How well I remember Buddy Lawrence, the tomboyish character on the TV series Family. It was the late 70s and I was already out of the closet and involved with gay rights organizations. I had come out to my family and friends. I worked at an organization that promoted human rights in classrooms throughout the country. Most folks there didn’t care that I was queer.

I made my choices. Other people remained in the closet and pursued careers that didn’t allow them to be as out as I was. I didn’t see the sense in making more money if I had to lie about who I was. Certainly not a popular way of thinking back then.

I had no doubt that Buddy was a dyke. Neither did any of my gay friends. She was often mentioned among lists of Hollywood celebs that people suspected were “friends of Dorothy,” as some of us called them.

Hollywood was one huge land of denial. So many actors and actresses were trapped in its merciless “celluloid closet,” as author Vito Russo termed it. The studios hid the homosexuality of their stars. They arranged marriages, they made up romances, they did everything they could to convince folks that their big money makers were as “normal” as could be.

I know that many people will now praise Kristy McNichols for finally coming out of her lesbian closet. I want to ask, what took her so long?

McNichols says that she is outing herself to help LGBT kids who are being bullied in schools. Yet kids have been bullied for as long as I can remember. I know because I was bullied in school for being a sissy. Which I was, but that was no reason to harass me day in and day out. 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate that McNichols, at almost 50 years of age, is taking the plunge into the world of being open. It’s just frustrating that she wasted so much time in doing it.

She hasn’t been a “star” since the mid-90s when she pretty much gave up acting. There were reported personal problems, even an announcement at one point that she was bi polar. Who knows how much of that was true or merely a coverup for her discomfort with living the big lie. It does take its toll, no matter what people say.

It would have been heroic to come out back when a lot of people still remembered her from Family and the sitcom Empty Nest. She could have broken down barriers. She could have championed bullying at a time when most people didn’t acknowledge that it existed. 

These days, lots of people are championing the fight against bullying. It’s not a daring thing to do. Few people (except for the hard core, right-wing Christian loonies) are going to condemn her for it.

In fact, her coming out doesn’t seem to have made much of a splash at all. Possibly because the current generation of young people don’t know about Buddy Lawrence and people my age who fondly remember her aren’t shocked by someone saying they’re lesbian.

A testament to the work that we did in coming out back when it did shock people.