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There are far too few LGBTQ+ women on reality TV, but in the last few years, that’s slowly starting to change as more and more stars come out. Some people wait until they have left the show they were on, and others come out on air, but no matter how they do it, these women are bravely sharing their sexual and gender identities with the world, and we are so happy they are.
From Bachelorette’s revealing that they’re queer to RuPaul’s Drag Race stars coming out as trans, there are so many amazing women who have joined the fam!
Chrishell Stause (Selling Sunset)
Chrishell Stause was a well-known soap opera actress before making the reality TV jump when she joined the cast of Netflix’s Selling Sunset in 2019. Stause came out publicly in 2022 during the Selling Sunset season 5 reunion, where she announced she had started dating nonbinary musician G Flip. The two tied the knot in a small ceremony in Las Vegas a little over a year after they started dating.
Becca Tilley (The Bachelor)
Becca Tilley first became famous as a contestant on the straightest show on television, The Bachelor. After the show ended, she met and started dating queer musician Hayley Kiyoko, and while the pair kept their relationship out of the public eye for years, she finally came out in 2022.
Gabby Windey (The Bachelorette)
Gabby Windey rocketed to fame on The Bachelorette where she was seeking a husband, but in 2023 she came out to the world by introducing her girlfriend TV writer Robby Hoffman on Instagram.
“Lots to say honestly, and it’s hard to get it out all right now,” she explained in a video on her Instagram story when she came out. “But I know everyone’s been really curious about who I’m dating. You know I love to stir the pot and tease, but I did want to wait until I was ready.”
Amber Gill (Love Island)
Love Island UK winner Amber Gill ended up with rugby player Greg O’Shea when the show ended, but three years later, she shocked fans when she announced that she had “switched teams” on Twitter (now X).
“I watch back on the shows that I’ve been on and I’m like, ‘god, you’re just so gay’,” Gill said last year on an episode ofQueerpiphany.
JoJo Siwa (Dance Moms)
JoJo Siwa first made a name for herself as a child performer on Dance Moms, and since then, she has gone on to become a pop star, YouTuber, and TikToker. The 21-year-old “Karma” singer came out back in January of 2021 after years of speculation about her sexuality by posting a pic of herself on Twitter that showed her wearing a T-shirt someone gifted her that read, “Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever.” She later announced she identifies as lesbian.
Since then, Siwa has done many interviews where she’s talked openly about her queer identity and has made headlines for her dating life. She dated Kylie Prew, TikTok star Avery Cyrus, and earlier this month, she publicly announced she’s now dating So You Think You Can Dance contestant Dakota Wilson.
Parvati Shallow (Survivor)
Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites winner Parvati Shallow came out as queer on Dec. 30, 2023, when she shared an Instagram post hard launching her relationship with comedian Mae Martin. She posted a strip of adorable Photo Booth pics with the caption, “We’re here. We’re queer. Happy new year.”
Stacy Snyder (Love is Blind)
Love is Blind season 5 contestant Stacy Snyder got engaged to Izzy Zapata on the show, only for Synder to call it quits before the pair said “I do.” Then, on August 28, 2024, she came out as queer with a reel posted to Instagram where she kissed a mystery woman. We can’t wait to find out who she’s dating!
Jasmine Pineda (90 Day Fiancé)
At the Tell All reunion special for 90 Day Fiancé, star Jasmine Pineda spoke openly about her sexuality, admitting that the costar she’d like to have children with is her trans costar, Nikki Exotika. While she admitted to having girlfriends in the past, this was the first time the public became aware that she was part of the LGBTQ+ community.
Erika Casupana (Survivor)
Survivor season 41 winner Erika Casuapan decided to start 2024 on the right foot, by coming out on Instagram on New Year's Eve. The reality TV star revealed her sexuality to her followers by posting a funny video where she joked that she wanted to try the tradition of eating grapes under the table on New Year's Eve in hopes of getting a boyfriend, but she was out of grass so she "chugged wine" instead and "realized I'm a lesbian."
Ariana Madix (Vanderpump Rules)
Bisexual star Ariana Madix first became famous for joining the cast of Vanderpump Rules, but she became a household name after her long-term boyfriend and co-star Tom Sandoval cheated on her with her best friend, and it became the most talked about scandal in reality TV history.
Madix hadn’t spoken publicly about her sexuality until she had a sexual experience with co-star Lala Kent, and her then-boyfriend Sandoval blabbed about it to his friends on the show. “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of what happened between Lala and I, but I do feel like Tom betrayed my trust by telling this story to his guy friends,” she said during the episode. “My sexuality is not something that is meant to sound cool to a bunch of dudes.”
Braunwyn Windham-Spinner (Real Housewives of Orange County)
Braunwyn Windham-Burke starred in season 15 of The Real Housewives of Orange County when she was still married to her now ex-husband Sean Burke. After leaving the show, she came out as a lesbian in December 2020 and then announced her engagement to girlfriend Jennifer Spinner in 2022. The pair then tied the knot in a Valentine’s ceremony in Las Vegas in 2023.
Chloe Veitch (Too Hot Too Handle, The Circle)
Chloe Veitch is a reality TV veteran. She’s starred in shows like Too Hot Too Handle, The Circle, Celebrity Ghost Trio, Celebrity Hunted, Eating With My Ex, and Perfect Match, but it was while she was doing press for Big Celebrity Detox last year that she came out.
Veitch told The Sun that she felt like her bisexuality was her “dirty little secret” and that it took a big “weight off my shoulders” to come out publicly.
“At the end of the day, if I’m happy, that’s all that matters,” Veitch said in the interview. “I’m itching to go out there and date both guys and girls. It’s really exciting.”
Taylor Armstrong (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills)
Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Taylor Armstrong publicly came out as bisexual last year on a different version of the Bravo reality franchise. Armstrong was on a trip to Montana with the women from Real Housewives of Orange County as a "friend of the show" when she opened up about being bisexual and even having a long-term relationship with a woman in the past.
"Most people are surprised to find out that I'm bisexual probably just because of stereotypes," Taylor explained on the show. "I mean it's not something I broadcast, but I'm open to all people who have great souls that you can love."
Demi Burnett (The Bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise)
Demi Burnett made it big when she starred in season 23 of The Bachelor but began to explore her sexuality on Bachelor in Paradise season six. While in Mexico explored a relationship with Kristian Haggarty, and the pair became the franchise’s first same-sex relationship. Surprisingly, the “Bachelor” from her season, Colton Underwood, also came out as gay after he left the show.
“I was nervous about it, just because I didn’t know how it was going to look, you know, all the fear of people judging you based off of who you choose to love still was lingering, but it’s liberating now that it’s out there, and everyone’s supporting me,” she said at the time according to Today.
Elizabeth Corrigan (The Bachelor)
Elizabeth Corrigan may have competed to win Clayton Echard’s heart on The Bachelor, but just months after starring on the show in 2022, she came out as bisexual on Instagram in honor of Pride month. She posted a carousel of photos on Instagram featuring the reality TV star in a rainbow bandeau top, along with a heartfelt message about her sexuality.
“It’s important to me today to share with you all that I am queer. More specifically I am, always have been, and always will be-bisexual,” she wrote.
11 times J.K. Rowling did something wildly transphobic, ranked
J.K. Rowling attends day four of Royal Ascot at Ascot Racecourse on June 20, 2025 in Ascot, England.
This story originally appeared on Out.
For almost a decade now, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been spreading transphobia and has become the poster child for the UK’s troubling movement of TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). She has gone on transphobic tirades on social media, written a nearly 4,000-word anti-trans manifesto, donated some of her fortune to anti-trans causes, regularly misgenders trans women, and gleefully celebrates every time the transgender community has their rights stripped away.
The author, once revered for creating an inclusive fantasy world where good triumphs over evil, let her LGBTQ+ fans down by consistently doubling down on her transphobic rhetoric. She has painted trans women as predators who are lying about their gender to take away women’s rights and enter women’s spaces under false pretenses. This dangerous vitriol has even caused many of the stars of the Harry Potter franchise to come forward and call her out for her anti-trans takes.
For queer and trans fans of Harry Potter, this abrupt turn was jarring and has undermined their love of a fictional world where marginalized groups are loved and fought for. But Rowling hasn’t just disappointed her fans by spreading her hateful views; she’s also done so in some of the most bizarre ways, leaving many people not just outraged, but scratching their heads.
11. Tone deaf Dolly Parton tribute
Rowling joined the world in mourning Dolly Parton by posting a tribute on X that backfired when the country music legend’s fans came out in droves to point out that Parton loved the LGBTQ+ community and wouldn’t have supported Rowling’s TERF views.
After Parton fans flooded Rowling’s comment section with messages like, “She certainly would have thought of you as a nasty, hateful woman. Nice little tweet though,” Rowling attempted to hit back after a user called her “a fucking monster” by posting, “Well, joke’s on you, because neither of us want Jolene to take our man.”
10. Accidentally wrote “f*ck up some TERFs” on a child’s drawing
Seemingly by mistake, Rowling replied to post on X about a nine-year-old kid’s drawing of Ickabog, a monster from her children’s book, by including text she likely meant to copy and paste elsewhere.
“I love this truly fabulous Ickabog, with its bat ears, mismatched eyes, and terrifying bloodstained teeth! In court, Wolf claimed the Facebook post in which he’d said he wanted to ‘f*** up some TERFs’ was just ‘bravado’. #TheIckabog.”
Internet sleuths figured out that in the post, Rowling was misgendering Tara Wolf, a trans woman accused of assaulting Maria MacLachlan, who was at an anti-trans protest in 2017.
9. Accused Olympic boxer Imane Khelif of being trans
When Algerian boxer Imane Khelif took home gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Rowling joined fellow wealthy bigot Elon Musk in spreading the rumor that the cisgender boxer was secretly a man, leaning hard into the ever-present transphobia and anti-intersex hate in women's sports.
Even after both Rowling and Musk were named in a criminal complaint filed with French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment,” Rowling refused to let it go and continued to post anti-trans posts accusing Khelif of lying about her gender.
8. Transvestigated another athlete
Less than five months after harassing Olympic boxer Imane Khelif for supposedly being trans, Rowling joined in on another transvestigation of a woman in sports when she accused cisgender Zambian soccer player Barbra Banda of secretly being a man — she is not.
Rowling took exception to the BBC naming Banda the 2024 Women’s Footballer of the Year. “Presumably the BBC decided this was more time efficient than going door to door to spit directly in women's faces," Rowling wrote on X.
7. Smoked a cigar to celebrate being a TERF
After donating £70,000 (roughly $88,200) to the anti-trans group For Women Scotland in 2024 to help them fight against a 2018 Scottish law that legally recognized trans women as women, Rowling celebrated in a ghoulish way when the U.K. Supreme Court decided that trans women aren’t considered women under the nation’s Equality Act.
Rowling responded to the court decision by posting a photo of herself with a drink in one hand and smoking a cigar with the other. While people like right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly commented “God bless you,” the post was also full of people slamming her for her cruelty in the face of people having their rights taken away. Pedro Pascal even called her out for doing “Voldemort villain s---" and referred to Rowling as a "heinous loser."
6. Accidentally turned herself into a meme
Rowling accidentally turned herself into a meme when she changed her profile pic on X to a photo that showed what looked like black mold-covered walls inside her mansion.
While the photo most likely shows wallpaper and not mold, users ran with it and began joking that the black mold had infected her brain as an explanation for her hateful anti-trans views.
5. Whined about being doxxed
On the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance in 2021, comedian Holly Stars, actor Georgia Frost and drag king Richard Energy protested Rowling’s anti-trans views by staging a demonstration and posting a photo holding signs in front of the author’s home near Edinburgh, Scotland.
Rowling took exception to her house numbers being visible in the photo and accused the “actor activists” of “doxxing” her in an eight-tweet rant on X. But is it doxxing if the information is already public? Rowling claimed she received “so many death threats I could paper the house with them,” but both of her residences are historical landmarks, and one even has its own Wikipedia page.
4. Wrote a transphobic character that sounds an awful lot like herself
Under her pen name Robert Galbraith, Rowling wrote The Ink Black Heart, where a character gets harassed and doxxed because of their transphobic and racist views.
Rowling claimed that the character wasn’t based on her own experience, despite Rolling Stone writing that the character is doxxed “with photos of her home plastered on the internet” and subjected “to death and rape threats for having an opinion,” which probably sounds pretty familiar to people who have been following the author’s anti-trans outbursts.
3. Called David Tennant the "gender Taliban"
Rowling called Harry Potter actor David Tennant and people like him the “gender Taliban” in a post on X after he spoke out at the British LGBT Awards, where he called transgender critics “a tiny bunch of little whinging f*ckers who are on the wrong side of history, and they’ll all go away soon” and said they are on the “wrong side of history.”
In response, Rowling leaned into hateful anti-trans rhetoric that conflates being transgender with being an abuser of women. “This man is talking about rape survivors who want female-only care, the nurses currently suing their health trust for making them change in front of a man, girls and women losing sporting opportunities to males and female prisoners incarcerated with convicted sex offenders,” she wrote.
2. Dared police to arrest her
Rowling spoke out against Scotland’s new hate crime act in 2024 by daring police to arrest her for misgendering trans women. The act criminalizes “stirring up hatred” regarding age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics, which can result in a fine or a seven-year prison sentence.
Rowling then went on a lengthy tirade on X — something she is known for at this point — where she accused lawmakers of protecting trans women at the expense of “the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.” She finished by telling the police to come and arrest her if what she wrote “qualifies as an offense” under the new law. “I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,” she wrote.
1. Posted an upskirt photo
Rowling, who claims to be a protector of women and rails against trans women being allowed in women’s restrooms, targeted a transgender British podcaster who she disagrees with by posting an upskirt photo of her. Freda Wallace became Rowling’s latest target when she refused to engage with the transphobe online.
Rowling responded by misgendering Wallace and posting a photo of her originally taken by anti-trans activist and fellow transphobe Maya Forstater, from slightly below Wallace to show her upper thigh. Rowling said that Wallace refused to debate her but to prove she has “no hard feelings” she posted the photo of another debate. “I hear he left an indelible impression on the audience. And the chair,” Rowling wrote.