Soaps hold an enormous power for LGBTQ+ people – we must protect and nurture them

For people of all ages and identities, the EastEnders theme tune or the gentle rousing hum of the Emmerdale opening is enough to transport them back to their childhood. The smell of that evening's dinner being cooked, your homework on your lap or school blazer still draped over your shoulder as Hollyoaks comes on screen – it’s a familiar feeling that millions of us have stored in our own personal history.

However for some of us watching, the view into the world outside of our living room was more important than just seeing what another part of the country looked like. It was a chance to see LGBTQ+ people handling the very issues we were concealing, or a look to the future that we didn’t think possible.

Back in the world of appointment television, soaps were the great conductor of connection. They brought people together, no matter what had happened in that person's day, at the same time each night.

Sitting around the TV catching up on the goings-on in Albert Square or in Weatherfield was quasi-religious for households up and down the country, with EastEnders averaging 11.39 million viewers in the year 2000. So it’s a good bet that everyone from your grandad to your super cool cousin were going to be watching, or at least privy to the storylines of the time.

Soaps were known for creating much discussed conversations across the country – just look at the nationwide campaign that spawned for Deidre Rachid aka ‘The Weatherfield One’ in 1998, even prompting then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to comment on Salford’s fictional world.

EastEnders too created a nationwide ‘scandal’ by showing the first ‘open mouth kiss’ by two men on a soap in 1987 – causing actor Lord Michael Cashman to have bricks thrown through his window.

But for LGBTQ+ folk watching at home, the queer characters were groundbreaking. Whether it be Todd Grimshaw coming out on the cobbles in 2004, or Sophie Webster and Sian Powers – the street's first lesbian couple – kissing on screen in 2011, it marked a moment for LGBTQ+ representation on screen. It showed people young and old that the LGBTQ+ community existed and weren’t something reserved for after the watershed.

By today’s standards, it wasn’t controversial television – but what made it so memorable and so remarkable was knowing how many people it was being shown to. Beamed into households up and down the country were LGBTQ+ characters navigating not only romance, but hardship and the unique challenges that come with being queer or trans.

Julie Hesmondhalgh’s performance as mild-mannered Hayley Cropper was a particular highlight, with her coming out moment as a trans woman shocking viewers at the time. Transness was being discussed more broadly in the media at the time, with stars like Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox shining a spotlight on it across the pond, so to see Coronation Street tackle the topic closer to home, with one of its most recognisable characters, cemented the storyline in TV history.

Whether it’s Christian and Syed in EastEnders, showcasing not only gay love but what it looked like for Syed to navigate same-sex attraction as a Muslim man, or Aaron Dingle’s explosive love life in the dales, queer relationships were being broadcast at prime time.

In a world before streaming, this was many people's first introduction to LGBTQ+ life. Many a queer person figuring themselves out will have squirmed in their seat with their parents nearby, wanting to watch and revel in the affirmation on screen that they weren’t ‘wrong’, whilst not wanting to arouse suspicion that they were what is being shown on screen.

Many queer people now far into adulthood are thankful for the comfort that their favourite soap provided them all those years ago. Even if they didn’t realise it at the time, seeing themselves on screen allowed thousands of young LGBTQ+ people to take that one step closer to being proud of who they are.

So in 2025 what does the landscape look like for LGBTQ+ representation? A decade on from Hayley Cropper’s coming out and trans people have stormed the screen. With shows like Ryan Murphy’s Pose and more recently Yasmin Finney in Netflix’s Heartstopper, young people are able to see themselves on screen in ways they previously couldn’t. With the aid of streaming services and the permanence of YouTube, LGBTQ+ stories are being told in ways that are accessible like never before.

Soaps too are continuing to bring socio-political commentary and LGBTQ+ storylines to their characters' lives in ways that push the boundaries, as documented with the recent storyline surrounding trans character Ro’s mental health in Hollyoaks. But now, it’s surrounded by a brighter landscape of diverse representation than many queer folk had when they were young.

The scheduled connectedness of appointment television feels like a distant memory, with young people today catching up on their favourite shows on the school bus, on their phones or in their bedrooms. The moments to see yourself on screen have become moments that people discover on their own rather than at the same time as the rest of the nation, courtesy of their favourite soap opera.

Is this a good thing? Absolutely. But it more importantly highlights the magic that soaps hold. Not just because of their diligently hard-working teams that churn out consistent, thought-provoking content 12 months a year, but also the power they had (and continue to have) in being a catalyst for conversation.

With Neighbours announcing it will be ‘resting’ again after being ceremoniously picked up from the grave by Amazon’s Freevee a mere two years ago, soaps are at risk. Hollyoaks has moved solely to streaming, and despite their continuing presence in the TV listings, the digital landscape and our consumption of media has changed. We are hungry – wanting more and more all the time, and soaps are being lost in the smorgasbord of offerings in front of our eyes.

So how do we continue to celebrate them? We watch. We honour the energy and power that they hold in giving LGBTQ+ people moments in their personal timelines that allowed them to live freely. We give them the credit that they deserve, because they were a constant in our lives even when it felt like everything else around us was shifting and changing.

They allowed people to not only be seen, but represented in a way that doesn’t just show the strife attributed to being different. They showed LGBTQ+ people living happy, honest and true lives in ways that other media at the time didn’t dare do. They were the original TV ally, giving queer people the time of day during times like Section 28 – when the promotion of homosexuality in schools was banned.

For LGBTQ+ viewers of a certain age, being able to return home as an adult and hear the familiar sound of the EastEnders theme tune in your grandparents' living room not only feels like a televisual hug, but it’s also a marker of how much progress has been made since we first watched TV. It allows us to reflect and look back on how soaps have been there when we were watching as young people figuring ourselves out and they’re still here now as we stand firmly in our pride.

So let us make sure we continue to support soaps so we can return in another 25 years and thank them for being a constant in our lives, forever showing us and generations to come that being LGBTQ+ is a beautiful thing.

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