Daytime soap operas have always been groundbreaking when it comes to LGBTQ depictions

Entertainment Weekly

From Ryan Phillippe playing TV's first openly gay teen on One Life to Live to All My Children showing TV's first lesbian marriage, "for a genre that's been around since the Truman Administration, soaps don't always get the credit they deserve for helping to pioneer gay story lines," says Lynette Rice. "Some also assume that daytime audiences aren't nearly as woke as their primetime counterparts, so soaps would never dare to depict same-sex couples. Think again! Here, we look back at some of daytime's groundbreaking LGBTQ characters - and the battles that were sometimes waged in order to tell authentic and relevant stories." As General Hospital executive producer Frank Valentini tells her: "Anything that's been around for a very long time is weighed down with preconceived notions and stereotypes. People think everybody comes back from the dead on soaps, or how there's always an evil twin. People make fun of us."