I have to say I think it is rather disappointing that all
CNN could come up with in terms of a gay Latino public figure for their online story is Perez Hilton and then make it seem he is the only one.
“Hilton is a Latino pioneer. He is one of the first Latino public figures in the U.S. to be openly gay. While Latinos have broken ground on the U.S. Supreme Court, in Hollywood and in professional sports, gay Latinos in the nation’s public arena remain largely invisible.”
The author then concludes his piece with this outlandish claim:
“For now, Hilton, the Hollywood blogger, may seem like a coalition of one — a Latino public figure who is proud of being gay.”
Really? Sounds like they bought into Perez’ own self promotion rather than actually doing some investigation for the story. A simple Google search would have brought up scores of examples of out and proud Latino and Latina public figures throughout America.
Right in Hilton’s hometown of LA is openly gay state Assemblyman John Perez and long before Hilton started blogging Latino actor Wilson Cruz came out of the closet
Here in San Francisco our city treasurer is an openly gay Latino man, Jose Cisneros, who has been in office 4 years and has been praised by both GOP CA governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the White House for his work.
Down in San Diego longtime Gay and Lesbian Times columnist Nicole Murray Ramirez chairs that cities Human Rights Commission and is a longtime stalwart in fighting for labor rights, immigration and LGBT issues. He travels around the country speaking to non-gay audiences constantly and is a co-chair of the equality march in DC this weekend.
In Dallas the county sheriff is an out lesbian Latina, Lupe Valdez
And of course the new president of GLAAD is Jarrett Barrios, a gay Latino who served in the Massachusetts state Senate.
All of these people would have made for great interviews in the piece and punctured this false assumption that Perez Hilton is some army of one when it comes to out LGBT Latino(a)s in public life.