Frederic J. Brown/AFP; Kevin Mazur/Getty Images; Amy Sussman/Getty Images
The Primetime Emmys finally arrived, and it was chock full of iconic queer moments!
The Hollywood strikes may have delayed the award show several times, but it was well worth the wait because we got to see LGBTQ+ stars living out loud and proud on the red carpet and the awards stage. From actors celebrating with their spouses to actor supporting their queer family members to unforgettable acceptance speeches, it was a good year for the gays.
Keep scrolling to see the MOST iconic moments for the 2024 Primetime Emmy Awards!
Joel Kim Booster being cute with his boyfriend
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images; Frederic J. Brown/AFP
Joel Kim Booster and his boyfriend John-Michael Kelly stunned on the red carpet decked out in tuxedos, but while their fashion game was on point, it was their sweet kiss in front of reporters that made us swoon. The sweet kiss was only the start of a fantastic night for Booster, who won an Emmy for writing Fire Island, which he also starred in.
"On-screen wife'
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Matthew Macfadyen took home his third Emmy win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his performance as Tom Wambsgans on Succession, but it was his acceptance speech that really turned our heads. He first thanked his on-screen wife, Sarah Snook's Siobhan' Shiv' Roy, before cheekily thanking his "other on-screen wife,"' Nicholas Braun, who played cousin Greg in the hit HBO show. "I must make special mention to my on-screen wife, Sarah Snook, and my other on-screen wife, Nicholas Braun," Macfadyen said. "Thank you to my actual wife, Keeley."
Pedro Pascal brought his trans sister Lux
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Actor Pedro Pascal proudly walked the red carpet arm-in-arm with his sister Lux Pascal, who came out as trans in 2021. When talking to Esquire last year, Pascal said of his sister, "She is and has always been one of the most powerful people and personalities I've ever known. My protective side is lethal, but I need her more than she needs me." Pascal was up for an Emmy for his role in The Last of Us but sadly didn't take home the statue.
Elton John won an EGOT!
Dave Benett/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation
As if the Emmys weren't fabulous enough, pop legend Elton John took home an statue, making him an EGOT winner! John joined this very exclusive club by winning as an Executive Producer/Performer for his live concert special Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium in the category Outstanding Variety Special (Live).
Niecy Nash-Betts skinny dipping with her wife
Niecy Nash Betts took home the award for playing Glenda Cleveland in Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story with wife Jessica Betts on her arm, but it was the way the two celebrated that really got us excited! “Okay guys, as planned, I am celebrating my Emmy win by going skinny-dipping,” Nash-Betts said in an Instagram reel, according to People. “I booked a hotel suite that has an indoor swimming pool. Now I’m just waiting for my better half so we can really get the party started.”
Jennifer Coolidge thanks the 'evil gays'
— v (@ViralContentz) January 16, 2024
Gay fav Jennifer Coolidge won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series category for her role in White Lotus and made an iconic acceptance speech. “I want to thank all the evil gays,” she said, referencing the infamous line from the show, “These gays… they’re trying to murder me!” What a legend!
Drag Race star Princess Poppy's surprising costume
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Princess Poppy's Drag Race season 15 co-stars may have attended the Emmys in full glam, but Poppy went in a TOTALLY different direction. The drag queen came decked out in a full goblin costume, complete with a green gown that matched her skin tone. After season 15 of the show ended, Poppy announced she was retiring from drag, but we guess dressing as a lady goblin doesn't count. All hail the goblin princess!
'The Bear' stars smooch
Matty Matheson and Ebon Moss-Bachrach share a kiss at the #Emmys
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) January 16, 2024
pic.twitter.com/5s53s3Lkqk
Award shows can sometimes feel stale and rote, but this year, things got exciting when two co-stars from The Bear smooched while on stage accepting the award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Matty Matheson, who play Neil and Richie in the series, shared a very long and hilarious kiss. Matheson was at the mic giving his acceptance speech when Moss-Bachrach grabbed his face and went in for a kiss!
'Drag Race' keeps its streak going
"If a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library, listen to her because knowledge is power, and if someone tries to restrict your access to power, they are trying to scare you. So listen to a drag queen!"
— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) January 16, 2024
—RuPaul’s #Emmys speech pic.twitter.com/14VLicse38
RuPaul's Drag Race continued its streak by taking home its fifth Emmy for Outstanding Reality Show Competition, making it the second most-awarded competition show, only being beat out by The Amazing Race. While accepting the award, RuPaul gave a moving speech, calling out the anti-drag laws and rhetoric sweeping the nation.
“We have released into the wild hundreds of drag queens, and they’re beautiful," he said. "On behalf of all of them, we thank you. And listen, if a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library, listen to her. Because knowledge is power. And if someone tries to restrict your access to power, they are trying to scare you.”
Ayo Edebiri wins big for 'The Bear'
Valerie Macon/AFP
Queer star Ayo Edebiri is having a banger year, first finding huge success with the raunchy lesbian comedy Bottoms, then winning a Gold Globe, and now taking home an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on the hit show The Bear.
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.