Who was the first gay character on american tv

Already out to his family, Lance Loud made history when he came out to the nation of viewers of the "first reality show," the documentary that followed his family. Billy Crystal played Jodie Dallas, a series regular on the soap opera-skewering Soap. The character was divisive at the time—early plots had him wanting to become a woman, he dated several women—but ultimately he was primetime TV's first gay dad.

Remember These LGBTQ Firsts on TV?

And now that NBC's revival of the beloved sitcom has proven to be one of the fall's bona fide hits, there's no doubt that the conversation will continue. Some voices have championed the inclusion of characters in our TV landscape as daring, especially at the time of their inception, positing that their mere existence and America's relative comfort with them did more to further the acceptance of the LGBT community than anything else had in all the years since or after.

Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Television Characters

Norman Lear on Gay Characters, ‘All in the Family’ and Big-Scale Thinking

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