List of Queer as Folk characters

This is a list of characters in the Showtime series Queer as Folk. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits.

Drew Boyd is the quarterback of the fictional Pittsburgh Ironmen. He was introduced in season four when he hired Emmett Honeycutt to cater the party for his engagement to his girlfriend, Sierra. At the party Drew and his teammates make disparaging homophobic remarks about Emmett and a waiter, and Emmett confronts him about it. The next day, when Emmett visits Drew's house to pick up his check, Drew becomes aggressively flirtatious and the two have sex on the living room floor.

Although Drew and Emmett continue the affair, Drew does not identify as gay, instead thinking of himself as just a man who occasionally enjoys sex with other men (or possibly on the down-low). Over time, however, his feelings for Emmett become less purely sexual and more romantic. Drew even allows Emmett to persuade him to model in a Brown Athletics underwear campaign for Brian's agency Kinnetik. Despite an agreement that Emmett must never show up at Drew's games, Emmett accompanies Ted to the Ironmen stadium. Unfortunately, they run into Drew's fiancée who is delighted to see Emmett and brings them to the locker room. Drew breaks off the affair, but later seeks to resume it, admitting to missing Emmett. However, Emmett turns him down when Drew reveals he still intends to marry Sierra and keep the affair up.

In season five, Emmett receives anonymous phone calls and believes he is being stalked. It turns out to be a panicking Drew, who was being threatened with being outed by a tabloid. Drew appears on the news station that employs Emmett for an interview and comes out, kissing Emmett on live television and losing each of them their jobs. Drew and Emmett resume their relationship and Drew is eventually picked back up by the Ironmen after they lose several games in a row.

The relationship finally ends on a bittersweet note when Emmett spots Drew flirting with another man. Rather than being angry or jealous, Emmett recognizes that Drew, being so newly out, needs time to explore his new-found gay world.

Benjamin "Ben" Novotny-Bruckner (né Bruckner) (portrayed by Robert Gant) became a main character during season two, when he is the first customer in Michael Novotny's comic book store. He is a gay studies professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and the author of the non-fiction book RU12 and the unpublished novel Gentlemen in Paris. Upon first meeting Michael, he states that he is a Pisces.

The two begin to date, but Michael decides to stop after finding out that Ben is HIV positive. After several failed attempts at dating other men, Michael realizes he is in love with Ben, and that he will have to accept his HIV status. Debbie also initially disapproves of the relationship because of Ben's HIV status. However, when Ben is hospitalized due to complications from his HIV medication, Debbie sees how devoted Michael is to Ben and realizes that Michael's happiness is more important than her worries.

In the third season, Ben learns that the man who gave him HIV has died which greatly upsets him and drives him to begin using steroids and exercise obsessively. Ben's increasingly erratic behavior begins taking a toll on his relationship with Michael. In a desperate attempt to get through to Ben, Michael threatens to infect himself with Ben's used needle in order to get him to stop taking steroids. Ben and Michael later begin providing shelter to a teenage prostitute, Hunter Montgomery, after encountering him soliciting outside their apartment. Ben feels a special bond with the troubled youth, especially after learning Hunter is HIV positive as well. Michael is initially less patient with Hunter's presence in their home, but the couple grow to accept Hunter as a member of the family. Ben and Michael become Hunter's legal guardians by the beginning of the fourth season after winning custody from his abusive mother.