Stop Making Us Noble Victims: The Media's Problem With 'Palatable' Queerness

Why increased visibility isn't enough

The first gay character I ever saw on television died beautifully.

His death scene unfolded in perfect lighting, scored to heartrending music, his final moments crafted to extract maximum tears from a presumed straight audience. The camera lingered on the straight protagonist's grief rather than the gay character's experience. A perfect lesson in empathy, packaged for consumption—and then the story continued without him.

I hurled the remote across the room.

Something in my body rejected this sanitized performance of queer suffering before my mind could articulate why. In that moment, watching another desexualized, doomed queer character created solely to advance a straight narrative, my chest constricted. Breath shortened. Throat tightened. A visceral recognition: this is the compromise required for visibility—neutered suffering, palatable tragedy, existence as a footnote.

Three decades later, watching from dual perspectives as both a gay man and a therapist, I see this pattern persisting…