The radical gay advocacy group GLAAD has released its annual report on LGBTQQIAAP2S+ characters in Film and is chagrined to report that gay representation has declined once again in Hollywood for the third year in a row.
As woke continues to become a death knell for popular movies and TV, LGBTQ+ characters are hardest hit, GLAAD shows in its 14th annual report, The Hollywood Reporter writes.
The review of gay characters looked at the projects of the ten largest studios in Hollywood from January to December of last year. The studios reviewed include A24, Amazon, Apple TV, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Disney and Warner Bros. and the report compiles data from both theater releases and streaming services.
Out of 225 projects released during the year, 46, or 20.4 percent, featured LGBTQ+ characters. This percentage is a major decline over 2024, when 23.6 percent of films had queer characters. And 2024 was a drop over 2023 which had 28.5 percent of characters representing queer lifestyles, GLAAD says.
GLAAD was further upset that not a single one of the major animated shows featured gay characters in 2025. All 19 films rated family-friendly, PG, or under opted to keep gay characters out of their plots, the organization said. Furthermore, bisexual characters declined from 25 percent in 2024 to 22 percent last year. And there wasn’t a single transgender character in any of the 225 films reviewed in 2025.
The group praised the horror genre for continuing to include LGBTQ+ characters and noted that films including I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Parenting, Companions, and Weapons, all indulged gay representation. Smaller budget films under $15 million were also breeding grounds for LGBTQ+ characters, the group said.
GLAAD warned that the industry will alienate viewers without more LGBTQ+ characters.
“If the industry doesn’t prioritize investing in films with LGBTQ characters, it risks losing a generation that will go elsewhere to find entertainment that does include our community,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis warned.
GLAAD’s senior director of entertainment research and analysis, Megan Townsend, added that an increasing number of moviegoers are now Gen Z and the industry risks losing them without more LGBTQ+ representation. “If studios want to stay relevant with younger audiences and bring in box office dollars, they can’t afford to ignore nearly one-quarter of their most enthusiastic ticket buyers,” Towsned insisted.
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