The crease the number of visible gay and trans people is sometim treated as a cursy or a e for ncern by crics, but ’s not a surprise. It’s normal.
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* in living color gay critics *
Tradnally, most LGBTQ characters on televisn were Whe, and the few Black gay characters were distorted stereotyp — feme, stuck tradnally female jobs, the source of humor about genr and genr rol or sequtered otherwise Whe televisual worlds. When lbian and gay characters were clud (there was virtually no discsn of bisexualy or trans people), they were stereotyped ritur: Gay men were “feme” and often had “women’s” reers such as hairdrser and terr signer, and lbians were “butch” bee they, prumably, wanted to be “men.
” One goal of the portrayals was to make lbian and gay inty visible to viewers, siar ways that race n often be read onto the the 1970s, the growg sophistitn of televisn ratgs systems dramatilly changed TV programmg.
And unlike earlier lbian and gay portrayals, the characters the shows were often dissociated om historil stereotyp, part reflectg a change public nscns after the 1969 Stonewall uprisg. For example, a 1977 episo of the “Sanford and Son” spoff “Sanford Arms” featured Travis, a Black gay civil rights attorney who was a iend of one of the seri’ characters.