‘Queer’ representation on British TV may have reached its peak says author Scott Bryan as BBC axes Drag Race

Scott Bryan, speaking at the Queer Minds festival 2026

Photographs by Harry Elletson

Queer Minds festival panel ‘My TV Made Me Gay’ discusses LGBTQ+ representation on television

I went to an interesting discussion last weekend at the Queer Minds festival in Soho, which turned out to be remarkably prophetic.

Panellist Scott Bryan said he thought the representation of LGBTQ+ people on British television would diminish as TV executives had become less interested in representing queer people.

Five days later it was announced that the BBC had decided not to renew Drag Race UK beyond Season 8 this year, citing “financial pressures”.

There is no doubt the BBC is under financial pressure. It is seeking to save £500million and has already announced it is axing Blankety Blank, Celebrity Mastermind and Live At The Apollo from its entertainment programming.

A BBC spokesperson said: “As the BBC continues to navigate significant financial pressures and deliver the savings required of us, we have had to make some very difficult choices, none of which have been taken lightly.

“The BBC is incredibly proud of all eleven series of this groundbreaking show and we would like to thank RuPaul, World of Wonder and everyone involved, both on and off screen.”

Drag Race UK; BBC

This will not be the end of Drag Race UK, as producer World of Wonder plans to broadcast the show on its streaming service, Wow Presents Plus, but it does reduce the “joyful” representation of LGBTQ+ people on mainstream television.

With celebrity judges who included Michelle Visage, Graham Norton and Alan Carr as well as Ru Paul, Drag Race averaged around 1.5 million viewers, according to BBC News.

Scott Bryan told the Queer Minds audience:

“The BBC is making cuts. The streamers are making fewer shows. They’re going for safer, ‘mainstream’ options. I worry we have seen peak queerness on TV”.

He has just published a book Out Now, described as part-memoir, part nostalgic exploration of queer representation on television from the 1980s to now.

He described growing up in the era of Section 28, “the homophobic policy introduced by Thatcher’s government” which banned councils from promoting ‘the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.

“There was nothing [at school] telling you the feelings you were experiencing were ok. There was no support and it provided ammunition to the bullies”.

Amanda Collier, speaking at the Queer Minds festival 2026

Amanda Collier, who famously announced she was a lesbian in an episode of The Traitors, agreed there were no roles on television that she could identify with, growing up. Larry Grayson and Kenny Everett were seen as caricatures to laugh at, not with, she said, and not until the 1990s was there a TV character that meant something to her:

“Not until the ‘90s when I saw Jodie Foster on TV – she wore jeans, had short hair. She was me. The first person I could relate to. I’ve always been gay but society, family, everything around me dampened it down. It was dangerous to be gay. Taboo”.

‘My TV Made Me Gay’ panel L to R: Shakeel Kimotho; Amanda Collier; Scott Bryan; chair Jamie Windust

It meant, said Scott that television took on a responsibility it didn’t know it was supposed to have – that of representing LGBTQ+ people.

When he was beginning to explore his identity, “seminal moments of queerness were few and far between”.

I certainly remember what a big deal it was when the first gay kiss was broadcast on EastEnders.

His book came about because “I wanted to explore my relationship with TV”, he told the festival audience, “how I’d been shaped”.

Fortunately he had some 1,500 diary entries from his youth to mine for the answers and he has been going through a process of “retroactively healing”, he said.

His response to watching Heartstopper, the coming of age drama broadcast in 2022-2024 which sees the friendship between two teenage boys develop into romantic love, was sad to hear.

“I felt low after watching that show. It felt like a punch in the gut and I didn’t know why. It was a wonderful, powerful message that I would have wanted to see when I was younger. It made me realise that the absence of something is as important as its presence”.

Shakeel Kimotho, speaking at the Queer Minds festival 2026

Shakeel Kimotho said she hadn’t noticed much representation of trans-ness “which wasn’t like The Simpsons”, agreeing that the portrayal was more caricature than representation.

The actress, who was recently in Russell T Davies’ shockingly violent drama Tip Toe, starring Alan Cumming, told the Queer Minds audience what was important about that show was that its exploration of sex, violence and addiction wasn’t just about queer people. Russell T Davies was highlighting that parents did not know what their children were doing online in the digital sphere, lifting the lid and saying: “this is what people are doing in the dark”.

Scott said he had been told by TV insiders that recently in meetings where drama productions had discussed including queer characters the reaction was increasingly, “oh do we have to?”, and that this change in thinking was being led by the industry in America.

When LGBTQ+ characters are included they are, as often as not, part of a story line that was examining trauma, the panel agreed. Examples of “queer joy” were few and far between.

Ironically Ru Paul’s Drag Race was the one joyous show they could come up with.

Audience at Queer Minds festival, 21 Soho

The ‘TV Made Me Gay’ panel was chaired by Jamie Windust. Scott’s book Out Now is available from Gay’s the Word bookshop, and online from Waterstones, Amazon and the Guardian bookshop.

Queer Minds is a not-for-profit festival of ideas celebrating LGBTQ+ voices, stories and perspectives set up and run by Nick Raikes and George Westwood from Chiswick. The next one will be on 4 September 2027.

‘Queer’ still gives me pause, as to my generation it was always considered, and intended, as derogatory, but Queer Minds have deliberately chosen the name as inclusive of the whole LGBTQ+ community.