I don't know if this counts the same way but it was a big deal when Willow Rosenberg realized she was a lesbian on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know that Jos Whedon is held in disregard for who he turned out to be but that doesn't change the fact that he and the show took a LOT of heat for taking a beloved heterosexual girl and having her realize she was a lesbian. It was a big deal for how gay and lesbian teens actually managed to get representation in the 2000s. I don't think there'd been an openly gay teenager on television since Wilson Cruz on My So-Called Life in 1994.

I think 2000 was where the trickle of LGBTQ characters began to start to be tapped. The following year we got David and Keith on Six Feet Under, the year after came The Wire and the final season of Deadwood introduced the character of Langrishe, played by Brian Cox. By the time The Wire revealed that Captain Rawls character went to gay bars, it was no longer as big a deal for a mainstream cable show to have a character's sexuality define them. It's a given that everyone's favorite character on the show was Omar by that point.

And it's help a lot of shows long term. It used to be that if a character was gay and was a criminal, his sexuality was considered synonymous with his villaoiny. But when we got a very clear idea as to why Gus Fring on Breaking Bad wanted to destroy Hector Salmanaca in the middle of Season 4, it actually made his character MORE sympathetic. Gus' sexuality was never as deeply implied as Omar Little's on Breaking Bad but by the time we learned about it Better Call Saul, it was crsytal clear.

BTW i'd seen Broken Hearts but I'd forgotten Berlanti was the writer. Considering his output for television, it now makes perfect sense as, along with Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes, he's one of the most effective creators of layered LGBTQ+ characters working today.