GLAAD CEO Praises 'Fellow Travelers' For 'Humanizing Our History'

Showtime’s Fellow Travelersseason finale might have just aired, but its impact has just begun.

In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis wrote about the impact shows like Fellow Travelers, Pose, and Heartstopper have on educating the masses about the type of discrimination faced within the LGBTQ+ communities.

Ellis detailed the importance of the discriminatory reign of Joseph McCarthy as examined through Fellow Travelers, including the dark period of the Lavender Scare movement that used “disgusting and inaccurate fear tactics” to cast the queer community out of American society.

She also noted the parallel still faced in the current day, particularly with recent bans against transgender people and drag queens. She said that GLAAD counted over 160 attacks on the drag community nationwide in 2023, and that characters like Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts) on Fellow Travelers, who is a Black drag queen, can help “our country move away from that hate and violence.”

“There’s no shortage of talent in and around Fellow Travelers to humanize our history and our lives,” she wrote. “[Matt] Bomer and [Jonathan] Bailey’s moving and much-buzzed-about onscreen love should serve as a reminder to the industry that LGBTQ characters are best played out by LGBTQ actors.”

On the topic of HIV/AIDS, especially following the annual World AIDS Day on December 1, Ellis wrote the show’s depiction is “a necessary one, especially when this history is actually banned from being taught at schools in seven states because of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ and ‘Don’t Say Trans’ education policies, where any discussion of LGBTQ people is censored. I am grateful to know that people across the country can turn on their TV and learn about the real challenges posed by the epidemic, especially at a time when Gen Z is the least knowledgeable on HIV/AIDS.”

She closed her op-ed with a simple, “Make television history by telling queer history.”

Stream the current series in full on Showtime.