It's a great time to be gay. Within the span of a couple of days, two celebrities came out of the closet: George Takei and Sheryl Swoopes.  By coming out, they joined a small group of Asian and African American queers. The attention garnered by the Star Trek actor and star basketball player of the Houston Comets reveals the American obsession with famous queers.

 

Missing in Action

Unfortunately, our representatives aren't all that representative.  How many gay white celebrities are there versus famous black gays?  Or Asian gays? Or Muslim gays? The disparities in race and ethnicity are not coincidental.  Rather, they are examples of the conflicted attitudes toward non-mainstream cultures in our society.

In general, racial and religious minorities tend to be fairly conservative and family-oriented. For a Muslim like myself, for example, coming out to my family would be equivalent to murdering them and then dancing naked around their bodies.  It simply isn't done. Period. Hindu families are the same, as are many black and Asian families.

On top of that, America itself has very few minority celebrities anyway. Try making a mental list of every actor, actress, singer, and writer you know.  How many of them are Chinese?  Indian?  Middle Eastern?  Now how many of those are openly gay, lesbian or bi-sexual?  George Takei, Sheryl Swoopes, B.D. Wong, Jenny Shimizu and Margaret Cho are the only ones I can think of.

And George Takei really deserves a medal. Come on! How many famous gay men of color do you know? Are there any others who have come out to their fans? The most famous gay men tend to be white guys from other countries like Rupert Everett, Boy George, George Michael, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Elton John, Billy Bean and Billy Joel Armstrong (bisexual).

Kissing Chicks Are Cool

America seems to be more comfortable with the sexuality of women, particularly white women, and is thus, more relaxed about the idea of lesbianism.  Maybe that's because American culture uses white women's bodies to sell everything.  Think about advertising for alcohol, music, cigarettes, even cars.

So, it's no wonder that most well-known gay Americans are white women: Melissa Etheridge, Ellen Degeneres, Rosie O'Donnell, Emily Saliers and Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Lily Tomlin, Portia de Rossi, k.d. Lang (she's Canadian), Tammy Lynn Michaels, Cynthia Nixon, and of course, Angelina Jolie, the bisexual poster girl.

Hands Down to All the Brave Souls

In my ideal world, gay celebrities' most important public jobs (besides their actual jobs) would be to conduct themselves as positive symbols of homosexuality to a straight society, and their most important personal jobs would be to act as positive role models to the many queer and questioning youths. 

Right now, if such a teen is white and female, she'll find at least a dozen mainstream celebrities to look up too.  That's wonderful, but what about everyone else who needs gay role models too?

Alas, a dazzling array of famous minority queers to pick and choose from is not likely to be reality anytime soon. In the meantime, let's recognize and give a standing ovation to the brave celebrities who have courageously come out of the closet and into the spotlight of the media.  Let's show our support and thank them for their insistence on being themselves.

*Jinny Jude Griffin is the pen name of a 17-year-old living in the Northeast.

Editor's Note: We use the word "queer" in the same way that many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people use it. That is, we think of it as a positive word denoting a refusal to "fit in" to socially mandated categories of heterosexuality and gender. It is not meant to be derogatory. For more information about the term "queer" please see this Web site:  http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/identity_politics.html.