I remember on the pilot of 'Will and Grace' some executives from NBC saying to me, 'There are too many gay jokes.' I said, 'If not on this show, then what show?'
Obviously, there's so many different types of gay people, but some people don't know that. Some people think we all look and act a certain type of way.
The token gay character is always so funny and so fantastic. That's happened a lot. Or they're often purely victims.
There are sometimes concerns about being respectful with a gay character, and you either end up with a tiptoeing quality or an all-out cliche.
For more than two decades, GLAAD has combatted anti-LGBT images in the media and changed the national conversation about LGBT people.
People have often asked if I'm gay because I don't go out of my way to spit and scratch and give people attitude.
What's disheartening for me and to all of us in GLAAD is when it comes to major studio films, LGBT people are basically invisible. And when we do show up, it's largely a part of comedies as carictatures to service a joke that's at the expense of the character.
A lot of people, when they look at the whole trans thing, they think,'Oh, you're transgender, and in the fashion industry, which is very pro-LGBT, so you don't have any problems because it's a progressive place.' But that's not the reality.
