Ariel Winter and Levi Meaden's romance reached a new level Sunday.
The actors attended the TrevorLIVE Los Angeles Fundraiser in Beverly Hills, marking their first red carpet as a couple. Winter, 18, blushed when E! News asked about her boyfriend, 29, but she had plenty to say about The Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning people ages 13-24.
"Trevor Project is so amazing for LGBTQ youth," the Modern Family star said. And after the election, she added, "I think that it's really important for young people to be there supporting and speaking out and continuing with their fight. I think it's really important for me to be here."
ABC's Modern Family is one of the more inclusive shows on the air—a fact Winter was quite proud to share. "It feels absolutely amazing, honestly. It was never weird for me when I was young," she said. "It was always something where I was like, 'If you love each other, no matter what you are, you should always be together.' For me, when I was on the show, I loved that there was that dynamic with the age gaps, with having a gay couple on the show. I loved it. It was kind of like, 'Love everybody. Love who you are. Love who you're with.' I love that we kind of normalized that on the show. I love the feedback we got from that. It was really incredible."
Winter, who plays brainy middle child Alex Dunphy, hopes other shows will follow Modern Family's lead. "It was really nice to be on a show with such a positive message with that," the young actress told E! News of the Emmy-winning mockumentary series. "I really appreciate it."