For decades if not centuries my community has been forced to have an unhappy ending. Why when there is a chance for a story to get a perfect ending must it always end in agony?

“Bury Your Gays.” The trope irks me to no end. The “Bury Your Gays” trope is defined as the killing off of or an unhappy ending experienced by queer characters in media. I often watch TV shows or movies or read books for the specific reason that they have LGBTQ+ representation and then am left crushed at the ending after they kill them all off at the end. We have struggled enough in real life with our community dying and/or struggling with horrible issues so why must media that is supposed to be an escape constantly bring us back to these harsh realities.

As I said, I read books and watch shows for an escape from reality just like most of the world, and when I am constantly bombarded with the “Bury Your Gays” trope I get exhausted. There is no need for this to be so common. I want there to be ONE TIME where I watch a show and the queer characters get a happy ending.

This incessant frustration has made me get to the point where I almost only read fan fiction based on my favorite stories so I can see my favorite queer characters or characters that have been commonly “headcanoned” (ideas held by fans of a piece of media that are not explicitly supported by canon)  as queer get a happy ending. People who share my frustration with this trope are the people you find rewriting these ending and putting them on websites the Archive of Our Own (AO3). When I read stories on AO3 I can see with their tagging system if a story will end happily or not which can save me a lot of time and heartache! 

Sure, I can see how the “Bury Your Gays” trope can make for a powerful ending but I truly do not see how in this day and age it needs to be so commonly utilized. I can probably name at least 5 shows or movies from the past few months that have utilized this trope and left me and so many others upset. A friend of mine is still distraught over the ending of her favorite show that unexpectedly used this trope and it hurts my heart to see her like that! Just like her, my favorite show includes this trope, my favorite musical includes the trope, the ENTIRE PLOT of the sequel to my favorite movie includes this trope,  and every single time it is just as devastating. When it came to my favorite show it was almost completely unnecessary to the advancement of the plot and just left me and even the characters in the show heartbroken. The character from that specific show even came back for an episode the next season that just seemed to rub it in the viewers’ faces that he had died and would no longer be on the show. 

I often ask myself how I can hate this trope yet all of my favorite pieces of media seem to include it. To that I answer— I just try to pretend the endings didn’t happen for my sanity (which goes back to my gigantic love for fan fiction). It is hard to find shows with representation that don’t use this trope so I simply have to deal with it.

Yes, the “Bury Your Gays” trope is an effective and powerful way of storytelling but it is so upsetting to me when the queer community is so often reminded that we don’t always get a happy ending when we already have been forced to see that in real life.