Beany, that's the thing. It IS a huge community that's been under the radar for a long time because it's been actively repressed for centuries. There are people doing it for attention, sure, but orders of magnitude more actually feel that way. And that's why there's more representation nowadays: because people can finally be themselves without fear of ridicule.
Sometimes the media goes too far with it, and sometimes it's a tad ridiculous, but I'd far rather 1 in 5 characters be LGBT than 1 in 1,000.