“For centuries, being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in America meant hiding at least part of who you were. The stigma traces as far back as the colonial era, when sodomy was a capital crime, women were arrested for having same-sex relations and men were jailed for wearing women’s clothes.” The media often is guilty of perpetrating stereotypes due to cultural shifts and value changes throughout time.

There is a group that has continuously been bullied by the media and the public, and the group is still under scrutiny in the present. The LGBT community has been abused by the media throughout history, and only today are we seeing a change in tone. Being homosexual or any part of the LGBT community was never mentioned or spoken about for many years.

It was not something people talking about. In today’s news and media, it is still somewhat taboo, but people are starting to be heard thanks to inclusion and social media. In this paper, the omission of LGBT representation, the “gay agenda,” “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and other devious stereotypes about the LGBT community will be explored throughout the past fifty years.

Due to the lack of representation of LGBT characters in televisions or stories and the way no one spoke about homosexuality, not many articles can be found in any news source dated before the 1970’s or 1980’s.

This makes sense because the ‘liberation’ of the gays began in the 1970’s. Even though there were rumors of homosexuality in the 1980’s, Eric Jimenez-Lindmeier—a writer for Huffingtonpost—writes, that people never spoke about homosexuality. Eric writes about how hard it was to find himself and his identity due to lack of speech:

"Being gay in the 80s meant being isolated from an identity. There was no discussion of homosexuality in school… not even in our yearlong “Health and Sexuality” class, even though we were in the middle of the AIDS crisis. In U.S. history, there was no mention of the fight for basic human rights that the LGBT community endured over 20 years before."

The media and society were trying its best to completely erase the LGBT community from view as if they did not exist. This action shows the media bias and the unwritten stereotype of gay people; for example, homosexuality was seen as a sin, and it was dirty. People who were in the LGBT community were seen as devious sexual predators—a view that has not changed today in the eyes of some alt-right believers.

Jimenez-Lindmeier later writes that that anything remotely homosexual was never shown on TV or the show would have been boycotted and lost revenue. It even started the joke and stereotype of the ‘closet’ that gay people had to stay in, and if anyone was actually brave enough to be themselves in public they ‘came out of the closet.’ It was not until the 1990’s that homosexual people began to have a voice.

While the 90’s gave the world Google which provides a platform for people to be heard, the 1990’s also gave the US military the “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Homosexuals had previously been banned from being in the military, and while this bill lets gay people join the military, they had to do it in silence. They could not be openly gay in the military. This is because of the same exclusion that society and the media wanted of the LGBT in the past. It was not until about 1998 when Google was created that the LGBT community could start to be heard. With this came the same old stereotypes perpetrated by the media and society.

The stereotypes of gay men are that they are feminine, which in turn is just another way to show how hateful society is of women because they view being feminine as bad. Even with the voices of the LGBT being heard, the community still faced hardships due to media and society. In 2005, the American Family Association and others boycotted P&G—Procter & Gamble—because it had donated money to a city ordinance about gay rights. To get their costumes back, they refused to fund any television shows that “promot[ed] homosexual lifestyle."

This occurrence was not random or a one-time thing, family and Christian value groups in America often go into rage and boycott any product that has to do with the “gay agenda” or gay life. Though there is no actual gay agenda, the media created it to scare suburban moms everywhere. The gay agenda can be compared to the red scare, except communists want to spread communism. Gay cannot spread like communist ideals. Families believed that if “homosexual lifestyles” were on television, then children would ‘turn out’ gay when they grew up.

This also proves that people hated the idea of gay people because they were afraid of their children coming out. While the gay agenda does not exist and people cannot turn or catch or choose to be gay, the media—especially alt-right and evangelicals—stirs up fear that the gays have something nefarious planned for the public. This fake agenda still exists, and even though the media is still fairly biased, some media outlets are making strides to help the image of the LGBT community.

Certain news and media are more progressive than others, and they are working on creating representation and inclusiveness with the LGBT community. TIME magazine published an article written by Katy Steinmetz that talked about the statistics around the LGBT community.

She writes on how it is important to take a census of how many queer people there are in the United States. With this information taken and published, it is expected to help LGBT lives. Steinmetz writes about a California assemblyman’s opinion on the matter:

“It’s high time for the LGBT community to count and be counted,” says California state assemblyman David Chiu, who proposed a law that will require state health agencies to start asking these questions. “Data saves lives,” he says.

It is important to have numbers and representation of this large group of Americans because if we have a definite number, then the LGBT community cannot be ignored or erased. The TIME article discusses issues of congressmen trying to avoid gay rights because they “do not have any gay people in their district,” which is statistically impossible. This census proves those congressmen wrong, and it helps protect LGBT rights. In the present, there are just as much media against LGBT as there is for LGBT.

Luckily, the liberal media is being heard. Not only are news sources like TIME and The New York Times speaking out for gay rights, even television programs help represent the LGBT community. Television is slowly changing with the times, and it is beginning to have more openly gay characters. While, unfortunately, this progress is slow with only 4.8% of LGBT characters on primetime television, Fox with 6.4%, and ABC with 7.3%, this percentage of LGBT representation is larger than before. Also, it was reported in The Guardian that even with this representation, lesbian characters are mistreated:

25 queer female characters have died on scripted television shows in 2016 alone. These deaths were usually to advance the narrative of the straight main character. “To kill these characters in droves sends a toxic message about the worth of queer female stories,” Ellis wrote in the report. Of the three platforms analyzed, “broadcast was the deadliest for lesbian and bisexual women”

The optimist point of view is that there is growing representation throughout the years with shows like Orange is the New Black, Super Girl, and Game of Thrones. Not only are there numerous LGBT characters popping up in adult and teen rated shows, but now television programs that children watch are having either assumed gay characters or even openly gay characters.

In shows like Steven Universe on Cartoon Network, there are two female characters in an openly loving relationship. Not only are those characters gay, but a young boy is shown being raised by three ‘moms.’ This is a statement on whether or not gay people should be allowed to be parents, and Cartoon Network is doing an amazing job in depicted loving relationships. Cartoon Network has always been out there, but even Disney Channel is catching up with its first openly gay character Andi Mack.

Take that “gay agenda!” With representation in media meant for all ages, children, teens, and adults can begin to learn and question their sexuality freely. The media is slowly, very slowly, progressing and showing more good, lighthearted representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters.

Now that gay marriage is legal, shows and movies have started coming out showing happy families like The Fosters, which shows two moms raises a bunch of foster children. These new shows are really changing the views of the LGBT community, and while there is still a lot of work to do, these shows provide hope for people in the community. I hope that the media will continue to be on their side and that discrimination will not continue to happen. The media and society are progressing.