Bury Your Gays?

This trope applies when an LGBT character is killed off, and is especially harmful when it happens shortly after or alongside a positive development with regards to their orientation, further linking the character’s orientation to the death of the character.

Historically, LGBT characters have not been allowed happy endings. Once mandated by the broadcasting standards Hayes Code, “deviant” characters (including all LGBT characters) must not be made sympathetic or rewarded, and narrative punishment for this behavior remains pervasive even now that mainstream attitudes and laws have changed. The key problem isn’t merely that LGBT characters are killed off, but the tendency that these characters, and in particular lesbian and bisexual female characters, are killed off far more often than straight characters.

- LGBT Fans Deserve Better

Though April Stevens and Sterling Wesley have not been killed off in the traditional sense of the Bury Your Gays trope, there is clear evidence of a pattern of LGBTQ, women, and/or POC-led shows being cancelled by Netflix.

Writer Anne Helen Petersen shared this dataset on twitter.

Data compiled by Project: SQS.

Showrunner Emily Andras' reaction to the cancellation of GLOW and Teenage Bounty Hunters.

The cancellations of Jenji Kohan's GLOW and Teenage Bounty Hunters are particularly shocking, as not only were they highly rated programs, but this move appears to prioritize Ryan Murphy's projects - which have historically put the trauma of queer women above their happiness.

Sarah Paulson as Lana Winters, an institutionalized lesbian in Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story: Asylum.

With these decisions, Netflix is making a clear statement about what stories it deems palatable to its audience.

And we believe buried stories are buried gays.

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