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Your Guide to the 15 New Lesbian/Bi Characters Coming to TV this Fall

AfterEllen has spent the last three weeks at the Television Critics Association Press Tour where networks presented some new and returning shows to the TV writers of the world. Of the hundreds of new series coming to television, there are (sadly) only a handful of new major lesbian/bi female characters, and a few coming to new seasons of shows already on air.

The current trend seems to be casting of black lesbian characters, which is fantastic, on one hand, but problematic on the other. While visibility for women of color is always encouraged, the difficulty is in the consistent creating of the “other” on a show; the token minority. This is not always the case, but when the only person of color is also the only queer one (and sometimes the only other woman outside of a major love interest for a male lead), it’s more often than not diversity for diversity’s sake and not thought through enough to create a three-dimensional character. Hopefully this will not befall the actors in the below roles, and that the writers of each respective show are more interested in writing honest depictions of queer women and not caricatures that up their “diversity” statistics.

This fall and winter, at least 15 new queer female characters will be introduced on network, cable and streaming TV. Half of them are major characters while the others will appear in only one or a select few episodes. Three of them are androgynous presenting and seven are women of color (six black and one Asian).

NETFLIX

Lena Waithe as Denise, Master of None (November 6, 2015)

The 10-episode comedy series is co-created by and starring Aziz Ansari (along with Parks and Recreation‘s Mike Schur and Alan Yang). Aziz stars as Dev, “a 30-year-old actor who has trouble deciding what he wants to eat, much less the pathway for the rest of his life.” One of Dev’s friends is a lesbian character played by and based on stand-up comic, actress and writer Lena Waithe.

“A lot of the characters in the early going in the show were designed to be like, ‘Let’s design a basic character for Dev’s friend group and then find the right actor.’ That’s what we did for Parks & Rec a little bit, especially with the guest cast,” Mike Shur said. “And she came in and originally, I think the way it was written for the sake of additions, I was going to say the character was straight but I don’t think it even mentioned straight or gay. And then she auditioned and then just hanging around before the test and before the auditions, she was just telling us-she’s so interesting. She’s the most interesting person in the world. She’s the female equivalent of whatever that beer ad guy is. She told us all these stories about her life and what she’s really like. And after a while, Aziz and Alan were just like ‘Why shouldn’t she just be gay?’ These characters are all versions of who we really are in real life. So it was like a no brainer. We just switched it.”

“Denise is one of my friends and we really wrote that character for Lena, whose so awesome and funny. I haven’t seen a character like her on TV. After we cast Lena, we really tailored the character towards her. We really tried to spend a lot of time with [her] and write to [her],” Aziz said.

Carrie Anne Moss as Harper, Jessica Jones (December 2015)

Executive Producer Melissa Rosenberg said she wanted to keep Harper’s storyline and character a secret. “I will say she’s an extraordinary actress; so grounded and you’ve never seen her like this,” Melissa said. But she promises that we’ll “want to cover it,” and based on the set photos of Harper locking lips with another lady on set, we definitely will be.

FOX

Kelly Jenrette as Annelise, Grandfathered (September 29, 2015)

John Stamos stars as Jimmy, a restaurateur and playboy who finds out his long-lost sweetheart secretly had his baby and now that baby is in his twenties with a newborn of his own. Suddenly, Jimmy is a grandfather, which is something he has a difficult time with. Thankfully, he has assistant Annelise to help him keep it together.

“In a macro sort of sense, I was really committed to having a very diverse representation on the show as much as possible. It’s a family show so you can’t have every member of the show biologically be a different race,” said creator Daniel Chun. “So I had to do it in other ways. And in terms of sexuality, I felt it was important to have that diversity represented but also it felt organic to the story because there’s a little run in the pilot where she says ‘lesbian, it’s a job requirement.’ I really felt like that made sense because if you’re a good looking straight girl and you work with him, he’s probably slept with you and he’d have to fire you. So it also made organic sense which was also important.”

As to if she’ll have any romantic life outside of her working for John, “Absolutely. The great thing about this show is everybody’s single, so she’s going to be just as excited. She’s Jimmy’s wing man, she’s going to be Josh Peck‘s character’s wing man and they’re going to go out sometime and he’s going to be her wingman.”

We’ll have a full interview with Kelly closer to the premiere.

Gabrielle Dennis as Pippy and Anna Konkle as TMI on Rosewood (September 23, 2015)

Morris Chestnut stars as Dr. Beaumont Rosewood Jr., a private pathologist in Miami, Florida. The local cops aren’t so keen on his help, but he knows how to solve cases they don’t. He’s not alone, though-he works alongside his sister, Pippy, and her partner, TMI, who are engaged to be married.

“We just happen to be smart women who work and who are in love, first and foremost. Our love is the most important thing about our storyline,” Gabrielle said. “I’m excited to see how the storyline grows and see about us as individuals and why we love each other way we do, why we fight the way we do, why we make up the way we do.”

“I think these women are smart, truthful in how they are, which lends itself to comedy I always think, and it was exciting to play a smart woman in a loving relationship that also had its humanity and quirks out there. That’s my favorite stuff to do, also. The relationship woes, the high point and all of that of relationships,” Anna said. “There’s the science and there’s the figuring out the cold cases, but that was exciting to me. When we finally got in the room together and did our chemistry read to feel like an old married couple who is bickering but out of love.”

We’ll have a full interview with Anna and Gabrielle closer to the premiere.

Jeanna Han as Sam, Scream Queens (September 22, 2015)

The new Ryan Murphy horror series has an androgynous tomboyish lesbian character in the pilot, but it doesn’t sound like she’ll survive much longer than that. Sam (or “Butch” as Emma Roberts‘ queen b for bitchy character Chanel deems her) is a pledge that is part of an unwelcome crew to Chanel’s sorority once Dean Munch (Jamie Lee Curtis) opens it up to anyone who wants to join. Who would want a LESBIAN to join their house full of girls!?

Marisa Tomei as Mimi Whiteman, Empire (September 23, 2015)

Fox’s queerest show has brought on Oscar winner Marisa Tomei to play “a demanding venture capitalist who becomes involved in Lyon family drama. A Forbes list billionairess, Mimi is a lover of hip hop music, social trends, high-end fashion and beautiful women.”

As showrunner Ilene Chaiken told us, “She’s a fabulous character. We’ve having loads of fun with her. But she also plays an important role in the soap, in the treachery, in the Cookie vs. Lucious and in the fate of Empire.” It seems she’s Team Cookie.

Jessica Lucas as Tigress/Tabitaha Galavan on Gotham (September 21, 2015)

This is a little bit of a guess, as Tigress is the only new woman character introduced ahead of the Season 2 premiere. But EP John Stephens told us that Barbara (Erin Richards) will be part of love triangle that includes a new female villain.

“She’s in a little difficult romantic situation. A romantic triangle with basically two main villains this year-one of whom’s a man, one of whom’s a woman. So she’s caught in the middle between the two. So it’s a triumvirate of romantic villiany. By episode two you’ll know,” John said.

FX

Angela Bassett as Ramona, Lady Gaga as Elizabeth and Lily Rabe as Aileen Wurnos on American Horror Story: Hotel (October 7, 2015)

Despite initially playing coy when I asked about LGBT storylines on this year’s AHS, Ryan eventually revealed, “Lady Gaga plays a character who has relationships with Matt [Bomer] and Angela and Cheyenne [Jackson], so that is also explored.”

Angela told us of her character, “I would say she is fluid. From what I gather, from what I’ve read, Elizabeth is so charming, enticing, persuasive. I’m just attracted to her,” Angela said. “It’s something that’s attractive about her that makes me a little bit more open to this idea.”

And of Lily Rabe’s playing a real life lesbian murderess on the Halloween episode, Ryan said, “[It’s] really fun and bizarre. I don’t want to give too much away but I will tell you that she’s at the centerpiece of that, and that’s who she’s playing.”

THE CW

Teressa Laine as Nora and Scarlett Byrne as Mary Louise, The Vampire Diaries (October 8, 2015)

“We figured after maybe 130 episodes we should have a lesbian character,” said Executive Producer Caroline Dries. “Being a lesbian story or gay story on TV is not really groundbreaking now in 2015 so we wanted to lean into that.”

Nora and Mary Louise are “two girls who met in the 1900s where they had to be closeted,” Caroline said. “And they lived a closeted life and then basically sent away to the prison world, basically a day that repeats on a loop every single day, and they’re the only people in the world. They’re in a group of, like, five other people. And so they were in love on earth and then they sent to this prison world, which is a replication of this world but with no one else in it, and time stands still, basically. So then poof! in the finale of last season, they come out in this world and they’re happy-they’re like, ‘Oh thank god, we got out of there.'”

The couple makes its return in the season premiere and although Caroline notes they are not main characters so they won’t be given as big of arcs as the show’s heroes, they do have a rich story.

“This season is about them sort of a reverse coming out story where they’re not yet comfortable in the world that has moved past accepting them. They haven’t yet accepted themselves,” Caroline said. “So there’s a beat in the premiere where one girl instinctively reaches to go grab her girlfriend’s hand and it’s like, ‘Yeah This is natural,’ but then they realize people are watching and they let go. One of them is like, ‘Look, it’s 2015-we can be open.’ And the other one’s like, ‘This is weird for me. I’m not used to this!’ So they have the mindset of 1900s women who are lesbians who are now living in 2015 where nobody cares. So, it’s kind of a fun way to tell the story. one of the girls is more traditional stay-at-home, watch a movie, make dinner lesbian, and the other one is ‘I want to explore the world, I want to meet people, I want to go to college parties,’ and so it’s about them figuring it out.”

Caroline says they are two of four main villains that will have “ample screen time,” more than usual on the show. “They’re featured. They are the bad guys,” Caroline said. “But their love story-we didn’t want to tell a ‘gay love story.’ We wanted to tell a love story that has complications.”

Sadly, because they are the bad guys, it is highly likely Nora and Mary Louise will eventually be added to the TV lesbian death count.

“There’s this trope on Vampire Diaries where every character gets killed. So if they get killed, it’s not for being gay,” Caroline said, “it’s because they exist.”

ABC

Sonya Eddy as Deb, Fresh Off the Boat (September 22, 2015)

Out EP Nahnatchka Khan first introduced the lesbian bar, The Denim Turtle, in a Season 1 episode to illustrate how Jessica (Constance Wu) has no gaydar. But finding out she was hanging out with lesbians does not dissuade her, as Season 2 will have Jessica returning to her favorite watering hole.

“Lesbian friends for Jessica!” Nahnatchka says. “[She’ll be] Hanging out there, that’s her neighborhood go-to bar. So she goes there when she’s upset about stuff and Louis finds her. Deb is her buddy there-Deb the bartender.”

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