Oh, we’ve been doing “lesbian chic” in the US since the 80s :/ It’s depressing to see it come back.

Just FYI, US went through what Thailand is doing right now in the 1990s and 2000s with “lesbian chic.” It was a response to both the negative stereotyping of gay men during the HIV/AIDS crisis and to the 1970s and 1980s anti-pornography feminists. But it also specifically packaged lesbian representation for heterosexual consumption through a neoliberal marketing model in the mainstream, divorcing it from the activist purposes that it was meant to serve, and ultimately ushering in the rise of American homonationalism (support for white, femme lesbian representation in media and rights-based discourse, while characterizing people of colour in the US and anywhere the US wants to invade as uniquely homophobic).

None of which is to say that Thailand’s manifestation of this will necessarily follow the same trajectory, but be wary of the ways high visibility for a specific kind of queer woman in the mainstream does have ramifications for queer people who don’t live, experience, or express their queerness in the same way. Thailand isn’t white, but that doesn’t mean it lacks the reflex to reinforce narratives that can be oppressive, even when ostensibly providing representation for a group that is, as a whole, underrepresented—in the same way that Western mainstream media does. Mainstream is, after all, mainstream largely *because* it essentializes.

+ bury your queers trope haunting us once again
> it’s weird tho how lexa’s death sparked the “lgbt fans deserve better” movement and for a while, representation did seem to increase with no major deaths. then it turned to cancel-your-gays. and then now in 2024/2025, english shows are going back to bury-your-gays. all while thailand’s gl/sapphic shows’ industry is booming. the reversal is just wild. as a previously baby gay from southeast asia, i had to watch western shows and movies early on because we barely get representation here because of the conservative nature of most asian countries while western countries are more liberal. i never expected to see the day where sapphics still get crumbs and then go back to tragic/cancelled endings from western shows all while thailand has finally realized sapphics’ untapped marketing potential and now has produced so many shows that really just have sapphic romance as its premise. dramas that are no longer just web dramas but now have increasing budgets and are actually aired on national television channels. sure, we might not have gripping narratives like western shows with sapphic characters but as a lesbian who’s really just a fan of the romance genre, thai gl shows was such a big win for me. (shoutout to japan too as there have always been a lot of sapphic content in different media every year but now we’re getting tv shows as well). it’s such a shame that two remaining western shows that i was looking forward to this year (the wheel of time and andor) ended with these deaths.

Due to being a bit of an obsessive lister (and not seeing many queer characters growing up), I tend to note down a lot of the characters I see and go looking for more (which is how I found this site). Is there anywhere I can submit characters or shows that aren’t already in the database? I have a couple from the UK that might have flown under the radar and some additions to existing shows if you take suggestions. Apologies for the infodump. 🙂

We do flag shows with warnings, but age ratings are incredibly hard since a lot of those existing systems automatically mark anything queer as needing higher ages.

I sneaky fixed your other comment. Autocomplete and autocorrect have been giving me grief all the time.

Ahhh Please let us know when you spot those 😀 They happen when we rename a character and the old redirect doesn’t get properly cleared out 🙂 Fixing that one right now.

Oops why did it put a full name? Was meant to just say H