25 groundbreaking pop-culture moments in LGBTQ+ history

As the longest-running soap opera in the UK, Coronation Street has landed a number of firsts, but few were more noteworthy than the debut of Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh), who went on to become the first regular trans character (albeit played by a cis actor) on British TV.

When Will & Grace first debuted on NBC, no other primetime comedy had dared cast gay characters in the lead, so it's a credit to everyone involved that the show would go on to win 16 Emmy Awards and remain popular enough to return over a decade after the first run ended.

TV stalwart Russell T Davies' first revolution on British TV came with his Channel 4 drama Queer as Folk, which portrayed the sexual lives of gay men with an authenticity and frankness rarely seen before. The show was remade in the US one year later.

In an episode appropriately titled 'True Love', Jack McPhee (Kerr Smith) and his boyfriend Ethan (Adam Kauffman) locked lips, making Dawson's Creek the first show ever to depict a kiss between two men on US primetime TV.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer always championed the outsider, so it was particularly gratifying for fans to see Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson) share a proper relationship that explored lesbian love in such a beautiful and authentic way.

Fifteen years before Antoni first sliced an avocado on Netflix, Bravo debuted a new makeover show called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which united heterosexual men and the queer community in ways never seen before on screen.

Between 2004 and 2009, Showtime gained a legion of devoted fans thanks to the success of The L Word, which became TV's first drama to revolve primarily around lesbian characters.

Brokeback Mountain proved that gay romance could resonate with mainstream audiences and critics alike, although the film ultimately missed out on winning the Oscar for Best Picture, despite securing acting noms for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the two lead roles.

UK readers might not be familiar with Shortland Street (though it has aired on ITV, Living and Living Loves), but the New Zealand soap opera broke new ground for LGBTQ+ representation after introducing TV's first asexual character in the form of Gerald Tippett, a heteroromantic man who was attracted to women yet didn't want to have sex with them.

In the straight-to-DVD animation 'The Beast with a Billion Backs', Futurama introduced animation's first explicitly genderless, pansexual character, Yivo. Yes, Yivo, isn't strictly – or even remotely – human, and is determined to have sex with everyone in the universe. But that's relatable for some people, right?

With its focus on three interrelated families from various backgrounds, Modern Family championed diversity in many forms, most notably with the inclusion of gay couple Mitchell and Cameron, who adopted their daughter Lily, normalising same-sex parenting in the process.

In the same year that rap stars like Jay Z, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg all voiced their support for same-sex marriage, R&B singer Frank Ocean revealed to the industry that his first love was a man, helping break down barriers in a genre of music previously renowned for its homophobic tendencies.

With his sophomore album Trespassing, Adam Lambert became the first openly gay artist to top the Billboard charts in America (though very, very far from the first LGBTQ+ artist to achieve it, of course), helping queer artists like Troye Sivan and Hayley Kiyoko find success today.

After starting out as a love interest for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) on Arrow, Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) later revealed that she was also interested in women, becoming the first queer superhero in the Arrowverse – or any other cinematic universe for that matter, too.

Bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst rose above the various protests that denounced her participation in Eurovision 2014 and ended up winning the entire contest thanks to her performance of 'Rise Like a Phoenix'.

Trans actors have struggled to gain recognition and are rarely given the same opportunities as their cis counterparts, but that all began to change after Laverne Cox was nominated by the Primetime Emmys for her role in Orange Is the New Black.

Three years before TV audiences would fear the Black Hood on Riverdale, comics legend Archie Andrews threw himself in front of a bullet in Life with Archie and died to save his gay friend, Kevin Keller.

RuPaul's Drag Race snatched all of our wigs when RuPaul won an Emmy for Best Reality Host, bringing drag well and truly into the mainstream just in time for its ninth season.