By Wonderwall.com Editors
2:02pm PDT, Oct 1, 2022
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Wonderwall.com is celebrating major LGBTQ+ moments in pop culture, starting with this news… "Bros" — which hits theaters on Sept. 30, 2022 — has made history. The film is the first gay romantic comedy from a major movie studio. The Universal Pictures release features Billy Eichner, who's now the first openly gay man to co-write, executive produce and star in a major studio film. Plus it includes an entirely LGBTQ cast.
Keep reading for more major LGBTQ+ moments in pop culture…
RELATED: Celebs who have LGBTQ+ kids
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Actor-comedian Molly Kearney will become the first out nonbinary cast member on "Saturday Night Live" when the NBC sketch-comedy show kicks off its 48th season in October 2022. The performer — who uses the gender-neutral pronouns they/them — previously appeared on the Amazon Prime Video series "A League of Their Own" and Disney+'s "The Mighty Ducks."
RELATED: How more than 100 different celebs publicly came out of the closet
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During an early 2021 interview with Time magazine, the Brothers Osborne frontman T.J. Osborne publicly came out — and officially became the first and only openly gay man signed to a major label in the country music genre. "I'm very proud to put this out there. I want to let you all know that have gotten to know me over the years, that person you know is me — and now you just know more about me," the country crooner — who noted that he'd been out to his friends and family for years — later said in an Instagram video.
RELATED: Stars who have LGBTQ+ parents
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Back in 1997, Ellen DeGeneres publicly came out as a lesbian on the cover of Time magazine: "Yep, I'm Gay," read the headline. She then appeared on the April 30, 1997, episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and spoke with the talk show host about her potentially career-ending news. Just hours later, an episode of her then-popular ABC sitcom, "Ellen," saw her character also come out to her therapist, who was played by Oprah. It was a huge pop culture moment: Her "Ellen" character, Ellen Morgan, officially became the first gay character to lead a TV show while the real-life Ellen became the first openly gay actress to portray a lesbian on television. Years later, while reconnecting with Oprah during a 2015 Master Class interview, Ellen reflected on the milestone, sharing that though she received backlash, the experience of publicly coming out also allowed her to deeply connect with fans: "I remember the first letter I got, where somebody said I saved their life. They were going to kill themselves and they didn't because of what I did," she said.
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Laverne Cox is officially a Barbie girl! In honor of the history-making actress's 50th birthday on May 29, 2022, Mattel released a special Tribute Collection Barbie doll in her likeness — the very first trans Barbie! "What excites me most about her being out in the world is that trans young people can see her and maybe get to purchase her and play with her, and know that there's a Barbie made by Mattel, for the first time, in the likeness of a trans person," the "Orange Is the New Black" alum told People magazine of the honor. The four-time Emmy nominee went on to explain why Barbie in particular means so much to her: "I begged my mother for a Barbie doll and she said no because I was assigned male at birth. And when I was in my 30s, I was in therapy and telling my therapist that I was denied the opportunity to play with Barbie dolls. And my therapist said, 'It's never too late to have a happy childhood, and what you should do for your inner child is go out and buy yourself a Barbie doll,'" she explained.
Keep reading to look back at how Laverne first made history…
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In 2014 — after decades of primarily cisgender actors portraying transgender characters on screen — trans performers finally saw a major change in the tides. That year, trans actress Laverne Cox blazed a trail for her peers with her work on "Orange Is the New Black." The show's breakout star picked up an Emmy nomination for her work on the dramedy, marking the first time an openly transgender person earned a nomination in an acting category. She went on to score three more Emmy nominations for her work as Sophia Burset — a trans woman in prison for credit card fraud — on the hit Netflix series.
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Billy Porter made LGBTQ+ history at the 2019 Emmys when he was named best actor for his work on "Pose" and officially became the first openly gay Black man to win the award for best lead actor. He used his speech to emphasize the continued need for more acceptance, saying, "We, as artists, are the people that get to change the molecular structure of the hearts and minds of the people who live on this planet. Please don't ever stop doing that. Please don't ever stop telling the truth."
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On a March 2019 episode of Jameela Jamil's Instagram show "I Weigh Interviews," British singer Sam Smith came out as nonbinary. "I'm not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between," said the Grammy winner, who still preferred male pronouns at the time. Later that year, however, the "Stay with Me" chart-topper took to Instagram to announce that they were officially adopting they/them pronouns. (It was one of the first times a major celebrity opened up publicly about being nonbinary and changing pronouns!)
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In 1998 — shortly after Ellen DeGeneres came out and paved the way for better representation of LGBTQ+ characters and actors on television — "Will & Grace" debuted on NBC. It was the first primetime sitcom to feature gay characters as leads and went on to become a massive hit. Eric McCormack played the titular Will Truman, a gay lawyer whose comic foil, gay actor Jack McFarland, was brought to life by Sean Hayes. (Megan Mullally and Debra Messing rounded out the cast.)
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"Brokeback Mountain" was a huge deal in 2005: It marked the first time a same-sex romance succeeded with both critics and audiences in a significant way. The film centers around two cowboys in early '60s Wyoming who fall in love but succumb to the societal pressures of the time to hide their romance. The award season darling earned multiple Academy Award nominations — including acting noms for stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal — and ended up winning three including best director for Ang Lee as well as best adapted screenplay and best original score.
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In 2019, Bachelor Nation featured a same-sex couple for the very first time. On season 6 of "Bachelor in Paradise," Demi Burnett — who competed for Colton Underwood's heart on season 23 of "The Bachelor" (more on him next) — chose Kristian Haggerty, a woman she briefly dated during a break between the two shows, over male contestant Derek Peth. After Demi shared that she'd been seeing a woman back home, producers invited Kristian — who'd never appeared on a Bachelor Nation franchise before — to join the series. The two women picked up right where they left off and got engaged on the season finale. (Ultimately, however, it wasn't meant to be.)
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The first gay Bachelor! On an April 2021 episode of "Good Morning American," former professional football player Colton Underwood, who starred on the 23rd season of "The Bachelor," publicly came out. "I've ran from myself for a long time. I've hated myself for a long time. And I'm gay. And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. And the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know," said the reality star, who previously dated women but was known for joining Bachelor Nation as a virgin. (He even earned the nickname The Virgin Bachelor.) Later, he told Variety that while in the closet, he learned to "hide in plain sight behind a football mask and hunting and fishing and the things that this world tells us is 'masculine' and 'manly.'"
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The 1994 ABC series "My So-Called Life" featured Wilson Cruz's Rickie Vasquez — the first openly gay Latino teen on television. In 2017, Wilson — who's also openly gay — opened up to Time about taking on the iconic and groundbreaking role: "It was life-altering," he said. "People come up to me all the time to tell me how much the show and character affected them, and I always tell them it meant just as much to me. Because that role literally saved my life. It saved my relationship with my family, and it changed the trajectory of my career. It was an honor to play him."
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It may not seem that revolutionary now, but the original iteration of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" (starring Thom Filicia, Ted Allen, Carson Kressley, Kyan Douglas and Jai Rodriguez) made a major impact on American audiences when it debuted on Bravo back in 2003. The reality show — which saw members of the LGBTQ+ community helping transform the lives and looks of straight men — was completely unprecedented. In 2018, Netflix rebooted the series as "Queer Eye" with Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk and Jonathan Van Ness. An upcoming seventh season is reportedly in the works.
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Ryan Murphy's "Pose" made waves when it debuted on FX in 2018. The '80s-set drama — on which Michaela Jaé Rodriguez starred — focused on New York City's predominantly Black and Latino LGBTQ+ ballroom scene amid the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The groundbreaking series, which came to an end after three seasons, featured the largest cast of transgender actors to appear in lead roles on any show in television history. But that's not all… In 2022, MJ won the Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a TV drama — and became the first trans actress to win a Globe in a major acting category. (The previous year, she became the first transgender person in history to score an Emmy nomination in a lead acting category.) Plus, when Janet Mock directed the sixth episode of the first season, she became the first transgender woman of color to write and direct any episode of television EVER!
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A June 2021 episode of "Sesame Street" made history when it introduced the show's first family with two gay fathers. "Sesame Street has always been a welcoming place of diversity and inclusion. So I'm so excited to introduce Nina's brother Dave, his husband Frank and their daughter Mia to our sunny street," star Alan Muraoka, who also co-directed the episode, wrote on Facebook. "Love is love, and we are so happy to add this special family to our Sesame family."
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The '00s ushered in an all-new perspective on gay romance. On a 2000 episode of The WB's teen drama "Dawson's Creek," Kerr Smith's character, Jack McPhee, kissed his on-screen boyfriend, Adam Kauffman's Ethan. The sweet lip lock went down in history: It was the first time a real kiss between two men aired on primetime television.
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Lil Nas X gave music fans a pretty cool first in 2019: On the last day of Pride Month that June — while his smash hit "Old Town Road" continued to dominate the charts and break sales records — he came out as gay on Twitter. "Some of y'all already know, some of y'all don't care, some of y'all [aren't gonna mess with me] no more. But before this month ends I want y'all to listen closely to [my song] 'C7osure,'" he tweeted. He concluded his message with a rainbow emoji — and became the first artist to come out while simultaneously topping the charts with the No. 1 song in America.
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In the summer of 2021 — less than a year after JoJo Siwa publicly came out as queer — the former child star partnered up with Jenna Johnson to become the first same-gender duo to compete together on "Dancing With the Stars." Said the "Dance Moms" alum of the history-making move, "I'm excited that I get to do it. I think it breaks a wall that's never been broken down before. … Not only do I now get to share with the world that you get to love who you want to love, but also, you get to dance with who you want to dance with. I think it's really special. … There [are] a lot of barriers that we're going to have to break through. Who leads? How do you dress? What shoes do you wear? But I think it's all something that I'm looking forward to." Said host Tyra Banks at the time, "You're making history, JoJo. This is history."
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The film "Moonlight" got eclipsed by the infamous mix-up at the 2017 Academy Awards during which Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway erroneously announced that "La La Land" won the Oscar for best picture — a distracted accountant handed them the wrong envelope — while "Moonlight" was the true victor. But after the dust settled and the error was corrected, "Moonlight" made headlines for another reason: It became the first film centered around LGBTQ+ characters to win the prestigious Oscar for best picture!
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A short film with a massive impact! In 2020, the Pixar animated SparkShorts film "Out," which centers around a young man who comes out to his parents with the help of his pet dog, debuted on Disney+. It's the first time Pixar, an animation studio under the Disney umbrella, has released a project featuring a gay lead character — a huge moment for LGBTQ+ kiddos and families watching from home!
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Though it seems totally commonplace now, the family-friendly ABC sitcom "Modern Family" made waves when it debuted in 2009 by including a long-term same sex couple among its leads. The partners — Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Mitchell and Eric Stonestreet's Cameron — went on to adopt a child and to marry over the course of the long-running series, which highlighted same-sex parenting and helped normalize its depiction on primetime TV.
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The American version of "Queer as Folk" — which is based on a British series of the same name — debuted on Showtime in 2000. The drama quickly became a huge hit — it was the No. 1 show on the premium cable channel at the time. It was also the first American television drama to revolve around the lives of gay men and women. Over the course of its five-season run, it touched on issues that affect the LGBTQ+ community like coming out, same sex marriage, adoption and discrimination in the workplace. A reboot (featuring Kim Cattrall, Juliette Lewis, Ed Begley Jr. and Nyle DiMarco in recurring roles) is set to debut on Peacock on June 9, 2022.
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Throughout the '00s, Showtime continued to set the bar for quality television depicting the LGBTQ+ community. Their next popular offering? "The L Word," the first TV drama primarily centered around lesbians. The show premiered in 2004 and ran for six seasons until 2009, picking up a cult following along the way. In 2019, Showtime dropped a sequel series, "The L Word: Generation Q," which the network renewed for a third season in early 2022.
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In 2019, an openly gay woman competed in the Miss Universe pageant for the very first time. Miss Universe Myanmar Swe Zin Htet came out as a lesbian in an interview posted on the Missosology forum shortly before the pageant kicked off in Atlanta that December. "I want the world to accept the LGBTQ+ community and their right to choose their own path and pursuit of happiness," she said, as reported by CNN. "We should always have the freedom of choice and promote equality."
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Gay representation spread to teen flicks with 2018's "Love, Simon." The critically acclaimed film became the first mainstream teen rom-com to feature a gay lead. It also spawned a TV show — "Love, Victor" — that premiered on Hulu in 2020.
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In June 2021, Kataluna Enriquez was crowned Miss Nevada USA and officially became the first transgender woman to win a competition in the pageant's history. "My community, you are always in my heart. My win is our win. We just made history. Happy pride," she captioned a photo of herself on Instagram.
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In May 2021, Demi Lovato came out as nonbinary. "Over the past year and a half, I've been doing some healing and self-reflective work. And through this work, I've had the revelation that I identify as nonbinary," they said on the debut episode of their "4D with Demi Lovato" podcast. "With that said, I'll be officially changing my pronouns to they/them." A few months earlier, the pop star confirmed they are also pansexual. "[I like] anything, really," Demi said on Joe Rogan's podcast. "I heard someone call the LGBTQIA+ community 'the alphabet mafia.' … That's it! That's what I'm going with. I'm part of the alphabet mafia and proud."
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The groundbreaking 2004 film "Saving Face" — which was written and directed by Chinese-American filmmaker Alice Wu, who went on to write and direct the 2020 Netflix coming-of-age queer teen romantic dramedy "The Half of It" — centers around Wilhelmina Pang, a New York City-based surgeon who meets and falls in love with dancer Vivian Shing. The lesbian rom-com is one of just a handful of films to shine a spotlight on the struggles faced by gay Asian Americans.
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In 2019, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez became the first trans woman of color to portray Audrey in a major production of the cult musical "Little Shop of Horrors." But she wasn't the only member of the LGBTQ+ community to headline director Mike Donahue's iteration of the beloved horror-comedy — which debuted in 1982 — at the Pasadena Playhouse in the Los Angeles area. Broadway star George Salazar, who's gay, starred as Seymour Krelborn.
