GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis framed the findings as part of a broader cultural and political shift. She pointed to what she described as growing censorship efforts, including a recent Federal Communications Commission inquiry into whether television ratings should alert viewers to programming that includes LGBTQ families or transgender and nonbinary characters.
“It is clear that our advocacy must evolve to meet the gravity of this moment,” Ellis wrote.
GLAAD expressed the same concern more bluntly in an Instagram post published Sunday: “Our stories are disappearing.”
The organization’s report, titled Where We Are in Film, examines the number, quality, and diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer characters appearing in films released by 10 major motion picture studios during the 2025 calendar year.
In total, GLAAD reviewed 225 films. Of those, 46 included LGBTQ characters, representing 20.4% of the films studied. That marked a decline from 2024, when 59 of 250 films, or 23.6%, included such characters.
The total number of LGBTQ characters also fell sharply. GLAAD counted 112 characters across the 46 qualifying films in 2025, down from 181 characters the year before. The share of LGBTQ characters of color also declined by six percentage points.
For Ellis, the most significant issue is that the decrease appears to be part of a longer pattern rather than a one-year fluctuation. The percentage of films featuring LGBTQ characters has fallen from a record 28.5% in GLAAD’s 2023 study to 20.4% in the latest report. That amounts to a 28% decline over three years.
In its observations and recommendations, GLAAD criticized the overall drop in representation, especially the reduced presence of LGBTQ characters of color. The report reserved its strongest criticism, however, for the complete absence of transgender characters.
According to GLAAD, none of the films released by the 10 studios it monitored in 2025 included a transgender character. The group also acknowledged that transgender characters appearing in earlier editions of the study were often portrayed offensively or played by actors who were not transgender.
GLAAD attributed the disappearance of those characters to what it considers an increasingly hostile political environment. The report argued that excluding transgender characters from entertainment is especially damaging at a time when transgender people are the subject of political campaigns, legislation, public controversy, and violence.
The organization also warned Hollywood studios that continued exclusion could carry financial consequences. GLAAD claimed that younger audiences, including members of Generation Alpha, Generation Z, and the millennial generation, are more likely to know a transgender person and are important to the future of the film industry. Studios that ignore those audiences, the report argued, risk losing cultural relevance and weakening their long-term business prospects.
That argument, however, was presented without statistical evidence showing that films must include LGBT characters to remain commercially successful. GLAAD did not demonstrate a direct connection between increased representation and stronger box-office performance.
Critics of the organization would point to a different explanation for Hollywood’s recent struggles. They argue that moviegoers have grown tired of films that appear more interested in advancing political or social messages than in telling compelling stories. That frustration helped popularize the phrase “Go Woke, Go Broke,” which conservatives use to describe companies that embrace progressive causes and then experience declining sales or public backlash.
The central question is not whether LGBT characters should appear in movies. Filmmakers have always drawn characters from a wide range of backgrounds, and there is no reason that should change. The real issue is whether audiences believe those characters belong naturally in the story or were included mainly to satisfy an ideological demand.
Representation alone does not make a film successful. Audiences still expect strong writing, believable characters, and an engaging story. Hollywood studios are businesses, and their decisions will ultimately be shaped by what viewers are willing to pay to watch. If studios believe more LGBT representation will attract audiences, they will pursue it. If they believe overt political messaging is driving viewers away, they are likely to move in the opposite direction.
GLAAD sees the decline as evidence that LGBTQ stories are being pushed out of mainstream film. Others may see it as a sign that studios are responding to audience fatigue. The box office, rather than an advocacy report, will likely have the final say.