Love is Love, Pride Month 2024
June is Pride Month. Someone connected with me on Facebook made a request of straight people for Pride month: “Can you focus on ‘love is love’ and not on the violence that LGBTQ+ folk experience?”
Love is love. Recognition is Pride.
People my age grew up with television being a central cultural point of reference. The popular TV shows of the 50’s into the 60’s starred predominantly white, Western-European-American, heterosexual people. These were the shows and reruns of my childhood.
If you grew up during this time, do you remember the first time you saw a TV character who was “like” you? It might be that you are a white, Western-European-American, heterosexual person and the person you related to was a red-head. Maybe she was a brainy girl. Maybe he was a boy who liked science. Maybe it was the first time you saw an actor with your specific ethnicity. For me, the first character I related to was a young child who was being raised by a single father-figure parent; the show was Family Affair. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why I didn’t relate to Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, but I didn’t.
If you are not white or not Western-European American, you might have related to the rare Asian characters, or Black characters who showed up on TV. Hopefully, you found a positive one.
Do you remember relating to TV characters, and how that made you feel? I hope it was a positive character who made you feel good.
If you are LGBTQ+, chances are you didn’t run into a positive character to relate to on TV until well into the 1980’s. If you are straight and don’t believe that, read the summaries on this list. I remember watching both Medical Center and The Streets of San Francisco. I stopped watching The Streets of San Francisco; if you read the list, you’ll know why.
The reason we need Pride Month is that everyone needs to know that our society has a place for them.
Beyond TV:
The Trevor Project works to support the mental health of LGBTQ youth. Among the questions they ask on their annual survey is “What brings you joy?” Among the answers:
- Having supportive people around. A supportive partner, having supportive friends, affirming family…
- Connection with others in the LGBTQ community (online, in chat groups…)
- Being seen, representation in the media, seeing rainbow flags…
- Celebrities coming out with pride.
And the things that make many other young folk happy:
- Video games, music, theater, anime, working out, having a pet…