Sara Gilbert: “I am who I am”—But Does She Represent All of Us?

Last Thursday, I pointed out that the CBS press release announcing lesbian mom and actor Sara Gilbert’s new talk show simply said she lived “with her family,” whereas for each of the other five co-hosts, it mentioned their husbands by name.

Deadline Hollywood now reports that Gilbert told the Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour, “That came from me, CBS would write whatever I wanted. I’ve been acting all my life, and never discussed my personal life . . . I will do it here but a press release is so impersonal.”

Trish Bendix at After Ellen, who also covered the event, wrote, “OK a little strange, in my opinion. She seems to almost be shy about publicizing the fact she’s a mom and a lesbian. That or Allison [Adler, Gilbert’s partner] is not interested in being on camera or a huge part of the show.”

But Trish notes that Gilbert then said, “I don’t ever really think of things as out or in. I am who I am. When topics come up that are appropriate, I’ll talk about them and share when it seems right.”

I have to respect that. It is her life and her family, after all. But I also agree with Trish that it seems a little odd, if only because the discrepancy with the other co-hosts was glaring, at least to many of us in the LGBT community. From a marketing perspective, it seems a bad call. Still, I’m glad it wasn’t because of homophobia at CBS.

Over at Entertainment Week’s PopWatch column, however, writer Tanner Stransky effuses, “I’m excited to hear more about the way Sara and Allison raise their two adorable children, mostly because they seem like good ladies and great representatives of lesbian moms everywhere.”

Gah. I know the comment was meant well, and I’m sure Gilbert and Adler are fine people. I just dislike when the media makes one person or couple, however noble they may be, representatives for a whole group. It’s not fair to either the person/couple or the group.

Ah well. At least this way people won’t think we all sleep with our sperm donors.

5 thoughts on “Sara Gilbert: “I am who I am”—But Does She Represent All of Us?”

  1. How about Elizabeth Hasselback’s comment on The View that the reason why women come out later in life [decide to be lesbian] is because all the men start dating younger women and so all they have left is each other [for companionship]. She really bugs the heck out of me.

  2. As an out and proud LGBT public relations professional in training, I found this to be an incredibly bad call on marketing/PR. We (the LGBT community) are at a point where we need people like Sara to be confident with who they are and not to hide behind closed doors. I voice my out and proud-ness openly and in a very tasteful way but I would never have the same reach and impact that people like Sara Gilbert and Ellen Degeneres have.

    I’m not suggesting that Sara Gilbert needs to flaunt her family and I do respect her privacy. But I feel there are ways that one can be open about their true family life while not unveiling its inner workings to the public. (Perhaps this is hard because when I walked out of my office in NYC the other day I did see someone from TMZ ready to pounce).

    Again, I feel we need people like Sara to share their stories openly in order to educate the portion of our society that believes the LGBT community somehow does not deserve equal rights. When something like this happens, it’s hard not to perceive it as an attack of bigotry by CBS or not to wonder whether or not someone advised Sara about not be open about her family. I’m glad to read that it was Sara’s decision.

    Sara if you read this, we need you! Please consider being open in sharing your wonderful family stories. It would be a huge help to all of us.

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