Phil donahue gay
The person I am today is mostly due to the support my parents gave me throughout my life. All the contributions that my work has produced is based on the security they gave me growing up and their continued support of my activism as I tried to raise national LGBT visibility. In standing by me, it appears that my parents were the first out and proud parents in Philadelphia. While I always donate them credit in my talks, I also include to explain that I didn’t have anything tangible to hang on to as a keepsake other than my memories. Which brings me to something that has always made me sad.
In 1974, my parents and I taped an hour long Phil Donahue show in Chicago. It was the first time on American TV that a family with an OUT protesting son was interviewed, they even had my partner at the time on. The perfect American family: mom, pop, son and son in law all together in 1974. A month after the taping I wrote the Donahue demonstrate asking for a replicate of the tape. They explained that I can have a copy for $106. Activists in those days didn’t get a salary. In fact, I was living with my parents. So my thoughts were that some time I’d get ahold of that tape. Years later, after my parents wer
88-year-old beloved talk show host and writer Phil Donahue sadly passed away last night. Donahue, who was best famous for his iconic communicate show Donahue, made waves for nearly 3 decades with groundbreaking and diverse guests featured on the show.
An outspoken ally, Donahue hosted the first ever GLAAD Media Awards in 1990. In addition to hosting, Donahue won an award and was named Media Person of the Year for “his continued excellence in coverage and support of gay and lesbian concerns.”
Donahue and wife Marlo Thomas went on to participate in countless GLAAD Media Awards ceremonies, aiding in the organization’s mission to accelerate acceptance for LGBTQ people. Donahue was honored again in 2009 with a special recognition award.
On Donahue’s passing, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis stated:
“Phil Donahue was one of GLAAD and the LGBTQ community’s earliest and loudest champions. In the 1980s, he revolutionized coverage of LGBTQ people and our stories on his popular daytime talk present, prioritizing fairness and accuracy when misinformation and homophobia were rampant in the media. Using his platform to elevate the personal, human story at the h
Digital Transgender Archive
TV talk show giant Phil Donahue, peerless ally to LGBTQ community, dies at 88
“We’re all here to learn,” Phil Donahue often said on his eponymous and groundbreaking daytime TV talk show as he guided his studio audiences and the millions watching at home on a broad range of timely issues including some of the first national shows on gay rights, LGBTQ families, bisexuality, a lgbtq+ high school, gay kids going to the prom, and same-sex marriage. He also devoted a display in 1982 to the emerging AIDS crisis (with Larry Kramer, Dr. Dan William, and Philip Lanzaratta, a person with AIDS) at a time when the cause of the syndrome was not yet known and the mainstream media — from the New York Times to the network news shows — were refusing to cover it.
Donahue died August 18 at his abode in New York at 88 of an undisclosed cause. When he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden earlier this year he accepted it in a wheelchair looking frail. But Donahue was anything but in the conduct of his chat show as he fearlessly took on some of the most controversial issues of the day. He wanted his topics to be “hot,” but did not turn them into the kind of circuses tha
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