The past two decades have seen a notable rise in LGBTQ+ representation on TV. Recent shifts, however, seem to threaten that progress. LGBTQ+ characters continue to meet tragic ends on screen - while off-screen, queer shows are being cancelled, media companies in the US have joined others in rolling back DEI initiatives and anti-LGBTQ+ violence is on the rise.

At this critical moment, it feels apt to take a look back at some of the moments that made British LGBTQ+ TV history, exploring why they mattered and what we can learn from them.

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In June 1967, the BBC documentary and current affairs series Man Alive focused two episodes on homosexuality. These episodes featured interviews with gay men and lesbian women about their lives and experiences, and how society treats them.

The episode on "the women" featured an interview set in The Gateways club, a long-running lesbian nightclub on the Kings Road in west London (it closed in 1985). The Gateways also appeared in 1968 film, The Killing of Sister George, one of the first mainstream film representations of lesbian characters.

The month after the Man Alive documentaries aired, the Sexual Offences Act legalised homosexual acts between men over the age of 21 in England and Wales, so long as they took place consensually and in private.

Documentaries such as these took an outside-looking-in approach to the subject matter, but nonetheless addressed the significant (albeit limited) shifts seen in this period.

In 1974, an episode of BBC Birmingham's anthology series Second City Firsts featured the first kiss between two women on British television. The post-watershed television play portrayed a past relationship between Myra Francis' army corporal, Chrissie, and Alison Steadman's recruit Jackie. While this is no happily-ever-after romance, happier flashbacks do show the two women in bed together - a brief, but radical for its time, representation of queer intimacy.

The broadcast was, unsurprisingly, controversial and was preceded by a special announcement from the controller of BBC. The rights of LGBTQ+ people in the military later became a major campaign, with the ban on openly gay and lesbian people serving lifted in the UK in 2000.

Notably, fights for LGBTQ+ rights in the military demand equality, but also raise questions around the kinds of inclusions LGBTQ+ people are fighting for. As many activists and writers have argued, LGBTQ+ rights can be co-opted in ways that include some but exclude others, or justify other oppressive forces (for example in what is often referred to as pinkwashing).

In May 1988, Margeret Thatcher's Conservative government brought in Section 28: legislation that prohibited local authorities and schools from "promoting" homosexuality, reflecting the powerful anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice of the period.

The evening before the legislation was passed in parliament, a group of lesbian activists interrupted the live broadcast of the six o'clock news. As one of the protesters, Booan Temple, reflected: "By getting on the news, we would be the news."

The bill still passed, and Section 28 remained in place until 2000 in Scotland, and 2003 in England and Wales, but the power of LGBTQ+ resistance was palpable. Looking back today, there are worrying echoes of the moral panics of the 1980s to be found in the current climate.

In 1985, Gordan Collins (Mark Burgess) came out on Channel 4's popular soap opera, Brookside - making him the first openly gay character on a British television series. Five years later the soap featured the first pre-watershed kiss between two women, when Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) kissed Margaret Clemence (Nicola Stephenson).

The kiss was so culturally significant that it later featured in Danny Boyle's 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Just one year after the episode, however, Beth died off screen in prison, an example of the "bury your gays" trope (where LGBTQ+ characters are frequently killed off in TV and film).

Meanwhile, 1994 also saw Eastenders introduce Della Alexander (Michelle Joseph), the soap's first lesbian and one of the first Black LGBTQ+ characters on British television. Della and girlfriend Binnie departed the soap a year later.

Bisexual actor Pam St Clement, who played Eastenders matriarch Pat Butcher reflected: "Having given themselves that brief, they didn't know what the fuck to do with it."

In 1998 it was Coronation Street's turn to make LGBTQ+ TV history, when the ITV soap introduced Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh), a transgender woman initially intended for a comic "bad date" storyline.

Following criticism from trans activists, ITV recruited trans actress Annie Wallace as a research assistant to work with Hesmondhalgh on the role. In 2015, Wallace joined Hollyoaks, becoming the first transgender person to play a regular transgender character on a British soap opera.

Hayley went on to exceed her problematic origins and win the hearts of audiences, educating them, as she did so, on the prejudices and legal barriers trans people faced. Hesmondhalgh, a trans ally and supporter of the charity Trans Media Watch, has, however, reflected that, as a cis actor, she "definitely wouldn't take it" if the role was offered to her today.

Back on Channel 4, 1999 saw the broadcast of another groundbreaking show: Queer as Folk, written by Russell T Davies. Based around Manchester's gay village, Queer as Folk broke boundaries with an unapologetic portrayal of the lives, loves and lusts of a group of queer characters.

From explicit sex scenes to queer family making, the series' represented LGBTQ+ lives in previously unseen ways. This radical visibility was, however, largely limited to white gay male characters - reflecting longstanding inequalities in media representation.

In later work, Davies has represented a more diverse spectrum of LGBTQ+ experience. Returning to Manchester's queer scene again in 2015, anthology series Banana (2015) began with the story of Dean, a young Black gay man portrayed by British Nigerian actor Fisayo Akinade, and featured Bethany Black as the first trans actor to play a trans role in a British series (a few months before Annie Wallace joined Hollyoaks).

The following years have seen more, and more diverse, examples of LGBTQ+ representation on TV. But tired tropes and exclusions continue, and the power of representation to shape possibilities, protections and prejudices is more pressing than ever.