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HOW STRAIGHT FICTNAL WOMEN SHAPED MY GAY INTY
Confed and lost my own inty a untry where gay marriage was still illegal, I had ltle to no chance of unrstandg the spectm of sexualy and my place wh . I'd survive the day, and then when I got home, I'd turn on the televisn to 's Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer): flamboyant, annoyg, and like many gay men on televisn, burned wh the heavy narrative load of homosexualy. As a teenager, the gay, male characters I saw on TV were so bary: feme or mascule?
Eher they embodied and attempted to refe a stereotype or rejected altogether, optg stead to "reclaim" tradnal masculy for gay men. In the ghts, gay men were rarely the protagonist; they were often wrten briefly the service of lead characters' storyl (and equently wrten out via ath), or clud specifilly for a "very special episo" on sexualy. Te Blood's Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis) stands out as a rare outlier, a southern Black gay man who went beyond bari and genr his self-prentatn.
Of the shows I actually had the abily to watch, I only saw gay men reflect stereotyp I didn't want to be. Though medil surgery was not likely an optn for my own reer, I felt more nnected to the nuance their liv and the tharsis om the dramatic proclamatns of love scb rooms and back-door relatnship gossip than I did anywhere else my media nsumptn (I was too closeted to watch gay blockbters like Brokeback Mounta, and I'm not mad I still haven't seen ).