Jack McPhee (Kerr Smith)
Show: Dawson's Creek
Year Introduced: 1998

Bio: After coming out during his junior year in high school, Jack became known as the “gay guy.”  In his senior year, he coaches a little league soccer team. He is fired when some of the parents discover he is gay. They use another excuse to get rid of him so they don’t get into trouble for illegal discrimination. He has a relationship with Toby as a senior in high school, but this ends during his freshman year in college.  We then see him through a series of relationships, ending the show with him and partner Doug agreeing to raise Jen’s baby daughter Amy after her untimely death.

Significance: Jack was one of the first gay teen characters to come out on TV, and he and shared the first romantic gay male kiss on primetime network television.

Brian Kinney (Gale Harold)
Show: Queer As Folk
Year Introduced: 2000

Bio: As the show's anti-hero, Brian Kinney was something of an amoral jerk. Throughout the series, he was sexually promiscuous and often quite cold and uncaring. That wasn't all there was to him, however, and despite the fact that he would never admit it, he was often seen helping out his friends and sacrificing for their happiness. In the first episode of the show, he takes Justin Taylor home and takes his virginity before discovering the boy was underage. While, Brian usually never had sex with someone more than once, Justin fell for him and pursued him doggedly, and eventually Brian admitted that he loved Justin as well. While the two didn't end up together at the end of the series, they did profess their love for one another and exchanged rings as a sign that they would be together again.

Significance: Queer As Folk was the first American TV show to portrayed gay men as fully sexualized. Brian Kinney was voted by AfterElton readers as the Most Popular Gay TV Character of all time.

Emmett Honeycutt (Peter Paige)
Show: Queer As Folk
Year Introduced: 2000

Bio: Emmett Honeycut was the sweet, flamboyant friend of main character Michael Novotny. He had several romantic relationships throughout the show, including best friend Ted Schmit, the wealthy-but-closeted George Shickle, and professional quarterback Drew Boyd. While at first glance, Emmett may have seemed like a stereotypical character, he grew throughout the series to become very complex.

Significance: Queer As Folk was the first American TV show to portrayed gay men as fully sexualized.

Marco Del Rossi (Adamo Ruggiero)
Show: Degrassi: The Next Generation
Year Introduced: 2002

Bio: We first meet Marco as a student at Degrassi High School.  After trying to date Ellie, Marco realizes he is more attracted to men.  He struggles with his sexual feelings, but eventually accepts that he is gay and begins to date Dylan, though their relationship is on-again-off-again for the next couple of seasons.  He comes out to his mother, but they both agree not to tell his homophobic father until much later. When Marco finally does, his father says he doesn’t want to know about this part of his son.  We later see Marco go off to college and learn to deal with a gambling addiction, relationships, and loneliness.

Significance: Marco was one of the first characters to come out on a show aimed at children and teens. His coming out was handled with a lot of compassion and his character remained central throughout the rest of the time he was on the show.

Marco (left) & boyfriend Dylan

Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal)
Show: Soap
Year Introduced: 1977

Steven Carrington (Al Corley / Jack Coleman)
Show: Dynasty
Year Introduced: 1981

Jack Coleman (left) & Al Corley

Bio: Steven is the gay son of business tycoon Blake Carrington. Despite identifying as gay, Steven had relationships with both men and women throughout the series. Steven had a son with one of these women, and later, his father sued for custody of the child, claiming homosexuals couldn't be good parents. Steven wins custody of the child, but only by marrying another woman. In the series reunion in 1991, we learned that Steven eventually settled down with state senator Bart Fallmont, and his family comes to accept his relationship.

Significance: Steven Carrington was one of the first gay leads on television. Even though he often struggled with his sexuality, he did end up in a stable relationship with a man, and the show confronted many issues that hadn't been raised before on TV.

Trivia: Al Corley played the character in the first and second seasons (1981-82). Jack Coleman took over the role from 1983-88.  Despite the fact that Coleman played the character for far longer, it was Corley who reprised the role for the 1991 reunion.

Coleman would go on to play Mr. Bennett, aka H.R.G. ("horn-rimmed glasses") on the popular NBC series Heroes.

Coleman is a sixth-generation descendant of Benjamin Franklin.

Corley dated Carly Simon in the mid 1980's.

Big Gay All (voiced byTrey Parker)
Show: South Park
Year Introduced: 1997

Bio: Big Gay Al is a walking stereotype of a gay man, but he has always been positively portrayed. His famous response to the question, "How are you?" was even turned into a song for the South Park movie: "I'm Super! Thanks For Asking!" For a while, Big Gay Al ran a farm for gay animals who had been kicked out by their homophobic owners. He even temporarily adopted Sparky, Stan's gay dog who had run away from home. Later, Big Gay Al, a Scout leader, was fired for being gay. The kids rally to get him back, but he refuses because he believes as a private club, the Scouts have the right to exclude people if they choose. Eventually, Big Gay Al married Mr. Slave, Mr. Garrison's ex-boyfriend.

Significance: Big Gay Al is a proudly gay man on a subversive animated series aimed at young people.

Simon Banks (Christopher Sieber)
Show: It's All Relative
Year Introduced: 2003

Christopher Sieber played Simon Banks
Photo credit: Evan Agostini/Getty Images

Bio: Simon Banks and his husband Philip Stoddard are a wealthy gay couple whose adopted daughter is marrying the son of a stereotypical, working-class Boston Irish couple. At first, the couple is horrified that their somewhat spoiled daughter is marrying "beneath" her, but eventually the two very different families come together for their children.

The cast of It's All Relative

Significance: Simon and Philip were the first same-sex couple with a child to be main characters on a sitcom. The show only lasted one season, despite solid ratings.

Sieber and co-star John Benjamin Hickey

Ben Bruckner (Robert Gant)
Show: Queer As Folk
Year Introduced: 2005

Bio: Professor Ben Bruckner and Michael Novotny started dating after he was the first customer in Michael's new comic book store, but Michael had second thoughts after learning that Ben was HIV positive. They do eventually get back together, and remained a couple throughout the rest of the series run, even marrying in the fourth season and adopting a gay son, Hunter, in the series finale.

Gant with co-star Hal Sparks ("Michael")

Significance: Ben was one of the first fictional TV characters to really confront the reality of HIV infection. Queer As Folk was the first American TV show to portrayed gay men as fully sexualized.

Brian (Scott Thompson)
Show: The Larry Sanders Show
Year Introduced: 1995

Scott Thompson as "Brian"
 

Bio: Brian was Hank's personal assistant on the fictional show within a show.

Significance: Well organized and maternal, the character was conceived by Garry Shandling to be a different sort of gay character than had been previously seen on television.

Thompson with Jeffrey Tambor ("Hank")