Guest post: “The vacancy where same-sex families should be is blinding”

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

This month is that of Pride, a time when the LGBTQ community commemorates the Stonewall Riots at the end of June 1969. It's a time when the community comes together to increase its visibility and raise awareness of the lack of equality LGBTQ people still receive.

We’ve actually come a long way since then, when it comes to LGBTQ achievements. In 1967 when the UK government decriminalised sex between two men (provided they were both over 21 and it happened in private), and continuing in 1992, when the World Health Organisation declassified same-sex attraction as a mental illness. LGBT individuals can now serve in the UK military, we can marry, we can adopt and, as of 2009, same-sex female couples now have equal rights on their child’s birth certificate (when that child is conceived via artificial insemination).

But, despite these huge achievements for the LGBTQ community, one area we - and many other minority groups - are still struggling in is equal representation in mainstream media. The amount of same-sex couples and heterosexual couples you see in the media is still so disproportionate. In the last decade, I can probably recall a few dozen adverts, films, or television programmes from mainstream media that have featured a same-sex couple. Worryingly, many of these were characters were presented in a negative light, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Now I’m a parent, I fear it’s even worse. Despite being ‘legal’ in every sense, my four-year-old son is unable to see himself or his parents on TV, in advertising or in films. We all know how important it is for children to see themselves in the world around them - it helps them to understand it and feel secure. And yet, in 2019 it is still so very rare to see a same-sex family on my screen. Even on Instagram I have to actively look for LGBTQ representation by using a hashtag or visiting a dedicated page.

Jump to June, however, and you can’t scroll a few seconds without a rainbow avatar or a rainbow-themed product popping up - everything from mouthwash to shoes, all in aid of ‘Pride’. Some brands are getting the balance right - 100% of the proceeds from the Levi’s Pride Collection went to OutRight Action, for example. But many are simply capitalizing on a season to increase their revenue and, once June is over, the rainbows disappear like Christmas trees in January and so do those supposed corporate allies. Dig deeper still and some of the companies celebrating Pride will often have poor LGBTQ representation or equality policies within their company - which is an even bigger issue.

Perhaps a better strategy then would be for brands not to focus on Pride, but to include LGBT families in their advertising as part of the norm rather than as a commodity. For example, Tiba and Marl’s #WeAreFamily campaign in March included several diverse families, Gilette recently featured a transgender male celebrating his first shave, and last year Vauxhall featured a same-sex couple going into labour - all without a rainbow in sight. To my knowledge, the inclusion of LGBT families in these campaigns didn’t harm their bottom line.

At the end of the day, we’re all people just trying to find our place in the world, and those of us who are parents are trying to help our children do the same. Unfortunately, we in the LGBT parenting community also find ourselves having to prove we are not harming our children, that we don’t have ‘an agenda’ and that we’re something safe for children to be ‘exposed’ to.

Society is now a vibrant, interesting, and colourful spectrum of people from all different backgrounds. So why are the media and brands failing to reflect reality? The vacancy where same-sex families should be is blinding, and the regular silence from media outlets, PR and marketing agencies, and brands is deafening. In today’s climate, where people are protesting outside primary schools, where a female couple is beaten on public transport for not carrying out the perverted wishes of a group of teenagers and violence against the LGBT community has doubled in recent years, more needs to be done - now, more than ever. Now is the time we need true allies. Everyone in this world deserves to be represented - all year round.

[Faithless12]

@Lesbemums I started to avoid pride in both Brighton and London after DS due to the overt sexual nature (Blow up phallus’, men wearing fake boobs and then exposing them etc). I just don’t think it’s appropriate for children.

[InfiniteSheldon]

Having loved Brighton Pride with my dc for many years it's not somewhere I'd take my dgc and the anti lesbian vibe is very real and very misogynistic I can't believe your gaslighting the previous poster

[EmpressLesbianInChair]

What’s standing out for me on this thread is the repeated references to same-sex families, same-sex relationships.

This is great. But LesBeMums, have you noticed that Stonewall & Pride no longer support this concept?

Stonewall have quietly replaced ‘same-sex’ with ‘same-gender’ - in other words, lesbians can have penises & anyone who disagrees is a transphobe - and lesbians who go along to Pride marches bearing placards defending their right to be exclusively attracted to their own sex are verbally & physically abused. ‘Vagina fetishist’ is one of the milder phrases I’ve heard.

I’ve also listened to young lesbians in tears about the pressure from their own communities to accept males as viable partners because they identify as lesbians.

A group of us protested about this outside a Stonewall conference and Stonewall called the police on us. Ironically, it was Lesbian Visibility Day.

Try going to Brighton Pride with a placard about same-sex love and see what happens.

[SarahAndQuack]

I've seen 4% quoted but I suspect it's more, just not that much more.

But that's around 1 in 20. There is no way 1 in 20 adverts featuring a family, feature a same-sex family.

I never understand the argument that other groups are also underrepresented. Yes, they are. But why should that mean the whole concept is invalid?

[PeonyPink0]

@EmpressLesbianInChair is spot on!

[EmpressLesbianInChair]

Cheers Peony!

[QueenofallIsee]

I have a gay child who is totally unrepresented as you say...but I think my energy is going to have to go to supporting her when she is discriminated against by her own community which has been much more damaging than under representation in the media. It’s all going backwards and Gay women are suffering the most I feel.

[Heratnumber7]

Is it really disproportionate?
I live in a fairly cosmopolitan area and I don't know any same-sex parent families, and not aware of any in DDs' schools.

[Heratnumber7]

So when you say "It's still very rare to see a same-sex family in an advert". I would say that it's just very rare you see a same sex family anywhere.

[SarahAndQuack]

I just looked it up, and I think stucknoue has confused the figure for people identifying as LGBT with the figure for same-sex parents. ONS puts that much lower, at 0.5% of families, as of 2017.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2017

However, this still means that you would expect that, if you watched 200 adverts with families, one of them would be a same-sex family (or, arguably, you might hope for more, as an implication from these stats may be that same-sex people don't feel parenting is for them).

I don't think one in every 200 adverts has a same-sex family, nor anything like.

However, I would guess that, if you aren't seeing same-sex parents, it might be you just don't notice. There are certainly parents at the (small) nursery we send DD to, who haven't yet noticed we're a same-sex couple. The other week, someone thought I was my daughter's nanny; I've also had someone who thought we must be friends who car-shared to pick up their children.

We're churchgoers, and for a long time, elderly members of the congregation either didn't realise my partner was female (as in, they'd assume, in the face of all the obvious evidence, she was a very effeminate man), or didn't realise she was my partner.

Even quite young people, who you'd think would notice, just don't, on the whole. We see what we expect to see.

[SarahAndQuack]

Incidentally, I really noticed this on the beach this year. I'd go with my wider family, and DP and I would notice other same-sex families, whereas my SIL kept saying 'but how did you notice?!' or 'how do you know?' It just wasn't on her radar in the same way.

[DelectableDetriment]

Yes Empress , I saw that and think it's disgusting how lesbians are being treated. I used to take DD to Pride as I have a lot of lesbian friends and wanted to be an ally. We won't go any more due to the treatment of women like Julia Long and her friends.

And yes, totally agree with OP, let's have more media representation of lesbian women and more generally I'd love to see more recognition that lesbians were trailblazers in so many areas.

[BiBabbles]

I can see the push when it comes to most media - I've proactively searched for books, graphic novels, movies, and shows with good wide representation, and I definitely think we need more quality representation -- but advertising?

Yeah, I agree it's far more normalizing and representative for companies to have marketing that includes same-sex couples rather than just sticking up a rainbow a month out of the year, but it's still for the same purpose - money. It's why a lot of other media with same-sex couples fails and disappoints because it's low quality and you can almost feel the desire for cash-grab and fetishization dripping off of it rather than actual recogniztion or showing our trailblazers and history and people as fully human.

Maybe it's because I'm old enough that my first Pride was a protest where it felt like we were coming together to make a stand that many of us were scared to make on our own, and back where I come from and I know in many other places that is still true rather the parties surrounded by companies who are there for a quick buck with no consideration for our real lives that is becoming more common. I hated my last PRIDE - it was like there is the alcohol adult section and there is the family-friendly section mostly of people selling tat, enjoy as long as you don't want any meaningful conversation since we can't even hear ourselves talk. I know some love it, but I think it's now in a cycle of losing enough meaning that people aren't willing to donate so the organizers go to corporations and businesses for money which means they get a say and turn the event into something less meaningful. I mean, seriously, alcoholism is a major issue within many LGBT communities, so how is having all these alcohol sponsors and representation doing anything for our wellbeing? What are any of these companies actually doing that we hope we'll get if they represent us more?

Visibility isn't enough, just like those rainbows aren't enough or all those movies and books with gay couples ending in tragedy aren't enough. It's one small sliver of how we bring about change, but just being visible doesn't actually bring about any change at all and until real conversations about issues within our communities as well as with those outside of us represent and treat us, nothing is going to change - we'll just get louder parties and adverts most people skip anyways and the continuation of no progress or - what I feel many days - regression into many of the problems and difficulties in respect, housing, employment, healthcare needs, safety, and community. An advert isn't going to change any of that, it just takes us along with what commodity they're trying to sell which more and more is treating us as one.

[SarahAndQuack]

I'm old enough that my first Pride was a protest where it felt like we were coming together to make a stand

This really struck me.

I was nodding along to the rest of your post, especially the point about alcohol and about commercialisation, and I hope you'll not roll your eyes at me, but I wonder if there are always going to be people who feel as if they 'made a stand' years ago, while others feel this is still ongoing? Because it's in the nature of LGBT that people are always coming out. And I think the same sense of 'wow, this is a whole protest of people like me, and we're here to make a change' is something that repeats itself.

I've got to say ... I know there are lesbians and women in same-sex relationships commenting on this thread, but, cynic that I am, I also think there are posters jumping on it in order to sneer at Pride, who don't actually have the slightest right to do so.

I have been on MN for over a decade and I know the issues and the language. I can see that people are trying to trap the OP into agreeing yes, there's a problem, with their oh-so-clever open questions about how she feels about Pride. It leaves a really nasty taste in my mouth, frankly, because it feels an awful lot like straight women bullying a lesbian.

Yes, you may paint yourselves as allies, or casual friends of Julia Long who're just shocked at how she was treated. But I do wonder: are you, actually? I've met Julia Long at a few feminist conferences; I've chatted with her. Do you know her very much better than that? Or are you just jumping on a convenient bandwagon? Because, whether I agree or disagree with you about the issues here (and yes, they are trans issues, as well as issues with m-m fetish), the fact is that you've jumped on this thread to shout down the lesbian OP. You've tried to make lesbians feel they should be ashamed to attend Pride, especially with their families.

I am really, really angry at your arrogance.

[SarahAndQuack]

(And, reading that back, it'd have been wiser to post that as two posts, so it'd be clearer that, while I agree with @BiBabbles' thoughtful post, I am frustrated by the posters further up the thread.)

[furrytoebean]

My mam is bisexual and when I was growing up she was in a same sex relationship from when I was 3-13.
We had horrific homophobic bullying and the council even moved us.
I agree more visibility for all different types of families would be brilliant.

I have been to a pride event every year I can remember but I will not be going to anymore after seeing pups complete with butt plug tails being walked around on leashes last year.

[Luzina]

Not a single lesbian friend or acquaintance of mine feels that they shouldn't take their children to pride. I took mine to pride until we left london in 2007. Id still take them now if i lived near enough.

Although i don't particularly crave more visible lgbt parent families in advertising, i do feel that my children would benefit from seeing something more akin to their lives in the media generally. My children live partly with me and their stepdad and partly with my ex wife and their stepmum. It is unlikely that any tv family is going to reflect their reality but it would be nice if they could see SOMETHING that reflected their lives.

[furrytoebean]

I would have loved to see a lesbian family on the telly when I was growing up but I don’t think I would have felt they represented me. Families are so different, the chances of the family actually being anything at all like mine just because the parents share the same sets of chromosomes are pretty slim.

I can’t say I thought much about my parents being ‘lesbians’ much, they were just my parents.
Even when we got homophobic bullying I think it was also paired with the fact we were poor and my mam made us dress like boys so we looked weird too.


My mams friends were all lgbt but I can’t remember ever thinking about it much when I was younger, it was more of a ‘yeah and?’ Type thing.

I think I was far more impacted by my dad not being around than both my parents being female.

[OrchidInTheSun]

Sarah - I'm sure your post is partly directed at me. I was exclusively lesbian for 15 years, then had a few relationships with men, then had children and have been single for 15 years now.

I am really fucking cross that you're making me feel like I have to defend myself for having an opinion that differs from yours. I first went to Pride in 1985. You probably weren't even born them. So don't fucking dare tell me that my opinions are invalid or don't count.

[PickAChew]

There are music videos featuring straight women virtually naked in very sexual poses throughout the day

And this is why the feminism movement still has a lot to achieve. Don' think we universally like it.

[Chienloup]

Thank you SarahandQuack you have put into exact words how I feel - bullied. I have rejoined Mumsnet just to say thank you to you for articulating this. My voice as a lesbian parent is devalued because my experience and that of all of my lesbian friends does not match the rhetoric of many Mumsnet users. We all go to Pride (Brighton) with our families, we do not feel erased or threatened by trans participation at Pride, not have I or anyone that I know ever been harassed or shamed because of our sexual preferences. No one I know (maybe because we're middle aged lesbians in our 40s) has been told we must take cock.
I'm not saying that this has never happened to anyone, and I'm sorry to those it has happened to, but for me and the large number of lesbians I know, the "cotton ceiling" really isn't an issue that comes up in our lives. There really aren't vast numbers of transwomen aggressively confronting us or forcing us to feel we have to have sex with them, there just isn't. It isn't even a vague issue. We accept our trans sisters, welcome them into our spaces, and hopefully are allies to them.

I'm going to deregister again now, because I can't be drawn into this place again. I feel attacked here, not at Pride. This is not a safe space for me, because my voice and lived experience are aggressively invalidated. It is bullying, Sarah, you're right.

I'm sorry the OP's thread had been hijacked in this way. The guest post was about representation. I agree, there isn't representation enough. In my children's very rural Sussex school of 210 children, at least 7 of those children have lesbian parents (there may be more I don't know of), from 5 different families. If there are about 140 families in the school then 3.5% of families are same sex here, which must be higher in urban areas.

[thethethethethe]

TV adverts are extremely expensive. So companies are likely to pay for only 1 ad at a time. Not surprisingly, they would prefer it to appeal to the 95% of families that are not gay.