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.

[StateofIndependance]

Thanks Sarah for standing up for the op here. Lesbians should be able to talk about stuff without constantly being dragged into the trans debate. I get that it's highly important to some people and I have serious concerns myself but those aren't shared by everyone and it's ok for people to want to talk about other issues that do affect them and their families without having to defend themselves against some very intelligent posters in an area that they might know very little about.

[SarahAndQuack]

orchid, how on earth else do you interpret someone saying, when the OP has admitted she thinks families should go to Pride and hers does, that 'lesbians particularly would feel unsafe in the current climate taking their children along. It's no longer a safe space for them and the fetishistic side has now started to target children'.

That's not supposed to be a crack at her parenting? Telling her she's exposing her children to an unsafe place?

And no, that's not hyperbole. Don't be so ridiculous. It's just a word. It won't bite you and you haven't been subjected to violence because you had to read it.

[SarahAndQuack]

And thanks, state.

[MrTumbleTumble]

Another lesbian mother here, and I'm wholly in agreement with Sarah.

I predicted the leading questions before I even opened the thread and whilst I'm happy to listen to other lesbians' concerns regarding any poor treatment they might have received from the trans community, I'm sick of hearing people banging on about the "cotton ceiling". Like others, while I don't doubt it has happened somewhere, I have never met anyone who has experienced this in real life. I'm 31 and have been an active member of the gay community in a very large city since I was 18.

Regarding the OPs topic, I know approximately 20 "two mum" families in my local area and we would love more representation on the TV or in adverts. It's so important that our children see themselves reflected in the media.

DS's current favourite bedtime story is "Mommy, Mama and Me" and he gets so excited pointing out the characters in the book and comparing them to his family.

[OrchidInTheSun]

I don't even understand what that last post was about. I'm not the one bleating about bullying and shaming.

Yes I think it's a bit questionable to take children to Pride because I don't think it's child-friendly. This is a parenting website, we question other people's parenting as you well know (and I've seen you doing it just today).

As I said several times - I think there's a really valid point about showing different kinds of families - I'd like to see more lesbian parent families, more single parent families (that aren't complete failures) and more families with differently abled children. Plus adoptive families and mixed race families.

These are all families that are part of our day to day experience (many of them who tick several of those boxes) and it's really shit that none of us are represented in the media.

None of this takes anything away from the clusterfuck that is Pride. Strangely, I am able to hold two different thoughts in my head at once.

[SarahAndQuack]

I don't even understand what that last post was about.

Strangely, I am able to hold two different thoughts in my head at once.



Do you need a sit down and some time to think?

[OrchidInTheSun]

Nope.

This: "That's not supposed to be a crack at her parenting? Telling her she's exposing her children to an unsafe place?
And no, that's not hyperbole. Don't be so ridiculous. It's just a word. It won't bite you and you haven't been subjected to violence because you had to read it."

still makes no fucking sense.

What word are you talking about?

[SarahAndQuack]

I'm talking about the word(s) you quoted. Remember? You posted only very recently, and if you are struggling to find your own post, there is a way to have them highlighted in a thread.

You objected to me using the terms 'shaming' and 'bullying'.

I am pointing out that, while you may not enjoy the fact that people do not all agree with you, it not yet banned. People are allowed to hold opinions other than yours.

[NellWilsonsWhiteHair]

Yes I think it's a bit questionable to take children to Pride because I don't think it's child-friendly.

Firstly, I think it’s possibly unhelpful to generalise about ‘Pride’ here when we’ll all be comparing several different events. I take mine to London Pride, which does indeed feature fetish gear at some points, but also has a a whole fucking ‘Family area’ with duplo and a bouncy castle and crafts and shit. I take them to Bristol which still has a much more community/protest/uncommercialised feel on the parade route, where I don’t particularly recall seeing anyone in fetish gear, and again has some family activities at the end. I take them to Bournemouth. I’ve taken them to Oxford. At no point have they been confronted with things they shouldn’t be seeing.

Children with lesbian parents mostly do experience, sooner or later, aspects of homophobia and shame and deciding whether it’s safe/worthwhile/necessary/hassle to come out in any particular situation. Given those experiences, taking them to pride and sharing with them an environment where LGBT people are together, supported and celebrated, is a really powerful antidote. It would be a shame to deprive them of that for the sake of a few people in leather.

As a parent, I feel a bit about the visible presence of kink at Pride the same way I feel about a small part of the Paddington film! I cringed a bit for my then-5ishyo, when the security guard at the museum yelled “stop that sexy woman!” at Mr Brown - it was a bit bleurgh and I didn’t like hearing my kid repeat it. But otherwise it was a great film and I’m not sorry to have watched it several fucking times with DS.
For my DC’s sake, id prefer we didn’t see people in bondage at pride - but I recognise their right to be there, I don’t think I have any right to sanitise it now I’m a parent, and it’s a tiny tiny proportion which I don’t even see at every pride we go to tbh.

Some of the posts on another thread about BDSM at pride seemed to talk as if this was a new thing. It’s not. There has been a massive overlap between LGBT+ people (absolutely including the L and the G!!) for decades. Arguing over ‘what message they send’ isn’t new, either. I’m not ashamed they’re there, and I’m perfectly happy with my decision as a parent to walk past them waiting for the parade to move off and finding the right spot for us.