“We’re here and there are a whole lot of us! We are actors who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, inter and non-binary, amongst many other things.
Until now, we haven’t been able to be open about our private lives without fearing professional consequences. All too often, many of us have been cautioned – be it by managers, casting agents, colleagues, producers, editors, directors, etc. – to keep quiet about our sexual orientations and gender identities to avoid jeopardizing our careers. We are putting an end to this – once and for all!
Until now, we’ve been told that if we revealed certain facets of our identities, namely our sexual and gender identities, we would suddenly lose the ability to portray certain characters and relationships. As if the knowledge of who we are in our private lives would somehow invalidate our ability to convincingly embody roles for the audience. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We are actors. We don’t have to be the characters we portray. We act as if – that is the very quintessence of our job. We play wives and fathers, lovers and politicians, heroes and creeps. And often enough, characters whose ideas we’d never agree with. That’s why we can play murderers without having murdered anyone. We can save lives without having studied medicine. We can play people with sexual identities different from the ones we live out.
And, by the way, this is something we’ve been doing for a very long time, the entire time, in fact, because it is the nature of our profession.”
As you say Bob, the more people open up about themselves the more it helps the young be who they truly are, not what other people want them to be. And the number of people in the entertainments industry and in sports who come out just goes to show how talented so many LGBTQ people are.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should buy stock in toaster
ReplyDeleteovens!
Congrats to all!
xoxo :-)
THAT is a lot of toaster ovens and gay handbooks! congrats!
ReplyDeleteAs Harvey Milk advocated...coming out is so important.
ReplyDeleteI'll chip in for more toaster ovens, but I think you should stop wasting paper and go with e-handbooks. A great move and it is still so important. And I now want to look up all these actors and see everything they're in.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of a "mass coming out" -- LOL! Kind of like a Moonie wedding!
ReplyDeletegood for them!
ReplyDeleteDespite all that needs still doing this is a marvelous thing to see !
You know, toaster oven companies are missing a big advertising opportunity here.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic statement!
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's going to take America some time to catch on because puritanism, that is.
Representation. It matters.
XOXO
Because it is important to always have toast.
ReplyDeleteWill Jay