Culture and Social Issues

Are Films Becoming Less Gay? Major Pride Org Thinks So

Pax Ahimsa Gethen/Wikimedia Commons

LGBTQ+ representation in film fell for the third year in a row according to a major pride advocacy group.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reported that 46 out of the 225 films released in 2025 had LGBTQ+ characters, QNews reported Monday. The LGBTQ activist group previously reported 59 out of 226 (26.1%) film as such in 2024 and 100 out of 350 (28.6%) in 2023.

GLAAD did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“These data are particularly interesting because Hollywood is one of the most notoriously leftist industries in America,” NewsBusters senior research analyst Bill D’Agostino told the DCNF. “It’s too soon to call this a lasting trend, considering the average 2-3 year lag between a film being green-lit and its eventual theatrical release.”

News Busters is a project of the Media Research Center aimed at “provid[ing] immediate exposure of national media bias, unfairness, inaccuracy, and occasional idiocy.”

“That being said, these data do align with the general decrease in corporate woke signalling we’ve seen in the past few years. That might mean studio executives believe that cutting back on ‘woke’ characters will help boost their movies’ profits and marketability,” D’Agostino said.

GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis argued that LGBTQ+ stories in film are “commercially and critically successful,” according to QNews.

“Every theatrically released LGBTQ-inclusive horror film made back over double the film’s production budget,” Ellis said, per the outlet. “If the industry doesn’t prioritise investing in films with LGBTQ characters, it risks losing a generation that will go elsewhere to find entertainment that does include our community.”

Approximately 9.0% of Americans identified as LGBTQ+ in 2025, Gallup reported February 2026. This is a 0.3% drop from Gallup’s 2024 data.

Meanwhile, 20.4% of films released last year had LGBTQ+ characters in 2025, according to GLAAD’s recent report. GLAAD reportedly identified zero transgender characters in the 2025 sample.