In 2018, Love, Simon was recognized as the first film from a major Hollywood studio that familiarized young male homosexuality and its accompanying hardships to a larger, non-specialized audience. In 2016, Moonlight, a coming-of-age drama about a young African American man's struggle with identity and sexuality, became not only the first LGBT movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, but also the first LGBTQ film with an all-black cast.

While there may not be many prominent LGBT characters in the current mainstream media, the community has achieve significant milestones in recent years. The media has made some progress toward more equitable representation of members of the LGBT community.