The 100 Grooviest LGBT Characters on Television

From:  Deep Dish

79 

Lindsay Peterson

(Thea Gill)

Queer as Folk 

(2000-05)

Lindsay Peterson is one of the main characters and is the domestic partner (and later wife) of Melanie Marcus. Lindsay is also the biological mother of Gus, a son by way of artificial insemination from donor and longtime friend Brian Kinney, and the adoptive mother of Jenny Rebecca, Melanie's natural child by way of artificial insemination from donor and mutual friend Michael Novotny.

Gus' parentage has been a source of contention between Lindsay, Melanie and Brian. While Brian initially gives up his parental rights over Gus, he later tries to become a more prominent father figure in Gus' life, much to the chagrin of Melanie.

Lindsay and Melanie act through most of the series as the stable lesbian couple. Lindsay, in particular, helps Justin Taylor (Brian's lovelorn lover) in his pursuit of a career in art and has taken him into her care from time to time.

Lindsay became an art curator at a gallery when she returned to work a year after giving birth to Gus. There she meets (male) fellow artist Sam, with whom Lindsay has an affair during the fourth season. This causes the two women to separate. Lindsay moves out of the house and in to a small apartment with Gus. For a brief time Lindsay's parents offer to have her and Gus move in with them. Her mother even tries to set her up with a man. However Lindsay reminds her mother that she is a lesbian and always will be. Nothing will ever change that.

At the end of the series and after a bomb explosion targeting a gay and lesbian convention takes the life of a fellow lesbian friend Dusty, Lindsay and Melanie decide to reconcile. Lindsay and Melanie's last appearance on the show reveals that they have decided to move to Toronto, Canada to avoid further government and personal persecution for being a homosexual couple.