This story begins a year before Greg Berlanti was born. So, who is Greg Berlanti? If you watched the Emmy Awards on Sept. 15, you might have felt a sense of inclusion when they announced the recipient of the prestigious Governors Award. It was awarded to Berlanti, the out TV writer, producer and director who is the subject of this column.
While I don’t believe we’ve ever met, like me, all of us in the LGBTQ+ community have been impacted by his work. Berlanti has been a writer, producer and director for more than 40 TV shows and films, and he’s made us visible through the numerous LGBTQ+ characters and conversations he has brought to our screens. Introducing LGBTQ+ characters into primetime television is a passion of his, and some of these characters you may recognize.
“Dawson’s Creek” featured the first portrayal of a gay teen and his first on-screen kiss. In other shows, Berlanti introduced the first legal gay marriage and the first transgender superhero. In film, he’s responsible for “Fellow Travelers,” “The Broken Hearts Club,” “Red, White & Royal Blue,” and “Love, Simon,” among many others.
Berlanti explained his passion by stating that, growing up, he noticed something that was also apparent to me during my youth: There were no characters like us on TV. It made both of us feel isolated, alone, or like “others.” He captured this sentiment perfectly in his acceptance speech when he said, “Back then, the only way to tell if another kid might be gay was if he also watched ‘Dynasty,’ ‘Dallas’ and could name all four of the Golden Girls.” So, he set out to change that and make us visible.
My life’s work has been to fight for visibility because visibility leads to dialogue, education, and ultimately, equality. When Berlanti was one year old, I started my campaign to end LGBTQ+ invisibility on television. Many today say it was pioneering to witness a gay man disrupting live TV shows such as CBS News with Walter Cronkite in 1973, “TODAY” and others. While I fought for visibility with my actions, Berlanti does it with his pen—or, these days, his computer keyboard.
So, on Sunday night, after he accepted the award, I sent him the following message: “From one LGBTQ+ TV pioneer to another: Congratulations. Your work has made my dream of ending invisibility a reality. Thank you.”
