Approval of the LGBTQ community is on the rise too: the percentage of people who support marriage equality was 30% in 2000, when I first developed my secret Lindsay Lohan crush. Today, children are more likely to have seen queer people on television, with gay relationships present in mainstream sitcoms like Modern Family and cartoons like Nickelodeon's Loud House.Īccording to the 2016-2017 report from GLAAD, 4.8% of series regular characters on broadcast scripted primetime programming in the coming year identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer-the largest percentage ever.
This is an improvement from the 1980s, when the average age of coming out was 21. The average age children realize they are something other than straight is 12 years old, according to The Pew Research Center, and the average age they come out is now 16. This likely contributed to a lot of secret fanfiction I wrote, as well as several unnecessary years in the closet. In fact, I don't remember a single representation of a queer woman in pop culture from my childhood, and I didn't meet an out lesbian in person until I was 18. Growing up in the late '90s and early '00s, I knew that none of the characters I harbored flustered crushes on were actually gay-in fiction or in real life.
