Kurt Elizabeth Hummel is a fictional character and one of the male leads in the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee. Series creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan initially conceived of him as a fashionable gay countertenor who is routinely bullied at school. Kurt is portrayed by actor Chris Colfer, and has appeared as a character on the show since its pilot episode, first broadcast on May 19, 2009. Glee follows the trials of the New Directions glee club at the fictional William McKinley High School in the town of Lima, Ohio, of which Kurt is a member. His storylines in the first season focus on his struggle with his sexual identity as he discloses his homosexuality to his father and friends, and deals with his romantic feelings for Finn Hudson, the heterosexual co-captain of the glee club. In the show's second season, Kurt is forced to transfer to a private school for his own safety after a closeted classmate bullies him relentlessly and then threatens to kill him. Kurt joins the Dalton Academy Warblers, the school's glee club, which is a competition rival of New Directions, and is befriended by their openly gay lead singer Blaine Anderson.