Warning: spoilers for Ugly Betty (Season 4) and Glee episodes (Season 1).
Also, the links are mostly to YouTube clips.

I remember being a teenager and watching Degrassi Junior High. I remember distinctly one episode where sex was being discussed; my dad was watching too and I was kinda hoping I would die. Degrassi Junior High was a huge big deal to my generation. Never before had we seen prime time television address the issues of teenage pregnancy (and the causal sex), drug use, and body image in such fearless, in-your-face ways.

Caitlyn Ryan wondered if she was a lesbian

What we really didn’t see were gay teens on television. Although Degrassi had a character wonder whether she was, she was then treated to a talk about how having dreams about girls doesn’t make you gay. (I might have taken that to heart a bit too much.) Also, Degrassi had an episode where a character’s brother comes out as gay. And while this cutting edge drama explored some gay-ish scenarios, teens today have a much different media environment. Not only are there quite a lot of gay adults in the media, but more and more, shows are including characters who are, or appear to be, gay as teenagers. And it’s not portrayed as a bad thing, or even much of a thing at all, and it often does so without dismissing the trauma of the self-discovery.

The spoilers begin now:

A couple weeks ago, watching Ugly Betty, my wife and I both gasped as Mark Indelicato‘s Justin Suarez declared “I’m not gay.” (It’s at the end of the

Justin has been portrayed as gay from the beginning

video). The character is meant to be about 14 years old. Since the beginning of the show, it was pretty obvious that Justin’s character — obsessed with Broadway musicals, fashion, body image and female celebrities — was being portrayed as gay. His character has already had what you could almost call a romantic friendship with a jock classmate when they both tried out for a part in a Broadway musical. And while I gasped at the character’s own objection, I got really excited too. This is real. I’m so excited to watch this storyline unfold because the actor and the writers are giving his journey some real depth.

This year, a teen, musical, drama debuted in the US, called Glee. From the beginning, Kurt was portrayed as gay, and as the season progressed, he came out, both to his friends and also to his father. I can’t find the genius scene where he came out to his dad, but I did find a teaser for it. Tall blonde dancing with him? Get ready for this. Yup, that’s Brittany telling all their friends that she and Santana, the other cheerleader in the scene, are indeed sleeping together (but not dating).

Not dating, just sex.

A few years back, a show called Sugar Rush (based on the book of the same name) aired in the UK and depicted in an unusually sensitive way, a young lesbian named Kim and her struggles to make peace with who she is (and her completely insane family, crazy even for British telly). The name “Sugar Rush” comes from her best friend’s nickname, Sugar,  and Kim’s crush on Sugar. Go on, watch the beginning of the first episode.

This is all hugely exciting. If you’re not a gay teen, think about what it’s like to be a gay teen and seeing characters on your screen who are going through the things you are going through or will be. Understand the difference between a gay teen who is watching these shows and a sheltered someone like myself who wasn’t convinced lesbians were real until I was 20.

The Glee storylines are a lot less angst ridden than the Ugly Betty ones. Even Kurt’s issues with his dad are quickly resolved when he discovers he’s a uniquely talented athlete and helps the football team win a game. But both characters in general have great support systems: people around them who aren’t phased by them being who they are. It’s a very stark contrast to the Degrassi Junior High clip where being gay, while being “tolerated”, is treated with disdain by the majority of characters. A gay teen watching that show certainly wouldn’t feel like leaping out of the closet. Watching Ugly Betty, Glee and Sugar Rush, however, one would wonder why wait?

Why wait?

Obviously, these shows aren’t real, and they aren’t in any way objectively representative of the way people live. However they do represent a huge cultural shift that enables young gay people to figure themselves out earlier than ever, and deal with it in a more constructive way. While kids will certainly continue to deal with upset parents, fearful and phobic friends, and our culture’s insistance on gender conformity, the people who are writing and producing these shows are creating a world where those kids can at least imagine a happy ending.

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