Coming Out Quietly

I've been around a lot of people hiding (gays) including an early great lover I am still corresponding with - it took me years to get it, I got he didn't want me as a mate, but not the background. Fifteen years later, extensive lull, we had a good talk. It's approaching 25 years since that talk.

I've not so much been around myself but my husband had, blacks in south LA. from 1953 when he was a toddler - the background of the neighborhood. He lived there (watts riots when he was playing baseball, home invasion, bicycling to school as a white boy). I'm not the one to write about all that.
However, our cat was named Cinque.

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On pride, in the face of obliterating distain for who you are, pride is the right answer.

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Did Jodi Foster come out last night at the Golden Globes? I've always thought she was a lesbian, no surprise there.

Jodie Foster Comes Out and Maybe Retires

Quote:

The biggest surprise at the Golden Globes on Sunday wasn't the near shut out of Lincoln (which was a front-runner with seven nominations), but Jodie Foster's speech after she was given the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award for her 47 years in the entertainment industry. The speech began a bit like a light-hearted comic interlude but was actually a serious and thoughtful combination of a coming out speech and a retirement goodbye.

"For all of you SNL fans, I'm 50!" shouted Foster triumphantly in front of a standing ovation."I need to do that without this dress on, but maybe later. I was going to bring my walker tonight but it just didn't go with the cleavage."

Foster kept up the joking demeanor for a bit: "So I'm here being all confessional and I guess I just have the sudden urge to say something that I've never really been able to air in public, so a declaration that I'm a little nervous about. But maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? Um, but uh, you know, I'm just gonna put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I'm gonna need your support on this — I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I'm kidding. But I mean I'm not really kidding, but I am kind of kidding."

It was a winking nod to her fans and followers who by now know that Foster is gay. But the actress turned director took a serious turn after that.

"I hope you’re not disappointed that there won’t be a big coming-out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the stone age in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family, and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now apparently I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press confrence, a fragrance, and a prime-time reality show. You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo child. No, I'm sorry that's just not me, never was, and it never will be.... But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler. If you had to fight a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe then you too would value privacy above all else — privacy. Someday in the future people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. I have given everything up there from the time I was 3 years old. That's reality show enough, don't you think?"

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@jcboy,

I'm confused about all this because I thought she outted herself publicly more than two decades ago. But then again, maybe she's talking about having a press conference style of announcement?

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@Ragman,

I thought so too, maybe she went back in for a while Razz

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@jcboy,

I thought that was against the 'rules' about outting.

Seriously, I think she just might have dummied up for the last 20 yrs about being too outspoken as she was director and maybe it interfered a bit professionally.

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The way I understand it, the fact she was gay had become an increasingly open secret over the years. She didn't announce it in general, but she didn't deny it and/or did say so to close friends and family, and that circle gradually increased to the point where everyone pretty much knew. But she never officially said so.

She started to come under fire for that (refusing to officially say so) from some gay/ lesbian leaders in recent years. Role model, nothing to be ashamed of, etc.

So this was apparently the first time she officially said so in a public sphere, even though it's not actually news.

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@sozobe,

That’s kind of what I understood.

I thought her speech was very uncomfortable, praising Mel Gibson! He’s anti gay anti Semitic, at least that’s how he’s been labeled over the years.

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@jcboy,

So weird about Jodie Foster. I've been trying to figure out who I have her confused with - has kids with a partner she finally acknowledged and then broke up with. Coulda sworn it was Ms. Foster.

(need to ask djjd - musta been one of the other gals he had a crush on)

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@ehBeth,

This may not have been the greatest proclamation of gay pride, and it certainly came off more self serving and a bit narcissistic, but to middle America, it was a pretty bold move. And its interpretation as a coming out speech will speak volumes to many young girls who will view Jodie's speech as a powerful proclamation of strength and pride. I hope so. i hope it is something that resonates with parents and children and people around the globe about what it means to be true and honest to who you are and to love yourself.

Mel Gibson looked like he overdosed on Namenda, what a mess, he is as ugly on the outside now as he has been on the inside! He's been known as a homophobe and Jew hater. I see no redeeming value in being either.

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@jcboy,

Jodie Foster is much younger than I am but went to high school in my area, which was a movie community, and I've managed to read a fair amount about her over the years just by reading the everyday paper. My impression is that it was well known for a lot of years that she is gay but in my world that has been a so what. Not always so, I was your original ignorant person but that passed. I think she's old enough to have been raised to be very careful about such an announcement re her career, and her feelings I'll take for real.

I've also read she is somehow friends with the mad clod, Gibson, from working together on some film, and hasn't dropped him. I doubt she agrees with him on his takes on other people, but naturally I don't know.

I guess I take it as one more peg that is useful in making people aware.

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@ossobuco,

I guess coming out to some people is a personal experience. And everyone's is different. Sure, it would have been great if Jodie Foster acknowledged what most people already knew for decades long before last night. But what about Anderson Cooper? He certainly took his sweet time. Or Ricky Martin, who only came out after his career stifled and he wrote tell-all biography to sell to become relevant again?

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@jcboy,

Thing is, I'm so old (I'm 71) I remember not knowing anything at all about homosexuality. I mean anything, even that it existed.

I'll admit I was sheltered in a religious girl's school and was an only child with minor social life until I got a job. I learned about it, such as I learned, in Psych 1A, so I was nineteen, but I considered it an, um, aberrance. Can't remember the exact word, started with d. In the early seventies, the love of my life was a now friend who turned out to not have come out yet and couldn't tell me. I went on with my life and that had to do with moving to sort of an arty place, where I had friends in the building dealing with if one woman could seduce this admittedly gay guy. We three talked about it with a nice glass of wine, and then I left.

Dummy started to catch on. That was around early '74.

The fellow I had been in love with was a navy doctor, and being out would have been major bad at the time. As years went by I knew a lot of gays, most of them guys in arty type careers, several of whom died; I've had female gay clients but that while clear wasn't the main conversation, it was how do you want to add on to the garage.

The change between back then and now has been coming all this time, but it has been, ah, jerky.

Foster is 20 years younger so let's say born in the early sixties. She went to some French academy in west LA for high school. People dying off when she came of age in the early 80's. Also, as a child actress, if I remember, she was probably watching others' behavior.

My point is that all this change has been sort of jumpy, and that you can think of blaming x or y person for being careful is...

a luxury earned by those who went before.

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@ossobuco,

I was shocked to learn that Jim Parsons is almost 40.

I couldn't care less what gender he wants to see naked.

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@DrewDad,

(someone I've missed knowing about)

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@DrewDad,

It’s more of a shock that he’s forty then the fact that he’s Gay. Cool

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@jcboy,

jcboy wrote:

I guess coming out to some people is a personal experience. And everyone's is different.

it is still a career-ender in some businesses and communities.

it is still a death or prison sentence in some countries.

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Jodie Foster Inspires Teens To Come Out Using Vague, Rambling Riddles
http://tinyurl.com/bcyv8rp

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Well, Barry Manilow came out of the closet. Now I can finally sleep at night. Razz

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@jcboy,

Barry has done a number of songs I like.

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Coming Out Quietly

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