Sometimes you want to watch something other than coming-of-age stories.
When looking for sapphic TV series to watch, it can sometimes feel challenging to find shows that don’t center around the often intertwined experiences of coming-of-age and coming out. As much as those types of stories can tug at our nostalgic heartstrings, sometimes you just want to watch something where the characters are a little further along in life.
Fortunately, the 2020s have already produced plenty of options to choose from. Whether you’re looking for late-in-life lesbians, sapphics still looking for love, married queer couples living their lives, or female protagonists who just casually happen to be gay, we’ve got a solid— though hardly comprehensive—list of recent TV series featuring middle-aged queer protagonists that are worth a watch.
The creator of Breaking Bad gives us Rhea Seehorn as a miserable lesbian romance novelist who may be one of the only people capable of saving humanity from a suspiciously cheerful hive mind.
Edie Falco plays the first female chief of the LAPD, navigating department politics, city bureaucracy, and the complications that come with being an out lesbian in a very public job. If you like cop shows but wish they were gayer, well, here’s one season that was.
3. Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023)
No iteration of Star Trek has been as queer as its fanbase wants it to be, but recent spin-offs have been taking steps in the right direction. That includes Star Trek: Picard, where Voyager fan favorite Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) finally gets to come on out.
This show about a one-hit-wonder pop group reuniting decades after their brief taste of fame had a rabid fan base for a reason. And Paula Pell is as delightfully chaotic and gay as anyone would expect her to be.
A mysterious death aboard a nuclear submarine sends detective Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) into a claustrophobic investigation while her colleague—and ex-slash-love interest, of course—works the case from shore. In other words, it’s your standard moody British crime thriller, just made better with lesbians.
6. The Hunting Wives (2025-present)
You’d have to be living under a rock to care about sapphic shows and be unaware of The Hunting Wives. Malin Åkerman is absolutely mesmerizing as the queen bee of a group of gun-loving Republican women…several of whom just can’t stop sleeping together.
7. And Just Like That… (2021-2025)
Yes, we know this Sex and the City spin-off wound up being pretty controversial, particularly in terms of the storyline between a now-out Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez). But we’re still glad Miranda got to come out!
8. Yellowjackets (2021-present)
It’s easy to focus on the teen lost-in-the-wilderness storyline in Yellowjackets, but the series attracted serious star power for the adult versions of those characters for a reason. And yes, things get even more gay when they’re grown.
9. The Five Star Weekend (2026-present)
The Five Star Weekend is the kind of show that looks crafted specifically for heterosexual suburban housewives. Fortunately, though, we get a lovely curveball with D’Arcy Carden’s Brooke, who is starting to realize she may be a little more attracted to the ladies than to her husband…
When a man turns up dead in a small Tasmanian town, two wildly mismatched female detectives get stuck solving the case together. It’s a filthy, extremely gay murder mystery set in a town with So. Many. Lesbians.
11. Orphan Black: Echoes (2024)
Orphan Blackwas extremely well-loved by lesbians during its original run. This short-lived spin-off gives us little Kira Manning all grown up, queer, and married. As a bonus, she’s now played by Keeley Hawes, who sapphics best know as Kitty Butler from Tipping the Velvet.
If you like witches, toxic relationships, and Kathryn Hahn making extremely questionable decisions at every turn, Agatha All Along is for you. Interest in the rest of the MCU is completely optional.
13. Work in Progress (2019-2021)
This oft-overlooked gem of a show revolved around Abby (Abby McEnany), a self-identified “fat, queer dyke” struggling with her lifelong OCD and a new relationship with a much younger trans man (played by Theo Germaine).
14. The L Word: Generation Q (2019-2023)
Some of our favorite on screen lesbians returned with this years-later spin-off of The L Word. Yes, this run seemed a little more interested in trying to not offend anyone than in giving us the delicious utter chaos of the original series. But on the bright side, it sure was nice talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, fucking, crying, drinking with our ladies again.
15. The Morning Show (2019-present)
Reese Witherspoon playing a bisexual was not on our bingo card for this series, but that’s exactly what we got. And yes, she absolutely gets to explore that side of herself.
It is a known fact that The Mummysinglehandedly spawned a whole generation of bisexuals. So the fact that Rachel Weisz has now played multiple queer roles is a real win for the community. And in Dead Ringers, she gets to play multiple queer roles in one show, albeit one that was very short-lived.
The only reason Claws is dead last on this list is because the bulk of it took place last decade. But this Niecy Nash-led show about nail salon workers who get wrapped up in Florida crime life is an absolute delight. The queerness here comes in the form of Quiet Ann (Judy Reyes), who has one of the best coming-out-to-her-family scenes ever seen on TV.
