Pride Month once again is here. Despite some companies’ recent rollbacks in diversity efforts (to appease the bigotry-driven Trump administration), there’s still some promotion of LGBTQ material on streaming services, both year-round and for Pride Month.
Below is a look at how various streaming services are handling LGBTQ content, both for Pride Month and in general. Note I don’t subscribe to most of them, and thus don’t have full access to the ones I don’t have.
Amazon Prime Video
Prime Video has its share of LGBTQ content, though like the rest of Prime Video, its organization’s a mess. They do have a LGBTQ section, at least.
Disney+/Hulu
Disney+ has a year-round Pride section highlighting its LGBTQ content. Hulu also has a similar section.
HBO Max
HBO Max has a section highlighting its LGBTQ content, with the banner image one of their current hit shows, “Heated Rivalry.”
Kanopy
Kanopy, a free streaming service available through public libraries, has a “LGBTQ+ Cinema” section, listed in the main header menu under “Genres.” It’s also one of the banners on their main page during June.
Netflix
Netflix has a Pride section highlighting its LGBTQ content, including “Nimona,” “Queer Eye,” and “Heartstopper.” There’s also a “Gay & Lesbian Movies & TV” section.
Paramount+
Paramount+ has its LGBTQ content under a section appropriately named “A Mountain of Pride.” Said section has content including “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” “The Loud House,” and “Noah’s Arc.”
PBS / PBS Passport
PBS has various programs about LGBTQ folk. There doesn’t seem to be a clear dedicated section on its website, though a search for “LGBTQ” turns up said content. On the PBS app, however, there is a “Celebrate Pride Month” section.
Peacock
Peacock has a section highlighting its LGBTQ content, including the recent “Queer As Folk” remake and various movies. There’s also a “Celebrating Pride” section on their main page, though not in the top banner area when I checked (it’s halfway down the page).
Pluto TV
Pluto TV (Paramount’s free ad-supported streaming service) carries a version of the Logo channel from cable. That said, ironically the free ad-supported “channel” has more LGBTQ content than the actual cable channel these days, even if Pluto’s version is mostly reruns of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
The Roku Channel
The Roku Channel has a LGBTQ content section (dubbed “Pride”), highlighting free ad-supported material along with some paid content.
Tubi
Tubi has a large amount of LGBTQ films and TV shows, as well as a “LGBTQ+ Storytelling” section available through the main header’s menu.
Self-hosting: my Jellyfin server
Not a streaming service, obviously, but I do have a “Pride collection” on my Jellyfin server, made up of my movies and TV shows with LGBTQ characters.
I also customized my home page with the Editor’s Choice plug-in to make a banner at the top of the page highlighting content. In this month’s case, it’s pulling from said Pride collection. That said, the plug-in doesn’t work on most apps, making it less useful on my Android TV device.
Conclusion
For several streaming services, their Pride content promotion feels more muted over last year’s. Again, maybe a sign of media conglomerates dialing back?
That said, pretty much every streaming service has some LGBTQ content, even if their parent companies are actively supporting anti-LGBTQ politicians (Fox; Paramount; Warner Bros. once the Paramount merger goes through). If avoiding such Trump knee-bending, the best options in this regard are probably: Netflix, the public library (Kanopy, DVDs/Blu-rays), PBS, smaller/niche services, and self-hosting a media server/buying physical media.
Image: Kanopy’s Pride Month page. (Screenshot by author)
