USA Africa Dialogue Series - Editor's Letter: What It Means to Be Out

From The Advocate October 2011
Editor's Letter: What It Means to Be Out
Breen lauds Lynch for participating in one of the most fundamental
things a person can do to improve the lives of future generations — be
out in the public forum.
By Matthew Breen
MATTHEW BREEN XLRG | ADVOCATE.COM

I first encountered Jane Lynch in 2000 when I saw her in Best in Show
playing a tough-as-nails lesbian dog trainer, and then in a variety
stage show in a tiny Los Angeles theater where she played an
obnoxiously hilarious lesbian self-help guru. I was instantly a fan.
In the dozens and dozens of film and TV roles since (she may be the
hardest-working woman in show business), she's played sweet and
shocking, gay and straight, and characters whose noxious qualities
make orientation irrelevant. Lynch says she never did an official
coming-out interview because she'd never been in — and to my knowledge
she was active in LGBT organizations long before finding fame, and
she's never been shy about saying to the media that she's a lesbian.

Her understanding of being out is far different from the "I've never
been closeted" line I read so often from celebrities (sometimes in
this publication) insisting that telling their parents and friends
that they're gay equals being out. Lynch was out. Those others most
often were not.

You'll forgive me if I descend into a professional gripe over this
point. Being out is the most fundamental thing we can do to improve
the lives of future generations, and for most of us, it's as basic
(though not to say easy) as telling the people in our lives. But if
you're a person in the public eye and you refuse to say you're LGBT in
a public forum, you're unequivocally not out. Yes, you have a
different standard than the nonfamous. While telling someone how and
when to come out is pushing the point further than I care to do, who
among us — more than the wealthy and famous — has the luxury of coming
out and doing a ton of good in the process? Entertainers, come out.
The water's fine.

Check out our compilation of some of Lynch's most hilarious and
memorable roles on the following pages...

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