Sunday, February 08, 2015

A week into LGBT History Month, but no mention yet on CBBC. To be fair we have seen a few famous gay people on the channel, such as Sir Ian McKellen in a new series called Cinemaniacs.

What would be really good to see is more real recognition of today's stars, as well as some from history, like Alan Turing and Leonardo da Vinci.

Here are a couple of modern-day suggestions:

Lesbian journalist and newsreader, Jane Hill.

Ms Hill came out to all her BBC colleagues in December 2009. Her exemplary journalistic skills can be seen in this excerpt from an interview with Kate and Gerry McCann (May 2007):

Jane Hill: I've spoken to a lot of people over the weeks - local people who'd given up a lot of time - and you've talked about the support they'd given you. I met people who didn't go to work for more than a week because every day they were down on the beach ... searching the streets ... did you, as a mother, Kate, just sometimes think: I've got to be out there with them - I want to go and just physically look as well

Jane Hill interviews the McCanns in Portugal (May 2007)


Another person, who also came out as gay in December 2009, is Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas. The BBC gave him loads of publicity at the time, but not on CBBC Newsround. The current editor of Newsround, Lewis James, is a real fan of Welsh rugby, and with the Six Nations Championships underway, there couldn't really be a better time to make up for the past omission.

Kids need to see that being lesbian or gay is no bar to being the best, whatever their career choice might be.

No comments: