rubber soul

There is a whole history of straights depicting gays in the movies. For a long time when it was taboo to come out of the closet, a gay person would be depicted as someone who was living a sinister type of lifestyle. I remember a movie, Advise and Consent, from 1962, where a senator (from Utah of all states), was threatened with a disclosure of his past. He confronted a person he supposedly had an affair with during the war in the seediest place you could imagine with something that sounded like Sinatra in the background. Long story short, the Senator was so worried that his wicked past would come out that he committed suicide. And this was a sympathetic figure; imagine all the characters that weren't played so sympathetically.


Later, when gay characters became more sympathetic in movies, straight people would still play them despite many of them being afraid their careers would be harmed by playing a gay person. Gay actors, of course, couldn't come out of the closet for the same reason. I think it began to change in the eighties a bit. Longtime Companion dealt with a group of gay men affected by the AIDS crisis. Most, if not all, of the main players were, in reality, straight, but they played the gay characters very well and with much dignity. I even became something of a Bruce Davidson fan from this movie (I especially liked his character). Of course, you could say Tom Hanks brought gay characters into the mainstream with Philadelphia, and I don't think people even think twice now when it comes to gay actors or characters (at least I hope so anyway).

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BassoonPlatoon

I'm convinced "straight" people take gay roles to live out some sort of fantasy.

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Celladorina

I would like to announce that I am pansexual and non binary. My pronouns are she/her. I love decorating the library for pride every February and am currently working on what type of events to hold next year for different age groups. If anyone has any cool ideas let me know.

Tristan_Geoff

Hello I am gender non conforming myself I go by he or they pronouns. Congratulations on finding yourself and feeling comfortable enough to post about it on here!

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Celladorina

Thanks Tristan! Nice to hear you're on the same page, it's good to have allies

Marie Monday

Cool, nice to meet you! I have a complicated relationship with my gender so I admire that you figured yourself out like that. (I'm a strongly tomboyish person, I identify as a girl but that's more or less just because it's the default option. I'm comfortable with any pronoun/label I guess.)
Also decorating a library sounds like life goals

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The Batlord

Libraries are for masturbating, not decorating.

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Celladorina

Nice to meet you too Marie! I tell you what it was not an easy process. I only came out to my parents 2 years ago. We had all been indoctrinated into the Catholic then Christian religious dogma, and have all finally let that brain washing go. We are now all non-religious, just spiritual which means they could accept my sexuality as normal, not what religion claims it to be. I initially said I was bisexual which I had felt since I was 14 but then realised after having a nearly relationship with a female to male person I was pansexual and would be with anyone no matter what gender, sexuality, ethnicity, assigned gender. Only recently I realised I am non binary, I don't feel like either assigned genders and don't want to be restricted by them. I believe as we learn more about ourselves and be honest about our feelings that our true forms will eventuate. I admire what you have identified as, I am very girly physically but am tomboyish in many other ways. I try to not associate hobbies or behaviours as belonging to a particular gender, I just am.



I will say, that has happened in a local library near my suburb

Guybrush

Related to this, a nice thing about the english language is you have a word that describes whether your body would produce large or small gametes (sex) and another for what you identify as in terms of social characteristics (gender).

In norwegian, there's only one word covering all that. In a dumb way, it makes any discussion on the topic a lot harder.

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In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.

The Batlord

So a lot of Terfwegians?

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