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Pose

When Eat Pray Love director Ryan Murphy announced Pose in 2018, it almost immediately became a cultural landmark in the LGBTQI+ community. After all, the show made television history because of its enormous transgender cast. Set in New York City during the 1980s, Pose follows its characters as they navigate through the city’s various social scenes, but primarily focuses on the metropolis’s ball culture and the rise of the AIDS epidemic.

 

Schitt’s Creek

Schitt’s Creek is not directly about the LGBTQI+ community but rather features a pansexual man as one of the lead characters in a very nonchalant way—which is exactly why it resonated with a wide audience (it won a whopping 15 Emmy awards in a single night). Moving away from the stereotypical portrayal of LGBTQI+ characters, the show is a delightful peek into a family’s riches to rags story, and how it brought them together.

 

Boys Don't Cry

When it comes to the portrayal of LGBTQI+ stories in mainstream media, trans men are usually the least represented category. But Kimberly Pierce decided to break the mould when she came out with “Boys Don’t Cry'' in 1999. A courageous move at the time, it eventually paid off when Hillary Swank won an Oscar for her portrayal of Brandon Teena—an American trans man who falls victim to a brutal hate crime just as he was coming to terms with his identity.

 

Paris Is Burning

What do Emmy award-winning TV shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and Pose have in common? They’re both heavily inspired by the 1990 cult classic Paris Is Burning. Directed by Jennie Livingston, it chronicles the underground ball culture of New York City and the several minority communities involved in it. The film is a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America and is often considered the blueprint for the present-day LGBTQI+ pop culture.