From footballer Jake Daniels coming out to trans actor Yasmin Finney being cast in Doctor Who, it feels like there has been a turning point in Generation Z’s queer experience. But how much have things really changed?
Barely three minutes into the first episode of Heartstopper – Netflix’s new LGBTQ+ coming-of-age romcom series, which has been a knockout success with critics and viewers – I turned to my boyfriend, curled up next to me on the sofa. Aimed primarily at a younger audience, the show is about an openly gay male sixth former at an English comprehensive (played by 18-year-old Joe Locke) who falls in love with the school’s most popular rugby player in the year above. “There’s no way,” I declared to my partner with confidence, “that this is going to end well.” His love would go unrequited. We’d seen it all so many times before.
The idea that the show might end as it did – with a tear-jerkingly joyful celebration of young queer love in full bloom, depicted gorgeously – seemed impossible. My own similar experiences at school, I believed, had taught me far better; the notion that television executives would commission – or that British audiences would welcome – a mainstream, queer and adolescent happily-ever-after was firmly beyond the realms of possibility in my jaded millennial mind.
