(Photo by © ABC / Courtesy: Everett Collection, Adrian S. Burrows / ©Showtime / Courtesy Everett Collection, Courtesy of Netflix, Pari Dukovic/FX)

REALITY SHOWS AND DOCUSERIES

LGBTQ+ representation on TV has been advanced through reality shows — both competition and otherwise — and documentaries, even those that aren’t explicitly billed as queer: MTV’s The Real World was a groundbreaker for gay and lesbian representation, and Project Runway has spotlighted the talents of dozens of LGBTQ creatives. In this list you’ll find the queen of them all, RuPaul’s Drag Race, along with some more hidden-gem reality competitions to check out, among them TRANSform Me, hosted by Laverne Cox, and The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula. Also here: insightful docuseries like Gaycation, in which Ellen Page explores different LGBTQ+ cultures across the planet, and Apple TV+’s Visible: Out on Television, which dives into the impact that television — including some of the shows on this list — has had on the community and how it is perceived.

---

Favorite LGBTQ+ TV Shows
Groundbreakers and Big Firsts | Shows That Center on the LGBTQ+ Experience
Shows With LGBTQ+ Characters and Storylines | Reality Shows and Docuseries

---