soap dish

After years of build up, daytime soap ‘General Hospital’ finally revealed this character is gay

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Image Credit: ‘General Hospital,’ ABC

Daytime television soaps don’t necessarily have the best track record when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation.

While they’ve come a long way in recent years, featuring more gay characters than ever, soaps will often rely on coming-outs or queer hook-ups for an easy shocking “twist.” Or worse, they’ll wind up punishing their gays for being, well, too gay—i.e. dabbling in anything other than chaste, monogamous coupledom.

But, this week, General Hospital—the longest-running American soap currently in production—took a step in the right direction with the reveal that….

*Actually, we should offer up a gentle “spoiler warning” here—you know, just in case you’re still hoping to one day go back and watch the 15,000+ episodes from the very beginning.*

On General Hospital‘s December 20 episode, beloved mother and nurse Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst) was busying preparing Christmas Eve dinner when she began to worry that her youngest son, Aiden (Enzo De Angelis), might feel left out since his half-brothers were both spending time with their girlfriends over the holiday.

Image Credit: ‘General Hospital,’ ABC

Aiden—who, by the way, is the grandson of the soap’s legendary “super couple” from the ’80s, Luke and Laura Spencer—is keeping himself busy in the kitchen with his favorite hobby, baking, when his mom asks if he might be feeling a little lonely this year.

“Actually, there’s someone I like, too,” Aiden confesses. He goes on to tell her that “they”—carefully using gender-neutral pronouns—are in his science class, that they’re super smart, and that they bonded over science and baking having a lot in common.

“Well they sound really nice,” Elizabeth responds, subtly letting her son know that she’s accepting of his new crush, no matter their gender.

And that’s when it comes: “Actually, his name is Tobias,” Aiden says. No more coyness, no tears or shame, no suprise reaction from mom—it’s just that simple. In the next scene, over cookie dough, Elizabeth says she remembers Tobias from the science fair, and they both agree he should have won. Cue the loving embrace between mother and son. Awww.

You can watch the big moment below:

It may seem like a small moment—especially considering the wealth of coming-out narratives we’ve been lucky enough to see in media over the years—but that’s exactly what makes it so special. General Hospital isn’t making Aiden’s coming out some shocking reveal, or using it as the melodramatic cliffhanger to end the episode on, it’s simply giving him space to tell his mom on his own terms, and letting her sweetly show her love and support for him right back.

Compare that to another Aiden storyline, just a little over four years ago, when Elizabeth and her family began to wonder if their youngest son (then played by Jason David) might be gay. Only eight years old at the time, they worried his love of princesses and, yes, baking (we love character consistency!) might make him the subject of bullying.

Related:

Is ‘General Hospital’ underserving LGBTQ pre-tweens with its latest ‘gay’ story?

“General Hospital” has ventured onto groundbreaking terrain. Beloved nurse Elizabeth Webber and her reformed-serial killer husband Franco Baldwin suspect that her eight-year-old son Aiden might be gay.

At the time, we applauded the show’s willingness to approach the subject of growing up gay, but the storyline left much to be desired, focusing less on what Aiden might be going through and more on how his mom and brothers feel about the possibility of having a gay brother.

So, consider Aiden’s sensitively handled coming out in the latest episode General Hospital‘s way of making amends for past missteps—a pretty significant gesture for the series to make in its 60th anniversary (!!!) season.

Look, when your show’s running for this long, you’re bound to make some mistakes along the way, so we’re just glad to see an improvement, and will be curious to hear how Aiden’s story might develop in the future.

In other words, here’s hoping they don’t look for some excuse to write him off the show just because he’s out now!

New episodes of General Hospital premiere every week day on ABC.

Related:

9 times soap operas got too gay for daytime TV

For a while there, soaps had a habit of introducing gay storylines and then writing those character off the show completely.

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