This essay by Colton Haynes about what he went through in Hollywood before he came out, is honestly heartbreaking.
[…]Now I can see I was foolish to think making it would be easy or fun. The thing that made me valuable in private — my conspicuously gay sexuality — was a liability as I tried to make my way through the industry. This was in an era when casual homophobia was still a regular punch line on TV sitcoms. Modern Family wouldn’t premiere until a few years after I arrived in L.A. Actors had only begun to come out publicly, and none of them looked like the straight romantic lead. There are still few gay leading men in Hollywood who are out of the closet. I did what I was told to do. I took lessons with a voice instructor who had me talk while holding a highlighter between my teeth for the entire class so that when I took it out, my diction was crisp and clear. I practiced speaking with a folded Post-it note under my tongue to teach me to make my S sounds less sibilant, since the softness of them made me sound gay. […] I booked my first role in an episode of CSI: Miami. The day after it aired, calls started pouring in from companies wanting to represent me.
I signed with a new team, but the rules were the same. It considered the XY photo shoot I had done so radioactive it had lawyers send cease-and-desist letters to anyone who posted the images online. When I was photographed cozying up with Lauren Conrad at an event in 2011, I was told not to deny our rumored relationship — better to have the tabloids speculate about us. (She must have known I was gay, but we never spoke about it.) At a photo shoot for a fashion editorial, the [soft core gay magazine] XY pictures were up on the mood board. A member of my team threw a fit. I understood because it was explained to me repeatedly — by managers, agents, publicists, executives, producers — that the only thing standing between me and the career I wanted was that I was gay. It was like this for my best years of work, throughout the early 2010s, as I built a career on young-adult shows like MTV’s Teen Wolf and the CW superhero series Arrow. It’s not just straight people who are the gatekeepers — the call often comes from inside the house. I’m eternally grateful to the handful of gay men who created opportunities for me: Jeff Davis, Greg Berlanti, and Ryan Murphy. They were the exception, not the rule.
My mental health deteriorated, and I grew dependent on alcohol and pills. When a doctor suggested my secret was making me sick, I knew he was right. I came out of the closet in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2016. I hoped it would set me free, and in some ways it did. An outpouring of support followed. But people also published think pieces saying it had taken me too long; another gay actor implied the way I’d done it was cowardly. And incidentally, the work mostly dried up. When I was closeted, I beat out straight guys to play straight roles, and I played them well. Now, the only auditions I get are for gay characters, which remain sparse. Is that because I’m not very good? Maybe. But that didn’t stop me from booking roles before. It’s no different for the young gay actors I see coming up today, trying to make it in a system that isn’t built for them.
To be a gay actor in Hollywood, even in 2021, is to be inundated with mixed messages: Consumers are mostly straight, so don’t alienate them. But lots of the decision-makers are gay, so play that game! Now that I’m older and sober, I’m trying to square who I am with the inauthentic version of myself I invested in for years. I often wonder how different things would’ve been if I were allowed to be who I was when I moved to town: a hopeful kid confident in his sexuality.
Read the full article here but be mindful of triggering content
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