Here's to Colton Haynes and Those Who Are Helping to Steer Us Closer to Actually Having an Inclusive, Tolerant Society

Arrow star is the latest to talk sexuality, another step on the road to society's greater understanding that people are just people

By Natalie Finn May 06, 2016 1:55 AMTags
Colton Haynes, Wentworth Miller, Neil Patrick Harris, Anderson Cooper, Ellen PageGetty Images

Despite the best efforts of some people (and legislatures) who just don't get it, as a society we continue to inch closer to being composed of just people.

Not gay or straight people. Just people. And we should all be subjected to the same descriptors: nice, mean, smart, obtuse, lovely, creepy, polite, rude, generous, stingy, sexy...the list of subjective human conditions goes on.

Bear in mind we're observing the incremental changes in the world from the generally inclusive Hollywood bubble, in which we are gratefully spoiled, but it's still a fact that those who are trying to delay progress—and reject the fact that human beings are at their core more similar than they are different—are on the wrong side of history. Being gay is the same as being not gay, in that it's just how a person is born. Loving a person of the same sex should be as much of a non-issue as it is to love someone of a different sex, because it's just as natural.

Colton Haynes, of Teen Wolf and Arrow fame, confirmed that he is gay in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, in which he also revealed that he spent months being treated for anxiety spurred by the discomfort he felt earlier this year when someone on Tumblr referred to Haynes' "secret gay past" in a post. He replied with class on his own page, "Was it a secret? Let's all just enjoy life & have no regrets :)" and the response from anyone worth listening to on the Internet was overwhelmingly warm and positive.

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Yet still he was thrown for a loop, admitting now that, at the time, he was not ready to be making headlines but then he felt guilty that he didn't reveal more when put on the spot like that.

Now, Haynes told EW, he's happier and healthier than he's ever been—but it took some time to get there, and the actor couldn't be less alone in that respect.

So we'd like to take this opportunity to thank Colton Haynes for adding his voice to a conversation that can't be had loudly enough until the day comes in which it doesn't need to be had at all. We don't know when that day will be, but hats off to Haynes and the ever-growing list of stars who have shared their truths for giving the world a brave push in that direction.

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Because Hollywood—figuratively in addition to geographically speaking—has certainly helped show just how much a non-issue sexuality should be on a daily basis. However, the fact that it's talked about constantly is an indicator of two things: the remnants of the days when it was a taboo topic, and therefore a racy, probing thing to ask about in interviews; and a prevailing curiosity.

By learning more about others we're always learning more about ourselves, even if the lesson to be learned is in how we react to other people's sexuality.

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From TV stars like Ellen DeGeneres, Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen and Robin Roberts, who have legions of fans who tune in to watch them daily; to long-coupled fathers like Neil Patrick Harris and Matt Bomer; to stars like Ellen Page and Wentworth Miller, who realized more recently that life would feel so much better once they just put it out there; to artists like Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, Raven-Symoné, James Franco and, in the latest issue of Cosmo, Shay Mitchell, who refuse to put a label on sexuality or confine themselves to a neatly checked-off box—celebrities may only make up a teeny fraction of the overall population, but every bold-faced name who lives life on his or her terms is contributing to the greater good.

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"I'm happy to be gay, I'm so comfortable being gay, I love being gay—and honestly it wasn't until making that choice in doing that, where I realized like, no, I was carrying a tremendous amount of shame and guilt for not being out and I felt isolated from the LGBT community, and now I don't," Ellen Page told Ellen DeGeneres on Ellen in April 2014, a couple of months after coming out on Valentine's Day during a speech she was giving at Time to THRIVE, a conference to promote the welfare of LGBT youth.

Page added, "It's so nice to just you know be at work and talk about an ex or, you know, get to wear what you want and not have a conversation about it, and to feel like you're being yourself and then connect with people in the world."

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Regarding everything that Page said, who wants to imagine not being able to talk freely about something as pedestrian as dating or exes?

While it would be something to live to see a day where the phrase "coming out" no longer holds any particular meaning because no one feels the need to be "in" in the first place, the importance of famous people like Ellen Page, like Colton Haynes, like Ruby Rose, like Jussie Smollett, like Sam Smith speaking their peace when the timing feels right to them cannot be overestimated.

Which is interesting, because at the same time, a person's sexuality is a most private matter—so it's ironic that, the more people talk about it openly and honestly, the closer we can get to moving our relationships back behind closed doors, if that's where we want them. Ideally the kind of door that no one feels the need to peek through.

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"There's never been a closet that I've been in. I don't own a closet. I got a dresser, but I don't have a closet…I have a home and that is my responsibility to protect that home," Jussie Smollett explained on Ellen last year when the Empire star chose to comment publicly on his sexuality for the first time.

"So that's why I choose not to talk about my personal life," the actor continued. "But there is, without a doubt, no closet that I've ever been in, and I just wanted to make that clear. But it was most important for me to make that clear to you on your show at this time in the world.  And that's where I'm at."

Sounds like a place that a lot of people are still looking for—and society as a whole will be better off so long as anyone who wants to is free to find it.

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