LGBTQ Families by Eva Apelqvist

Author:Eva Apelqvist [Apelqvist, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2013-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

7

Media, Popular Culture, and LGBTQ Families

Now and Then and Now

Today, LGBTQ persons and families appear more and more often on television and in other media and are less often portrayed in a derogatory way. LGBTQ parents with children appear on mainstream shows like Modern Family and Glee, and prominent media personalities like CNN journalist Anderson Cooper, actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and singer Ricky Martin are coming out en masse and finding that being out doesn’t necessarily make their ratings or popularity drop.

But it wasn’t always so. And you don’t even have to go far back in time to find famous people struggling with their careers after coming out. According to Rolling Stone magazine, when Elton John came out in 1976, many people stopped buying his albums and his career definitely took a turn for the worse.1 (Though we all know it recovered quite well in the 1980s.) In short, with some exceptions, before the 1970s famous people simply did not come out.

When Rock Hudson died from AIDS in 1985, people were shocked to learn that such a handsome man could be gay. Twelve years later, in 1997, when standup comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres came out, media ridiculed her to the point that she fell into a depression. Her personal relationship suffered so badly that she and her partner broke up.2 In 2002, prominent media personality Rosie O’Donnell came out, confirming what was already fairly well-known, that she was in a same-sex relationship; in 2006, Neil Patrick Harris came out in People magazine.

Then, in 2009, Chaz Bono came out as a female-to-male transsexual. While Bono wasn’t the first well-known trans person to come out, he certainly got media attention and in many ways helped educate the public on what it means to be transsexual. Growing up as Chastity, the daughter of the famous singing duo Sonny and Cher, she early on became an LGBTQ activist and lived in a same-sex relationship for many years. In 2009, Chastity became Chaz. Since then, Chaz has put a very public face on trans. He has been on the Oprah Winfrey Show; made a documentary, Becoming Chaz (2011), about his transition; written a book—a New York Times best-seller—Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be (2011); appeared on Dancing with the Stars; and become even more of an activist social networker.3

It is more difficult to find famous children with LGBTQ parents, perhaps because, at least as an adult, it is easier to be in the closet about your parents than about yourself. (And how many people really discuss their parents’ sexual orientation anyway? Unless there’s a reason, it might just not come up.) But there certainly are some famous children of LGBTQ parents who are open and proud of their families, and others whose families have been outed in the media for negative reasons. Actress and movie director Jodie Foster grew up with two moms. Infamous football running back O. J. Simpson had a father who was a drag queen (and

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