A new report from GLAAD has found a “complete absence” of LGBTQ characters in animated/family films from ten top distributors in 2025—a lack that the organization calls “leaving money on the table.” It’s also a disservice to the next generation.
Where We Are in Film
GLAAD’s “Where We Are in Film” report found a decrease in LGBTQ representation across all categories of film. I’m going to focus here, however, on the animated/family category, which includes animated and live action children’s and family films rated PG and under. In that category, GLAAD found no LGBTQ representation among the 19 films from major distributors in 2025. (Last year’s report found only two.)
The report noted, however, that “Gallup polling shows that 23% of American adults under 30 are LGBTQ, and the Williams Institute reports that 18% of LGBTQ American adults are raising someone under 18 years old in their household, an estimated 5 million children in the U.S.” (For more on the Williams study, see this post.) GLAAD asserted:
If studios continue to reject reality—that LGBTQ young people and families exist—they are leaving money on the table as this audience and their allies will find interesting stories that reflect their real world on platforms beyond the theater or a streaming service.
GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis (a queer mom herself) further explained in her introduction to the report that overall, LGBTQ people in the U.S (including but not limited to parents) wield a purchasing power “conservatively estimated at $1.4 trillion” and are “trusted voices in the film space.” That means that “Film distributors would be foolish and shortsighted to overlook the necessity of LGBTQ stories and queer audiences on their bottom line.”
I fully agree, but will add that while an economic argument may be the best way to sway the industry, the argument for representation is more than an economic one. Children deserve to have their selves and their world, in all its diversity, reflected in the media they consume; that helps them build self-awareness, self-confidence, empathy, kindness, and good citizenship, among other things.
A Wider Problem
GLAAD noted that this year’s absence of representation in film comes as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “has opened a public inquiry about whether to create new TV ratings that would apply warning labels to television programming featuring transgender and nonbinary characters.” GLAAD launched a campaign encouraging people to submit comments in opposition to the proposed ratings; by the comment deadline, it calculated “a 5:1 ratio of pro-LGBTQ comments from people and families speaking out to say that LGBTQ stories do not need warning labels.” Additionally, GLAAD tells us, “a May 2026 poll of U.S. adults from MRI-Simmons found that the majority of Americans agree that everyone deserves to feel represented in media content (79%) and that they would let their children watch age-appropriate TV shows and movies with LGBTQ characters (62%).” That’s heartening, although we shall see whether the FCC will pay attention.
Warning labels or no, LGBTQ representation in children’s streaming and television shows is facing a struggle as well. GLAAD’s latest “Where We Are on TV” report, issued last November and covering 2024-25, found LGBTQ representation in a number of existing shows—but as veteran children’s television executives Chris Nee and Kristi Reed explained to me in an interview earlier this year, networks have been pulling back on greenlighting new shows with LGBTQ representation, afraid of inviting online trolls. We can help counter this, Reed said, by sharing about the shows that do have positive representation, and talking online and off about how much they mean to us and our families. That feels like good advice for big-screen films as well.
Thanks to GLAAD for continuing to turn a spotlight back on the film and television industries and for looking at children’s/family media as a separate, important category. Our children will benefit from their work.