story arc, but nothing for the two most interesting women on the show? (sorry Sookie) This is almost as bad as the season where Tara became a lesbian cage fighter and then suddenly wasn’t anymore. Can’t wait to tune in this summer, when Pam spends the entire season taking a nap and Arlene’s kids get their own full-fledged storyline.


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Every Character on American Horror Story

Coming off of season two of American Horror Story, which gave us the lesbian lead character Lana Winters, I was confident that this season would bring even more queer content. I mean, it’s got queer actresses, boarding school, and witches! Fucking witches, y’all! How could this not be supergay? Well, in classic Ryan Murphy fashion, he built up our expectations so high and then ceased to deliver on anything we wanted to see. Don’t get me wrong, I am loving this season so far; it is a festival of batshittery and nonsense. This will always be remembered as the season that gave us Kathy Bates’s head on a silver platter…LITERALLY. I just wish more ladies were making out with each other’s faces. We did get Zoe and Madison in a zombie threesome with FrankenKyle, so I guess that’s something? Here’s hoping that in the remaining four episodes we get to see Cordelia’s sex life resurrected by Misty Day. And now that the coven is teamed up with Marie Laveau, anything can happen. A girl can dream, right?


Lizz, Fashion/Style Editor

Recaps: Pretty Little Liars

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Shana (Aeriél Miranda), Pretty Little Liars

I ship Paige and Emily just as hard as any true Pretty Little Liars fan, but this season was all about Shana. Shana, played by Aériel Miranda, appeared this January during Season 3b and, unlike maybe peripheral lesbians before her, did not disappear into obscurity during Season 4a. Instead she became an integral part of the fucked up ass backwards complexity that is this TV show.

For once Pretty Little Liars brings us a troublemaking dyke with a wicked fun personality. Sure, Samara was nice, Maya was crazy and Paige is both nice and crazy. But Shana? Shana is an evil, calculating, cold naturally born winner. Shana is hard as hell and out to kill. Plus, between crushing on Jenna and her summer fling with Paige, Shana brings the show some much needed dyke drama. Nothing on Pretty Little Liars was quite as unbelievable as the idea that every lesbian in the greater Rosewood area was there to date Emily. Or that they would never stir up drama.

Plus remember that time she met Missy Franklin and in the middle of all the A drama took the time to make sure Emily met her too!

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Dani (Demi Lovato), Glee

Is it just me or is Demi Lovato playing a lesbian on Glee a Big Deal?! It’s like one day Demi Lovato woke up and was like, “I guess since I’m not on the Disney Channel anymore I should just go back on TV as a raging lesbotron.” I approve. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a celebrity guest.

It was really disappointing that Dani’s debut came with a truckload of biphobic comments — this is a Ryan Murphy production, after all. But that aside, Dani might be the most realistic depiction of a young lesbian on TV ever. She works a shitty job in New York City, is uncomfortably committed to carrying her guitar everywhere, dyes her hair the most unfortunate colors and has basically already moved into her girlfriend’s apartment in Bushwick. Plus the lesbian bed death of she and Santana’s relationship has already set in hard and fast. The two shared one quick kiss and then seem to have fallen into just playing scrabble and knitting every night.

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Anne (Julie White), Go On

I’m one of the few people on the planet who was really crazy about Go On. I don’t know if it was some bizarre unrealized long-term love for Friends or just a general commitment to dark death comedy, but I really really like Go On. Plus I fucking love Anne, the lesbian widow.

Anne gives us curt, humorous picture of a lesbian window in finally recovering from grief. We’re so often subjected to the repeated and prolonged image of two gay people finally finding true love forever and ever (see: Kurt and Blaine) but lately we’ve been missing what happens when that love ends. I hate to break it to you guys, but one person usually has to die first. Then what? What when instead of being the teenage Emily/Santanas of the world — or for that matter the thirty-something Shane/Alex Vause— you’re middled aged, heart broken and you have two kids who just lost their mom.

This year brought us some of Anne’s best moments. Quick-witted as ever, she got a cute young girlfriend and even gets propositioned by Courteney Cox. We finally got to see her make real steps towards reconciling the grief she felt towards her late wife and attracted towards new women. Unfortunately, like all Matthew Perry shows, Go On got canceled and with that, the end of Anne. But she was awesome while it lasted.

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Vikki

Recaps: The Fosters

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Stef Foster (Teri Polo) & Lena Foster (Sherri Saum), The Fosters

Once upon a time, ABC Family made a TV show called The Fosters with hot lesbian moms as the main characters and then actually showed them parenting! Stef and Lena are the even-keeled parents every kid would love to have but, more importantly, they are the loving, adorable couple that most lady-lovin’ ladies want to see onscreen. As much as I complained about the lack of sexy times and passion, the relationship between Stef and Lena is shown as deep, beautiful and imperfect. They snap at each other and argue and then tease each other and make jokes and all of that makes it seem so real. They seem like people we might actually know. Sometimes, they seem like people we might be. The honest depiction of family life is a victory for visibility. And the show gets bonus points for Stef and her cop uniform and Lena and her annoyed facial expressions which are always perfect.


In conclusion, we’d like to give an honorable mention to Caleb on Pretty Little Liars, the first lesbian on ABC Family to get their very own spinoff!

Who were your favorite queer TV characters of 2013?

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3270 articles for us.

39 Comments

  1. Oh, Bo! And Kenzi! Lost Girl totally owns me. I watched Season 3 on Netflix over only a few days and now need to catch up!

    Also so excited Fosters is almost back. Jan. 13th!

  2. I think that Orange is the New Black is the real “winner” of this TV season, and it’s amazing that all the characters are so great that I can’t even choose my favourite.
    Also, rigth now I’m really enjoying Lost Girl. I think that Bo is the best bisexual character out there, and if you’re not already watching it, you should start just for conversations like this:

    (and the plot. totally watching for that. ahem)

  3. Franky Doyle all the way! That bitch is a walking orgasm. Of all the lesbian character in every TV Show and movie throughout history (and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most of them), she’s the most intriguing.

    Nicky from OitNB is a close second, because she is hilarious.

  4. Some great choices! I also second the Bo + Kenzi appreciation, which is like the steadfast eye at the centre of a storm of frequent ridiculousness. Although I salute the writers for making me actually like Lauren this season.

    My pick for fave character is probs Caroline from Last Tango in Halifax (maybe because it just finished its run, so is fresh in the memory). On paper, a 40-something, middle-class white lesbian doesn’t sound particularly groundbreaking. But she’s seriously the most badass woman without weaponry on telly, while also being a complete emotional fuckup, which is a killer combo for me.

    • So a couple of weeks ago I was reading the comments and saw this and decided to google Last Tango in Halifax. And now, midway through season 1 I pretty much love it and Caroline more than anything. So thank you for the recommendation!!

    • Yes! Such a sad day when the show was canceled. I have so many feelings about Anne, not the least of which is that the Courteney/Julie scene made my life.

      Basically I request a short-term support group to deal with the loss of Anne. Anyone wanna make this happen?

      • Agreed! She was such a great counterpart to Matthew Perry’s character since they were both dealing with the same kind of grief. I loved her snark and was definitely sad to learn it wouldn’t be returning.

        Also, now whenever I see someone I find incredibly attractive I always think to myself, “I am still wearing clothes, because I don’t mean to be.”

  5. A++ write-up of Piper from OITNB. I often don’t even like the character as a person, but the depiction of her relationships is so refreshing when compared to the vast majority of TV bisexuals.

    • All the feelings r.e. Wentworth, Lost girl and OINTB. Struggling with the fact that stupid PLL Season 3 hasn’t been shown on British TV yet. Am now going to Netflix bomb girls having ummed and ahhed for weeks. Also hoping for Demistya to happen in AHSC. I have fully abandoned watching glee and now just read the recaps here which are perfect.

    • Sorry my phone had a meltdown and posted my comment in your replies :( Sincerest apologies. Also love Julie and Laure…its heartbreakingly beautiful and french.

  6. I am still so impressed by the character of Paige McCullers. So inspiring and in my opinion one of the best things Pretty Little Liars has ever done. Marlene King and Joseph Dougherty deserve so my credit for putting a character like her on TV to give hope to so many girls growing up dealing with homophobia and bullying.

    Also Emily of course and I did like Franky on Wentworth a whole lot too.

    • Yes I feel the same way about Paige and Emily!! I only didn’t include them here because I’ve paid them so much attention in the past and wanted to highlight Shana this time!

  7. I’m currently madly head-over-heels in love with Gail Peck from Rookie Blue. I think I’m going to pursue a LTR here, because oh my god, guys. I’m so excited for Season 5.

  8. Although her story lines got kinda lousy as her tenure on “Degrassi” went on, Fiona will always be among my favourite characters on the show. I loved how her sexuality was not her sole defining characteristic like it was with some of the show’s other gay characters (*cough*Riley*cough*). She was a complex, lonely young alcoholic who just happened to be a lesbian, and it was no big deal. Also she had some of the hottest make out scenes in the show’s history.

  9. Hmm, basically I still feel the only reason we’re rejoicing about Candis Cayne in Elementary and Laverne Cox in OITNB is a case of extremely diminished expectations. Both are very small roles… Laverne appearing less and less in the show as the season wore on (very typical of trans characters… once the fact they’re trans is explained and made a point of fascination, they’re put aside as tangential to the main plot). Candis Cayne was, from what I saw in the episode, thrown in for hipster cred… a large part of her appearance was explaining how she was trans. She really didn’t have any focus in the episode other than “she’s trans… wild huh?!” Moreover, Cayne was rather poorly cast as an academic brainiac and more for “look, you’d never know she’s trans!” While I thought Laverne brought a lot of beautiful things to Sophia’s character, there are some terribly stereotypical things about it as well. The whole idea of “before she was a firefighter… then transitioned… now she’s a hairstylist” is just absurd. There are trans firefighters and there are trans hairstylists… but one becoming the other is some kind of weird fantasy about gender roles and how trans women have to aspire to femminess. I also think it’s illustrative Sophia is made into kind of a eunuch in the show… no sexuality, and none of the women are attracted to her. Yes, she’s in love with her wife, but it’s a kind of pathetic “why don’t you still love me” kind of storyline, and we’re supposed to totally understand why her cis wife can’t possibly be attracted to her anymore. Maybe this will change and her character will be expanded in the second season. I hope so. She could also be killed off or vanish the way most trans characters have in tv shows. Also, let’s face it, as any kind of an even fictional representation of how trans women are treated in prison, it’s a soft-pedaled fantasy.

    • Me neither! She’s so great because her orientation is never made an issue. There doesn’t have to be any “oh yeah I’m totally gay” exposition for her to have a female love interest. She just…does. (Plus she’s unbearably hot.)

  10. … Did you design this thread to make my next semester of school and working full time nearly impossible?

    I mean really, there is no possible way for me to watch EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. of every show on this list and be able to finish all my assignments, work stuff, and play soccer too.

    NOT COOL, Autostraddle. NOT. COOL.

    Maybe I need a back-up plan…. Autostraddle Recaps! And summer binge watching.. Yes. That should work!

  11. God, I’m glad I’m not the only one who wants to punch Dr. Master’s in his stupid face on “Masters of Sex.” Like, Janis Ian, what are you thinking being attracted to that emotionally stunted beady eyed little sexist man child? I hate him and also reserve all of my love for Dr. Lillian dePaul and Margaret Scully. And I hate that he’s supposed to be the “hero”; I keep comparing him to Don Draper as one of those, “He’s such an asshole but whoa, he’s so good at his job” characters, but at least Don has moments of humanity. And also he’s not a real person who actually existed and probably falsified the results of “scientific” studies to “prove” that homosexuality could be “cured.” And Betty wasn’t even around for half of a season. WHATEVER I’M SO ANGRY NOW.

    Also, I miss Anne from “Go On” so much. I’d love more characters like that on television.

    And I’m still fervently on Team “Kate Retroactively Recaps the First Season of ‘Bomb Girls’ for Our Joy and/or Amusement.”

  12. Having had worked on Wentworth a few times, I can most definitely say that Frankie makes you weak at the knees in person.
    I’m pretty sure she’s made me loose all perspicacity to function on some occasions.

  13. BETTY!! The Bomb Girls movie is coming up in 2014, right? Are we going to get a special edition recap? (Pretty please?)

  14. Is there a supercut somewhere of all the hottest lesbian love scenes from Lost Girl? Or can someone at least provide a handy guide of which episodes contain the best sex? Because I tried watching this on Netflix and for the most part, it bored me.

    • I’m sure there are quite a few on youtube. How far did you get? Honestly, it took me a few episodes to get into. The plot gets kind of non-sensical but I watch it for the characters that I now love

  15. Love the write-ups for Bomb Girls and OITNB – definitely two of the best shows I saw this year. I do think this list is incomplete without some wonderful queer characters we got from the BBC: Cosima from Orphan Black, and Caroline and Kate from Last Tango in Halifax. Cosima is an adorable geeky clone and Caroline is just generally brilliant. (On that note, I strongly recommend Last Tango in Halifax to everyone. It has an ensemble of well-rounded characters and tells stories that aren’t always told on television, e.g. middle-aged queer characters, elderly people falling in love… Plus there are plenty of gratuitous and breathtaking views of the British countryside!)

    • sidereel is a godsent for everything. Hulu and Netflix might have it though if you have accounts to that but for free just type in “watch Wentworth online”

  16. Betty McRae and I have something in common, we both got laid in 2013 :)
    hopefully I don’t go to prison tomorrow that would put a damper on my year…

  17. Lucy Westenra (Dracula) is an amazing portrayal of a lesbian living in the Victorian era, she’s in love with her best friend who is engaged before having a one night stand with a vampire hunter (think Buffy only older and with less puns).

  18. “Nicole da Silva’s portrayal of the inmate who could beat the shit out of Alex Vause any day of the week.”
    Lmao. Vause is 5’10, not skinny-slim, tough, and worked in an international drug cartel where she witnessed her boss eliminate people. Give me a break.

Comments are closed.