Russell T. Davies on why Doctor Who has so many LGBT fans

For Doctor Who head writer Russell T Davies, watching the series in the mid-1980s paralleled his feelings about his own sexuality.

“Being gay was ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ and Doctor Who shared that feature as well by that time,” he says. “It was a cheap, old, mad science fiction show. You couldn’t say you fancied anyone, and who couldn’t say that you loved Doctor Who.”

“Before that, when I was a child, everyone loved Doctor Who,” the gay writer and creator of shows including It’s a Sin and Queer as Folk tells the BBC in an interview before the start of the new series. “But then a moment comes in secondary school when boys peel off and start playing football and fancying girls.

“And I was just sitting there quietly, not expressing who I was until I became an adult, still watching Doctor Who.”

Russell is just one of many LGBT people who have been drawn to the show throughout its 60-year-history, from the show’s first-ever director Waris Hussein to the latest incarnation of the Doctor Ncuti Gatwa, who this year topped the Independent’s Pride List of LGBT changemakers.

The show has also long had a large LGBT fanbase, with numerous fan groups and even drag shows celebrating the series.

With its latest episode, however, the show has given LGBT fans something they have never had before: Rogue (played by Jonathan Groff), a figure who companion show Doctor Who: Unleashed called “the Doctor’s new-found love interest.”

Some fans may be surprised by this male love interest for the Doctor, but it is a culmination of a long process for the show…