My epiphany
Marie-Helene Tyack
Global Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging Manager| Chair of the Global Allianz Pride Board | Winner 'Head of Diversity' Diva Awards 2024| Winner 'Inspirational Role Model' Rainbow Honours 2023
Growing up as a teenager in the 90s in Somerset I didn’t have many LGBTQ+ role models or anyone I could really talk to about the fact that I was attracted to girls. Society at the time was a very different place to what it is today. Homosexuality had only just been removed from the list of mental illness by the WHO and Section 28 was in full flow – so there was no LGBTQ+ education at school, very few LGBTQ+ people were out in the public eye and I didn’t know any lesbians, it was just not something that was spoken about. This lack of visibility is very difficult to imagine in today’s world, especially during Pride month where everywhere we look there is LGBTQ+ representation, but believe me that it was very different then.
Then in January 1994 something happened that was going to change my life forever. It was a simple and tender kiss (very tame in today’s standards) between Beth Jordache and Margaret Clemence in the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on British television on the soap Brookside. This kiss was seen by over 9 million viewers – the most in the soap’s 20 year history. This proved to be a pivotal moment and paved the way for LGBTQ+ representation in the UK, and was so iconic that it was also used in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012.
For the 17 year-old me it was nothing short of revolutionary. For the first time ever on TV did I have representation of what I was going through. How comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one in the world to have these feelings about my best friend, that there were other people like me. The struggle that Beth was having in putting a label on her feelings, the worry of coming out to her family and her fear of how she would be viewed by society were extremely relatable for me at the time and I was so thankful for her and her story. Without her I would not have had the courage to come out to myself first of all and then to others.
Beth Jordache had a massive impact on many people in the LGBTQ+ community – her untimely death in prison after having been found guilty of killing and burying her abusive father under the patio (this was a soap after all), broke many lesbian hearts.
#allianzpride #pride2021
Underwriting Portfolio Manager @ Liberty Specialty | MBA, Insurance management
3 年The TV and music scenarios offered LGBTQ+ community a great opportunity to see our dimension replicated on large scale. I think that is one of the reasons why we grew up so attached to our singers, actresses, actors and all other kind of show performers with a certain level of visibility.