Posted on by Randy Slovacek

LGBTQ Highlights From 76th Primetime Emmy Awards

It was TVs night to shine at the 76th Emmy Awards last night hosted by dad/son Schitt’s Creek stars Eugene and Dan Levy. While Shōgun had quite the night winning a record 18 Emmys, there were several LGBTQ highlights throughout the evening. Academy Award winner Jodie Foster scored her first Emmy win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series for her performance in the 4th season of HBO’s True Detective anthology series. Accepting the honor, Foster thanked her wife and told her kids to remember that “Love and work equals art.”

Alan Cumming won two Emmys for Peacock’s The Traitors. His gig as host of the show earned him the Outstanding Host of a Reality or Reality Competition Show trophy. And he picked up the second as part of the producing team winning Outstanding Reality Competition.

The Traitors win ended years of domination in the Reality Competition category by RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Baby Reindeer, the autobiographical Netflix miniseries from bisexual actor Richard Gadd about his experiences with a stalker, took home the award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. Gadd scored for Lead Actor and Writing, and his lesbian co-star Jessica Gunning won in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Last weekend, the drama was also honored for casting and editing at the Creative Arts Emmys.

Pasek & Paul, the songwriting team comprised of Justin Paul and his gay collaborator Benj Pasek, completed their EGOT by winning the trophy for Best Original Song for “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It” for the Hulu mystery series Only Murders in the Building. The Emmy win follows Grammy and Tony Awards for their hit Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen and an Oscar for their song “City of Stars” in the 2016 movie La La Land.

This year’s Governor’s Award went to out producer/writer Greg Berlanti (Dawson’s Creek, Brothers & Sisters, Everwood, Riverdale), who’s delivered many queer TV moments in history including  the first on-screen kiss between two gay characters on his debut show Dawson’s Creek. “There wasn’t a lot of gay characters on television back then, and I was a closeted gay kid, and it’s hard to describe how lonely that was at the time,” Berlanti shared in his acceptance speech. “There was no internet to connect with other queer kids, no LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in schools. Back then, the only way to tell if another kid might be gay was if he also watched Dynasty, Dallas and could name all four of The Golden Girls.” But then came the AIDS epidemic, and it was during those early years in the 1980s that he first saw gay men on television “holding hands with other men, marching and fighting for their rights.” “They gave me hope that I might one day have their courage to come out and share my truth with the world,” he added.

While out actors Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer, both nominated for their work in Fellow Travelers, didn’t win their respective categories, they sure looked like winners on the red carpet.

And trans actors Nava Mau (nominated for Baby Reindeer) and Laverne Cox had a moment together on the red carpet celebrating trans representation.

But probably my favorite moments of the night came when Jean Smart won for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Hacks, and then the series scored for Best Comedy Series beating the seemingly unbeatable The Bear.

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