Spoiler Alert – proceed at your own risk

Remember Lionel from ‘The United States of Tara’?

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The bleach blonde character set up a gay advocacy group at the school Tara’s son Marshall attends. At first Marshall and Lionel don’t get on, but eventually they become friends, and then boyfriends. Marshall and Lionel split up when Lionel is unfaithful, he then dies off-screen in a car accident.

Remember Lance from ‘The Bill’?

Lance Powell wasn’t the first openly gay character in the long running British police TV series, but he was certainly one of the more memorable. At first he lived with his boyfriend who was a sergeant in another unit, but the couple spit up. Lance then hooked up with a guy in a club who turned out to be a gay serial killer. He strangled Lance to death.

Remember Ianto Jones from Torchwood?

When Ianto Jones first joined Torchwood he was keeping his former girlfriend in the basement, she’d been converted into a Cyberman and was half woman – half cyborg. After her death Ianto goes on to fall in love with the series lead character Captain Jack Harness, but at the end of the third season he was killed by aliens.

Remember Kyle Bishop from ‘Smash’? 

Kyle first appeared in the second season of ‘Smash’, he wrote a musical called ‘Hit List’ with is best mate Jimmy. While he had an unrequited love for his straight mate, he started dating composer Tom Levitt. The night before the musical was about to open off-Broadway Kyle was hit by a car and died.

Actually a lot of gay characters on TV die. 

Renly Baratheon in ‘Game of Thrones’ was gay and was killed by a shadow spirit, Paul Woodrugh in ‘True Detective’ was shot, Kash in the UK version of ‘Shameless’ burned to death, Chris Keller in ‘Oz’ ended up breaking his neck, Richie and Ronald were two other gay characters in ‘Oz’ who died, Matt Fielding from ‘Melrose Place’ was killed off in a car accident, Franky Doyle in ‘Prisoner’ was shot trying to escape, motorcycle rider lesbian Juliet on ‘The Bill’ was stabbed to death, ‘Sandy Lopez’ in ‘E.R.’ died fighting a fire, Naomi, one of the queer characters on ‘Skins’ died of cancer.

These examples though are just the tip of the iceberg. over at the blog Autostraddle, they’ve listed out 148 lesbian and bisexual women who’ve died on TV. While at Queerty, the authors have provided a list of 108 male characters who’ve been killed off on TV series over the years.

The underlying message that’s been sent – LGBT character’s don’t get happy endings, in TV world LGBT characters are more likely to come to a sad and sticky ending.

Kill Off Your Gays

What’s kicked off this catalogue of queer deaths is the recent deaths of two more characters in prime time dramas.

The TV series ‘The 100’ recently killed off a lesbian character Commander Lexa. While aspiring doctor Denise on ‘The Walking Dead’ was brutally shot through the head with a cross-bow.

‘The Walking Dead’ has previously been criticised for not having any gay or lesbian characters, last season they introduced three LGBT characters to the show, but now they’ve already killed one off.

The recent deaths have lead to the start of a movement calling on TV producers to stop killing off LGBT characters at a higher rate to straight characters in their shows. LGBT Fans Deserve Better is spearheading the campaign.

The campaign has got the attention of Jason Rothenburg, the show runner of ‘The 100’ who has responded to the criticism.

“I’ve been powerfully reminded that the audience takes that ride in the real world — where LGBTQ teens face repeated discrimination, often suffer from depression and commit suicide at a rate far higher than their straight peers.” Rothenburg wrote on the web platform Medium.

“Where people still face discrimination because of the color of their skin. Where, in too many places, women are not given the same opportunities as men, especially LGBTQ women who face even tougher odds. And where television characters are still not fully representative of the diverse lives of our audience. Not even close.”

OIP Staff