21 iconic on-screen kisses to give you all the feelings

Ugly Betty – Justin and Austin

Here’s another groundbreaking gay teen kiss to warm your cold heart! On Ugly Betty, it’s pretty obvious from season 1 that Betty’s flamboyant nephew would eventually come out of the closet. The young boy loves fashion, Broadway, and all things pop culture, and his family was so supportive of him no matter what, but it isn’t an easy path to coming out for him.

Justin is bullied for years, named homecoming queen as a way to humiliate him, shunned by a friend who’s too embarrassed to be seen with him in public out of fear of being labeled gay, and so much more. But even through all that, Justin outright denies he’s gay, and his family lets him come out in his own time. On the show’s final season, Justin claims to have a crush on a girl from his acting class, when in reality, he has a crush on a different classmate, Austin.

He’s nervous about kissing Lily in a scene for class, but Marc gives him some good advice to help him out (even though he’s surprised to find out he’s talking about kissing a girl). He says when it’s the right person, everything will feel like it’s fading to black and white. Justin kisses Lily in the scene and feels great about it, until later he sees Lily kissing Austin backstage, and he’s crestfallen.

When Austin confronts him, he said he was just jealous of their kiss on stage and wanted to get his own turn kissing Lily because Justin’s kiss with her was so intense (Justin claims he’s just a really good actor). The two are playfully teasing each other on the empty stage before time slows down, and Austin leans in the for the kiss. Sure enough, the world around them goes black and white. It’s just a simple kiss, and Justin and Austin both pull back, a little frazzled. Austin apologizes before running off, and Justin is left there with his thoughts.