Contents:
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.