Was mr rogers gay

As Maxwell King wrote in The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, he was not perceived at the time to be traditionally masculine:

Rogers himself was often labeled “a sissy,” or gay, in a derogatory sense. But Rogers wasn't immune to the backward views society has held of queer people.

I don’t think you’re immoral,” Clemmons said Rogers told him, according to Long’s book.

“People must not know,” Rogers reportedly told Clemmons. His show regularly took on important and tough topics, like racism, the messiness of divorce, and the importance of inclusion.

In many ways, Rogers was well ahead of his time, boldly pushing boundaries in the right directions. Clemmons said Rogers told him it didn’t personally matter to him that he was homosexual. So if they are saying he’s gay because… that’s a surrogate for saying he’s weak, that’s not right, because he’s incredibly strong.” He adds: “He wasn’t a very masculine person, he wasn’t a very feminine person; he was androgynous.”

In a 1975 interview for the New York Times, Rogers noted drolly: “I’m not John Wayne, so consequently, for some people I’m not the model for the man in the house.”

When I was little, Mister Rogers was the man of the house.

Meanwhile, Rogers was married to one woman, Joanne, for almost all his adult life. The film, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” is slated for release in October.

Long — who wrote another 2015 book on Rogers, “Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers” — said in his essay for the Huffington Post that it’s not likely that Rogers acted on any attraction to men.

“There’s no publicly available evidence that Rogers ever engaged in gay sex,” Long wrote in his essay.

“I tell everyone who asks me, ‘No, he’s not gay.’ But I spent enough time with him that if there was a gay vibe I would have picked it up. And he always warmly welcomed Clemmons’ gay friends whenever they visited the television set in Pittsburgh."

I can't speak for Mister Rogers, of course.

It's a toxic combination that, if we're overgeneralizing and I reflect on my personal experience, tends to produce the worst kinds of homophobes. Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.”

As Out’s Mikelle Street notes, it’s tough to tell what Rogers meant by that in terms of his sexuality.

Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.”

https://twitter.com/GabrielLunesce/status/1102983655683698688

Rogers’ apparent admission to being attracted to both women and men had people on Twitter expressing profound delight, according to Pride.com.

“Holy (expletive),” one person on Twitter wrote.

I wish he'd celebrated Clemmons' queerness on screen and off and allowed the actor to sashay his way on stage one trailblazing episode, rainbow flag held high.

But that's the thing: The rainbow flag wasn't associated with LGBTQ pride when Clemmons considered leaving the closet, because LGBTQ pride wasn't even a thing in those pre-Stonewall days (at least in the mainstream).

As King repeatedly writes in the book, Rogers always put the needs of the small children who watched his program above all other concerns. Nope, not as far as I know.”

This week, LGBTQ Twitter users believed they uncovered evidence that Rogers saw himself as bisexual, according to Pride.com.