The Heartstopper fandom has been abuzz since Tuesday, when it was announced that instead of a fourth season, the hit queer YA series would conclude with a feature-length film. The news came on April 22, three years to the day since the show’s first season premiered on Netflix.
April 22, though, also happens to fall smack-dab in the middle of Lesbian Visibility Week, a fact that left some folks across social media disappointed with the announcement’s timing. In a since-deleted viral post, a user shared their frustration. “Announced during Lesbian Visibility week,” they wrote. “Omfg Nobody CARES !!!!!!!!!!!!”
The post sparked a wave of discourse about lesbian representation both on and off of Heartstopper. Of course, as several people pointed out, Heartstopper has several lesbian characters in its main cast, including couple Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) and, as of Season 3, Imogen (Rhea Norwood), whose seasons-long arc about compulsory heterosexuality hit home fore many viewers.
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Then again, at the end of the day, Heartstopper is and always has been about its two main characters, Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke), two queer men in an MLM relationship. As one user pointed out, simply including lesbian characters doesn’t mean Heartstopper is a quote-unquote “lesbian show.”
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Other users pointed out that they don’t take issue with Heartstopper’s success, they just wish that lesbian-centered media got the same treatment. On Netflix alone, sapphic series like I Am Not Okay With This, Everything Sucks!, One Day At A Time, and Sense8 all got the chop prematurely.
“What so many non lesbians are not understanding about the heartstopper ‘drama’ isn’t that we don’t think mlm should have representation, they should,” one user explained. “But when every single lesbian media gets cancelled but mlm ones get full seasons and movies it becomes incredibly frustrating.”
Still, as another viral post pointed out, queer infighting isn’t productive. It’s true that lesbian-centered shows deserve better. It’s also true that Heartstopper’s success is a win for queer people overall.
“As a lesbian u guys need to stop getting angry about mlm content being successful bc A. heartstopper has multiple kinds of sapphic rep anyway and B. in the current political landscape we need all the queer media we can get,” reads a post by @foreverwintertv, which has garnered almost a million views. “Infighting helps no one.”
and i totally agree w the argument that wlw media gets comparatively shafted and that that’s a huge problem btw i just feel like this isn’t a productive place to make that argument bc heartstopper getting cancelled wouldn’t be a win for lesbians so what’s the point
— summer ☁️ 🫧 iso alessi nyc n1 (@foreverwintertv) April 23, 2025
As to the role lesbian characters will play in the Heartstopper movie, we’ll have to wait and see. The film enters production this summer, meaning it will likely come out in 2026 — and hopefully, it’ll feature plenty of Tara, Darcy, and Imogen when it does.
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