August 12, 2026 • 33 mins
The modern day definition of beards and lavender marriages in the gay community has evolved over the years, from old Hollywood celebrities wanting to keep their career to young folks wanting to keep their family - or simply afford the cost of living. Anney and Samantha shine a light on the shifting narrative around these relationships.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Stanny Ann smitha stuff I never told
you protection iHeartRadio, and welcome to another edition of me
still having beef with being ceer baited. So for listeners
(00:29):
who don't know, I'm thinking about making this a playlist
because we have the functionality and that we love. A
good playlist could really work through some of these things,
because I have been working through it since January. And
the weather outside, by the way, it's storming fiercely just
(00:51):
matches my emotions about being cueer baited. So if you
hear it, it's it's just appropriate.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Is the world agree?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yes? Yes, So today we're talking about beards in the
LGBTQ plus community sense and I was kind of surprised
no one has ever done an episode on this. There
are a lot of as in no one past host.
I'm sure other people have done episodes on it, but
(01:23):
there are a lot of interesting facets when it comes
to women and this particular intersection that we're going to
get into. It also took me to a place that
wasn't expecting to go because the meaning has kind of
shifted in recent years, and I completely missed this whole
trend of it shifting and we're going to talk about that.
(01:46):
I want to say at the top of this one.
It probably goes without saying, but I'm just going to
say it as someone who kind of took a while
to figure out I was queer and how exactly I
was queer. There is there's no singular gay experience. There
is not one roadmap. There are many reasons to be
careful and how we understand and talk about topics like
(02:09):
this and generalizing queer relationships at large. There are stories
of everyone believing someone is gay no matter what you say,
or the opposite, that someone must be experimenting, that they
must be straight no matter what you say. Both are
dismissive and harmful in different ways. There are forces, both
(02:31):
large and small, pushing people into straight relationships from a
very young age, sometimes in a way that is unknowingly harmful.
There are labels people who are closeted and may be
experiencing internalized homophobia or compet might accept before accepting that
they're queer, you know, just to having these ideas like
(02:52):
that's just how this relationship is, that's just how best
friends behave. I'll get over this. That was something I
felt for a while. Then there is a level of
protection of publicly presenting as straight via a relationship that
could be unconscious or conscious, and we'll talk about that more.
(03:13):
All that being said, yes, we are going over an
abbreviated history of beards in the LGBTQ plus community, which
can be a bit twisty in terms of why people
engage in these types of relationships, and it has changed
over time. Also, a lot of them involve speculation, so
(03:35):
keep that mind. So what is a beard in the
context of the LGBTQ plus community. A beard is a
person who dates or marries a gay person to help
them conceal their sexuality, whether they know it or not.
Having a beard was a way to stave off any
(03:56):
rumors of queerness, especially from the nineteen twenties to the
nineteen fifties. It could be that both people in this
situation are gay, but typically beard is used to refer
to a relationship between a lesbian or a straight woman
and a gay man. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slaying
and Unconventional English defines it as quote a person who
(04:18):
escorts another to a social function in order to mask
the identity of one or the other's lover or sexual orientation.
It has been used in the past to reference someone
who acted as a way to hide infidelity, but that
usage is pretty much fallen by the wayside, but that
at one time was the case. There's some argument about
(04:41):
the origins of beard in this context, and folks they
really don't agree. According to some sources, it relies on
the idea that women are covering for gay men, giving
them a masculine beard to hide their homosexuality. There's actually
a lot of commentary about it, so if you want
to look into it you can. The term with this
(05:03):
definition goes back to nineteen fifty six and probably earlier.
It does have a historical Hollywood connotation that may go
back to the nineteen twenties, when Hollywood contracts included morality
clauses that forbade any engaging in queer relationships because they
were believed to be damaging to a celebrity's image and
(05:24):
the studio's image as well. It's related to terms like
lavender dating or lavender marriage or front dating. We're going
to talk more about lavender dating and its evolution because
this was all news to me, but at the time
it referred to a mixed sexual orientation. Relationship between a
(05:44):
man and a woman, a relationship of convenience to avoid
social stigma and reap the benefits of a heterosexual relationship.
Lavender dating typically refers to actors or other public figures
hiding their sexuality. At the time before World War Two,
would be openly queer was not accepted, and certainly you
wouldn't get work if people knew about it. In fact,
(06:06):
it could end a person's career if there was even
a hint or a suspicion about it about you possibly
being queer, whether you were or not. The term itself
may go as far back to the UK in eighteen
ninety five, when the color lavender was associated with homosexuality.
There are lavender lavender dating apps like right Now, but
(06:29):
more on that later. Yes, as discussed in our episode
on the bird Cage, the Motion Picture Production Code or
the Hayes Code from nineteen twenty two to nineteen forty
five didn't allow for the depiction of gay characters in film,
though there were ways to get around it or to
suggest it subtext, but the actors were roped into this too,
(06:52):
so they were being pressured to not be openly gay
or again even hint and being gay, and sometimes were
placed in year of relationships by their agents or managers
at the best of the studio. Despite widespread homophobia at
the time, the term beard became popular in the nineteen
sixties as a slang in the queer community. This is
(07:14):
also around the time of the Lavender Scare, when lesbian women,
who were largely associated with lavender by this point, and
gay men were deemed as security threats by the US government. Ethically,
people argue about beard's is it using someone? Mostly the
(07:35):
consensus seems to be if it is an arrangement entered
consensually or at the very least both parties are aware
or unintentionally for both parties so they don't know, then
it's fine. It is a bit more complicated than that, because,
as I said, a lot of these relationships are really
(07:57):
loving or actually I haven't said that yet. Both this
outline a lot they are actually really loving a lot
of them. So sometimes when someone admits that they weren't
straight but we're hoping that a straight relationship would quote
cure them or they'd grow into it, there's hurt and anger,
but often there's still care once the dust settles, and
(08:21):
I do want to reiterate that, and I will throughout
the episode. Another argument that comes up is how this
isn't a great situation for both parties, but often women
who entered into a relationship with a man who still
has gay partners while she is home taking care of
everything around the household, then it's unfairly impacting her. It
(08:44):
requires a lie if the situation is intentional. It was
expected that for a lot of these beards who were
women in old Hollywood days, that they wouldn't engage in
extramarital affairs. There has been some research into the negative
mental impacts of relationships like these. Will talk a little
(09:06):
bit more about those in a second, but obviously a
little bit hard to study. I did find her a
pretty interesting am I the whole post on Reddit about this.
It was about two people who were trying to escape
their religious community, and one was a straight woman and
the other was a gay man. They both entered this
(09:28):
relationship knowing these things, and they did it to escape
this religion. The post was kind of about like, was
she the soul for not telling her family? Most people
on it seemed to say, like, no, if they were.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Not, they're escaping right. Obviously they were escaping someunthing. Yeah,
maybe the family.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, but it was It was actually a nice post
because she was saying, now he's got a partner and
they're all friends together, like you know, it didn't fall apart.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, so that happens more often than people think, like
when you have really strict religious places. And we talked
about it with like the asexual community in India in
that kind of level of like they didn't call it lavender,
but like essentially the queer people who are like, we're
not interested in this, we don't need these things or
we you know, like it kind of yeah, saves their
(10:27):
reputation and like their livelihoods sometimes.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah. Yeah, we have a piece about that more in
a second too. But I just thought it was interesting
because I guess she was worried about She did feel
a lot of pressure from her family, which a lot
of people do feel, but she was also worried about
Uh it sounds like she didn't spend a lot on
her wedding, but she was worried about the financial costs
(10:53):
of the wedding when they never really intended to necessarily
stay together. But I do love that they together as friends, right,
and she's friends with his partner now, and yeah, like
I said, to reiterate, a lot of these come these
relationships come from a place of care. So this brings
(11:23):
us to some famous examples. There are quite a few,
but as I said, it's difficult to separate fact from
fiction with these. A lot of rumors and sensationalists reporting
and speculation. When it comes to examples like this, some
of them I couldn't find anything more on. People just
(11:43):
think maybe, so I didn't include it. And also a
lot of these don't have confirmation from the person in question,
specifically about their sexuality, so it's still up for debate
all that in. Perhaps one of the most famous examples
was Rock Hudson, who married his secretary of Phyllis Gates
(12:07):
in the mid nineteen fifties. After a magazine threatened to
expose his affairs with various men. His agent went on
damage control, throwing some clients of his under the bus
and process and arranged an outwardly heterosexual marriage to protect
Hudson's career. Even so, it was apparently an open secret
(12:28):
that he was gay, and he and Gate separated two
years later. This was notable for a lot of reasons,
but one of the reasons is the image Hudson had.
He was seen as a beefcake. He was a Hollywood
heart throb, the image of a straight man that women
could lust after and hope to be with one day,
and straight men could only hope to attain that kind
(12:52):
of image, and it was important to keep intact for
his career, although I'm sure gay men lusted after the
image as well. He later became one of the first
Hollywood celebrities to speak openly about his HIV diagnosis, and
he died of AIDS related complications around his sixtieth birthday.
(13:12):
The year before, he'd been pressured into kissing actress Linda
Evans on Dynasty, something he reportedly was really resistant to
because he knew he was sick and he was worried
about transmitting it to her, and at the time, people
still didn't really know how AIDS worked. So if you
want to learn more about him, there are several documentaries
(13:34):
about him, and there's a lot of other information. I
will say Gates herself insisted that they married out of
love and nothing else, and he wasn't officially outed until
after his sess so he didn't ever say it. The
rumors of his alleged homosexuality drew so much attention that
(13:55):
they are often credited with helping foster the early tabloid industry,
industry that profited off early outings of public figures with
which I personally find really cross, but yeah, it was
a big deal. Here's another one, actor William Billy Haynes,
a film actor whose career started taking off in the
(14:17):
nineteen twenties. He moved from silent films to sound films
without much trouble, which was kind of like a boon
at the time, and he was a real asset for
MGM Studios. Story has it, though, that a higher up
at MGM gave Haynes an ultimatum his career or his
homosexual lifestyle, because at the time he lived in an
(14:41):
openly queer relationship with his partner, Jimmy Shields. Haynes's career
shriveled because he chose his relationship, and his relationship with
Shields lasted until his death nineteen seventy three. Some people
do suggest he may have won wanted to retire and
pursue his interest in interior design, which he did anyway,
(15:05):
but it's likely that he was getting pressure to enter
into a beard relationship. It could have been both were
at play, but he left it behind. Allegedly, Judy Garland
didn't realize her husband was gay and later told her
daughter to marry a gay man because they were the
best partners.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't know if she went through somethings, so that
makes sense. To be honest, it is not true a me,
but like it could be believed. It's pretty believable.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah. Yes. Betty White has long been rumored to be
the beard for Liberacchi and attended a lot of events
with him to give him a straight outbi Again, none
of all, none of this is necessarily confirmed, but this
is the rumor. In nineteen fifty nine, the performer won
(15:55):
a lawsuit that insinuated that he was gay, so these
rumors were really prolific around him. His agent was so
desperate to fight these rumors that he attempted to hide
the fact that Liberacci was HIV positive at the time
of his death in nineteen eighty seven. That being said,
that's not necessarily what led to his death. There were
(16:16):
a couple of other things that were going on, but
sources do indicate his agent was pushing a certain narrative.
White herself later seemed to confirm he was gay. So
actor Jonathan Schnick, I'm so sorry if I'm butchering that,
claimed in an ama on Reddit that his manager requested
(16:39):
he attend events with Ellen DeGeneres as her beard in
the early days of her show Ellen, when there were
concerns that viewership would be negatively impacted if audience has
learned about her sexuality. He called it an honor.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Did she have male relationship I'm trying to remember. I
don't remember her having any relationships.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, it could just be he's attending with her. So
people are like assuming I was wondering.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Because I feel like that was never I'm sorry, that's
a sidetrack because like I don't remember because I was
young when she was big, like in her own she
had her own show, sitcom like that really propelled her.
And that was before we knew that she was a lesbian.
That's before she came out. Did she ever date on
(17:27):
band publicly?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I don't feel like she did, but maybe she. Okay,
keep going, Sorry, that's gonna be in my head for
a minute.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Well, I mean that's kind of the thing is it's
just the suggestion that maybe she is this person is
always with her speculation. This is also when representation of
Beard started showing up in sitcoms like Will and Grace,
along with the very related gay best friend Trope. I
(17:56):
speaking of memories when I was researching this, I feel
like there was a conversation about this when Tom Cruise
and Katie Holmes got married. You've got like the scientology angle,
so it's hard to say, but there there was an
air of performative marriage to prevent any questions and preserve
his celebrity image. And I remember thinking it was weird
(18:18):
at the time, and I was young. It felt so
forced for whatever reason. But also can people not just
be single? Right?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay, I need to go back, because I did look
it up. So that du that you mentioned, who is
actually pretty famous, like I remember him because he was
a heart throb, but apparently they wore a picture together
holding hands and such, so I guess he was a
beard for her. I did not realize. Yeah, oh gooy
things I didn't remember.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the thing is it still happens. Yeah,
our at least speculation still happens about secret gay Hollywood stars.
A part of this plays and just something called showmance
or dating someone for clout, for both for both their careers.
This doesn't have to be queer necessarily. We're gonna talk
(19:07):
about queerbating aspect momentarily. But you know, two actors are
good looking, attractive, think it might do better for their careers.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You know, I've seen it actually play out in YouTube,
like Big Two Creators tending to be dating and like,
oh my god, we've been waiting for this, like there's
this new level. Yes, and they're not actually dating, and
it's not necessarily because they're a beer. They're just trying
to get that showman's that like notoriety because they're blending
their yeah viewership.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, that parasocial level. I want them to get together.
So yes, it does bring us to the modern day.
There are still rumors about actors and public figures doing this,
though once again it's chicky to navigate and should be
handled carefully. I would say it's not really our business.
Though conversely, there have been conversations about queer baiting in
(20:02):
public figures who lean into a persona of being queer
when they maybe aren't for their career. These are also
difficult to pin down because I don't ever want to
dismiss someone's sexual identity I don't know them, and I
feel this often falls on bisexuality, which is already a
problem when it comes to representation of bisexual folks. Like
(20:25):
kind of the conversation comes negatively for bisexuality, I would say,
But I do think people absolutely lean into it in
some cases if it benefits them. Interestingly, I find it
interesting that this is the opposite of like a beard.
This is like somebody really leaning into queerness for the
(20:48):
benefits of it. But yes, that being said, there are
measurable examples of non celebrities entering into marriages of convenience,
or cooperative marriages as they're sometimes called in parts of Asia.
As you mentioned, Smantha, queer adults pretend to be straight
for their families, including occasionally marrying someone of the opposite
(21:12):
sex to avoid disappointing their families. Many of these marriages
are between a gay man and a lesbian, both looking
for the same shielding. Some do it to have children,
because in a country like China, for instance, it's really
hard for same sex couples to adopt. For a while,
this arrangement was well known enough that there was an
(21:33):
app in China to facilitate it called Queers. The app
eventually shut down due to lack of revenue, but the
founder at least reports that people still reach out hungry
for their services. That it was popular. People in these
situations spoke of the pressure to meet societal expectations, the
weight of the questions from their parents, and feeling like
(21:57):
there was no choice but to get married. Also interesting
to me, there are a lot more gay men looking
to marry a lesbian than vice versa, or at least
because people clearly don't want to be super open about this,
but according to kind of the numbers we do have,
that's what it seems to imply. Many who who did
(22:22):
acquiesce to being interviewed reported being absolutely miserable that it
ended up being not a fix at all. Are not
worth it. There's a pretty big conversation in India happening
about this too. The twenty twenty two movie bad Hai
Dou depicted a gay man and a lesbian woman marrying
each other so that they could pursue what they actually wanted.
(22:43):
While there was some back and forth about whether this
movie was harmful or helpful for the queer community, it
certainly got a conversation going. There was a lot of
discussion about the harm that these lavender marriages can do
in terms of mental health. In the wake of this
of never being honest with your family, and how the
brunt of that did usually fall on women. Many ended
(23:07):
in separation, and a reminder. Rates of mental health conditions
like depression and anxiety are higher in the queer community,
so these things can be exacerbated. It's a big topic
in Pakistan too, which had a movie that same year,
twenty twenty two that caused a lot of conversation where
(23:28):
being gay is criminalized. Numbers are on the rise, but
hard to track since people are hesitant to share their sexuality,
but one of the interesting markers that I saw is
that it's seemingly more prevalent in the upper and middle class.
The reasons people who did agree to interview about this
gave for why they did it were largely to keep
(23:49):
family in their life. That was the biggest reason by far.
Shifting gears around twenty twenty four, lavender marriage slash lavender
dating was a trending topic, and it was trending with
gen Z. The definition shifted to mean a relationship between
(24:10):
two people where they function like a married couple. The
reasoning largely given for this was being tired of dating,
not being able to afford dating, and not being able
to live as a single person not being able to
afford that either. People reported just wanting someone to share
a mortgage with to travel with, and that they weren't
(24:32):
worried about sex, so they didn't even care about that part.
In fact, some viral social posts around this time were
encouraging their potential lavender partners to go out and be
with other people. That they didn't care, They just wanted somebody.
It was much more about stability and affordability. Here's a
quote from autostraddle. Romantic relationships seemingly involve a greater expectation
(24:56):
of compromise than these hypothetical lavender marriages do. Pressure to
align across a vath swath of human behaviors and preferences.
Focusing only on the logistics of partnership like money and
housing releases pressure to align on more emotional elements like
shared interest, perspectives on monogamy, love languages, or communication types.
(25:17):
And so. This article, which is called broken Lonely lavender marriages,
may be for you. References the publication bride coining of
the platonic marriage quote a legal union based on spiritual
connection or practical love rather than on sexual or romantic love.
It's fascinating to me because that's kind of how it started,
(25:39):
but without like a lot of rights for women usually,
but that's kind of how it's started. This is related
to another term inflationship, you know, which is yeah, which
you think it's about. I read a really funny article
about I mean, it's sad because it's our reality, but
(26:01):
it was kind of funny because this person was like,
the world is not made for single people, Like you
can't buy things. And I've faced this before all the time.
If you want bread too bad, a lot of food
is gonna get thrown away. So that was what this
certain his post was about. I related to it to it,
(26:26):
but also rent rent being so expensive. As a single person,
women are allegedly more likely to seek these types of
relationships due to frustrations around unequal responsibilities when it comes
to domestic work and things like that. Others reported living
without fear of being hurt or abused. Lavender marriage can
(26:49):
feel safe and stable. I know it's it's a depressing
state of affairs. Yes, and speaking of going back to
that traveling bit, speaking of yeah, you gave me a
segue and I took it. A reminder is not safe
to travel while queer to certain countries. So that's part
(27:11):
of that conversation. And another thing you mentioned, Samantha, it
can be beneficial for people on the a spectrum. That
is something that is coming up more and more in
the conversation. Here's another quote from that autostraddle article. In Hollywood,
lavender marriages were largely commercial prospects, enabling participants to maintain
(27:33):
thriving careers within a puritanical and capitalist society. New lavendar
marriages are similarly finding a way for gay people to
gain the system and still succeed within capitalism's constraints, because duh,
life has never been more expensive than it is now. Certainly,
having and raising children has become so cost prohibitive that
many gen zers have no interest in doing so. Ultimately, though,
(27:57):
just as Hollywood's levendar marriages did nothing to cure the
disease of homophobia, new livend her marriages also address symptoms,
but not the disease. The astronomical cost of being single.
I think that's a great way of putting it. I
had a friend whose therapists said we should be in
a political marriage, which I think kind of sounds like
(28:20):
a It sounds like this platonic marriage. The way she
described to me, it sounds like, yeah, you just have
a good friend and you're gonna live together and pay
for rent and like you spend your lives together.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Well maybe that's essentially what I was thinking about when
I was younger, like younger being like the thirties, but
like a lot of my friends were, you know, having
marriages and like kids at the point. But I'm like,
and I have a roommate, and it felt so childish.
But essentially it's the same thing as the marriage. I'm
splitting rent with that, you know, we're splitting the cost
of living with someone because it is so dang expensive
(28:57):
and living by yourself is ridiculous, even though that's being
married equates to being single and having your own place.
But it's so much more expensive being single and having
your own place.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yes, and it is, it's rough out there, it's there.
I get it. I get it. As I said, As
I said, people can be happy in these relationships. I
think there's a real expansion on what we consider a
(29:32):
happy and successful relationship. However, when we're looking at the
history of queer people not being able to be themselves,
that's not okay. If we're looking at people right now
can't afford basic like housing and food, that's not okay.
But I do. I just want to say, even going
(29:53):
back to the golden age of Hollywood, some of some
of these relationships are really loving and caring. Yes, And
as I said, there are still apps for finding a beard.
You can look them up right now. There are also
forums about identifying if you are a beard and don't
know it, which I kind of feel like that's a
(30:15):
trust is to.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Me, that's me. Yeah, that's a whole different conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, communication is key, this whole thing. Communication is key.
One of the big conflicts I saw was that people
and these relationships disagreed about what constituted as cheating and
about what the boundaries were, because in some of them
it's essentially we're together on paper, but you go and
be with whoever you want. Some of them not so much.
(30:46):
Another note, queer censorship is real and very present to
this day. There are multiple examples of movies and shows
cutting her altering planned queer storylines and clinging inside out too.
I forgot about that. Shows have been canceled despite high
ratings critical and commercial ratings, and usually the common theme
(31:08):
was it's a queer storyline. So even if the Hollywood
star Beard conversation might feel a little old Hollywood, what
was at its core is still there. It's still prevalent.
On top of that, a global health study from twenty
nineteen found that eighty three percent of the global population
of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people can seal their orientation
(31:31):
from most of the people in their lives. And you
know that's who's willing to speak up about it so
hard to say. Here's a closing quote from PinkNews dot com.
It's worth noting that not everyone is ready or comfortable
to outwardly express their true selves. So the process, even unconsciously,
(31:54):
of bearding isn't something that should be in any way criticized.
If anything, it is a long standing, historic tradition in
the LGBTQ plus community and nothing to be ashamed of
as long as every it's consensual.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
As everybody's open communication.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Open communication. And that being said, I long for a
world where the homophobic outward forces necessitating bearding would be gone.
But yes, yes, this really took me. I wasn't expecting
to go. I didn't know labnder dating and marriages had
(32:33):
like come back so hard and kind of a different way.
I wasn't expecting that. So I learned a lot from
this episode and I would really love to hear from listeners.
If you have thoughts, experience, any examples that we didn't
go over, because there are quite a few, you can
(32:55):
email us at Hello at Stuffhannever Told You dot com.
You can find us on Bouo sky Almost podcast or
on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Compierreau
and we have a book you can get where to
get your books. Thanks as always to our superduced Arima
and our executive Pruce A Maya, thank you, and thanks
to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told You is
prediction of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
(33:16):
you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Stanny Ann smitha stuff I never told
you protection iHeartRadio, and welcome to another edition of me
still having beef with being ceer baited. So for listeners
(00:29):
who don't know, I'm thinking about making this a playlist
because we have the functionality and that we love. A
good playlist could really work through some of these things,
because I have been working through it since January. And
the weather outside, by the way, it's storming fiercely just
(00:51):
matches my emotions about being cueer baited. So if you
hear it, it's it's just appropriate.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Is the world agree?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yes? Yes, So today we're talking about beards in the
LGBTQ plus community sense and I was kind of surprised
no one has ever done an episode on this. There
are a lot of as in no one past host.
I'm sure other people have done episodes on it, but
(01:23):
there are a lot of interesting facets when it comes
to women and this particular intersection that we're going to
get into. It also took me to a place that
wasn't expecting to go because the meaning has kind of
shifted in recent years, and I completely missed this whole
trend of it shifting and we're going to talk about that.
(01:46):
I want to say at the top of this one.
It probably goes without saying, but I'm just going to
say it as someone who kind of took a while
to figure out I was queer and how exactly I
was queer. There is there's no singular gay experience. There
is not one roadmap. There are many reasons to be
careful and how we understand and talk about topics like
(02:09):
this and generalizing queer relationships at large. There are stories
of everyone believing someone is gay no matter what you say,
or the opposite, that someone must be experimenting, that they
must be straight no matter what you say. Both are
dismissive and harmful in different ways. There are forces, both
(02:31):
large and small, pushing people into straight relationships from a
very young age, sometimes in a way that is unknowingly harmful.
There are labels people who are closeted and may be
experiencing internalized homophobia or compet might accept before accepting that
they're queer, you know, just to having these ideas like
(02:52):
that's just how this relationship is, that's just how best
friends behave. I'll get over this. That was something I
felt for a while. Then there is a level of
protection of publicly presenting as straight via a relationship that
could be unconscious or conscious, and we'll talk about that more.
(03:13):
All that being said, yes, we are going over an
abbreviated history of beards in the LGBTQ plus community, which
can be a bit twisty in terms of why people
engage in these types of relationships, and it has changed
over time. Also, a lot of them involve speculation, so
(03:35):
keep that mind. So what is a beard in the
context of the LGBTQ plus community. A beard is a
person who dates or marries a gay person to help
them conceal their sexuality, whether they know it or not.
Having a beard was a way to stave off any
(03:56):
rumors of queerness, especially from the nineteen twenties to the
nineteen fifties. It could be that both people in this
situation are gay, but typically beard is used to refer
to a relationship between a lesbian or a straight woman
and a gay man. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slaying
and Unconventional English defines it as quote a person who
(04:18):
escorts another to a social function in order to mask
the identity of one or the other's lover or sexual orientation.
It has been used in the past to reference someone
who acted as a way to hide infidelity, but that
usage is pretty much fallen by the wayside, but that
at one time was the case. There's some argument about
(04:41):
the origins of beard in this context, and folks they
really don't agree. According to some sources, it relies on
the idea that women are covering for gay men, giving
them a masculine beard to hide their homosexuality. There's actually
a lot of commentary about it, so if you want
to look into it you can. The term with this
(05:03):
definition goes back to nineteen fifty six and probably earlier.
It does have a historical Hollywood connotation that may go
back to the nineteen twenties, when Hollywood contracts included morality
clauses that forbade any engaging in queer relationships because they
were believed to be damaging to a celebrity's image and
(05:24):
the studio's image as well. It's related to terms like
lavender dating or lavender marriage or front dating. We're going
to talk more about lavender dating and its evolution because
this was all news to me, but at the time
it referred to a mixed sexual orientation. Relationship between a
(05:44):
man and a woman, a relationship of convenience to avoid
social stigma and reap the benefits of a heterosexual relationship.
Lavender dating typically refers to actors or other public figures
hiding their sexuality. At the time before World War Two,
would be openly queer was not accepted, and certainly you
wouldn't get work if people knew about it. In fact,
(06:06):
it could end a person's career if there was even
a hint or a suspicion about it about you possibly
being queer, whether you were or not. The term itself
may go as far back to the UK in eighteen
ninety five, when the color lavender was associated with homosexuality.
There are lavender lavender dating apps like right Now, but
(06:29):
more on that later. Yes, as discussed in our episode
on the bird Cage, the Motion Picture Production Code or
the Hayes Code from nineteen twenty two to nineteen forty
five didn't allow for the depiction of gay characters in film,
though there were ways to get around it or to
suggest it subtext, but the actors were roped into this too,
(06:52):
so they were being pressured to not be openly gay
or again even hint and being gay, and sometimes were
placed in year of relationships by their agents or managers
at the best of the studio. Despite widespread homophobia at
the time, the term beard became popular in the nineteen
sixties as a slang in the queer community. This is
(07:14):
also around the time of the Lavender Scare, when lesbian women,
who were largely associated with lavender by this point, and
gay men were deemed as security threats by the US government. Ethically,
people argue about beard's is it using someone? Mostly the
(07:35):
consensus seems to be if it is an arrangement entered
consensually or at the very least both parties are aware
or unintentionally for both parties so they don't know, then
it's fine. It is a bit more complicated than that, because,
as I said, a lot of these relationships are really
(07:57):
loving or actually I haven't said that yet. Both this
outline a lot they are actually really loving a lot
of them. So sometimes when someone admits that they weren't
straight but we're hoping that a straight relationship would quote
cure them or they'd grow into it, there's hurt and anger,
but often there's still care once the dust settles, and
(08:21):
I do want to reiterate that, and I will throughout
the episode. Another argument that comes up is how this
isn't a great situation for both parties, but often women
who entered into a relationship with a man who still
has gay partners while she is home taking care of
everything around the household, then it's unfairly impacting her. It
(08:44):
requires a lie if the situation is intentional. It was
expected that for a lot of these beards who were
women in old Hollywood days, that they wouldn't engage in
extramarital affairs. There has been some research into the negative
mental impacts of relationships like these. Will talk a little
(09:06):
bit more about those in a second, but obviously a
little bit hard to study. I did find her a
pretty interesting am I the whole post on Reddit about this.
It was about two people who were trying to escape
their religious community, and one was a straight woman and
the other was a gay man. They both entered this
(09:28):
relationship knowing these things, and they did it to escape
this religion. The post was kind of about like, was
she the soul for not telling her family? Most people
on it seemed to say, like, no, if they were.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Not, they're escaping right. Obviously they were escaping someunthing. Yeah,
maybe the family.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, but it was It was actually a nice post
because she was saying, now he's got a partner and
they're all friends together, like you know, it didn't fall apart.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, so that happens more often than people think, like
when you have really strict religious places. And we talked
about it with like the asexual community in India in
that kind of level of like they didn't call it lavender,
but like essentially the queer people who are like, we're
not interested in this, we don't need these things or
we you know, like it kind of yeah, saves their
(10:27):
reputation and like their livelihoods sometimes.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah. Yeah, we have a piece about that more in
a second too. But I just thought it was interesting
because I guess she was worried about She did feel
a lot of pressure from her family, which a lot
of people do feel, but she was also worried about
Uh it sounds like she didn't spend a lot on
her wedding, but she was worried about the financial costs
(10:53):
of the wedding when they never really intended to necessarily
stay together. But I do love that they together as friends, right,
and she's friends with his partner now, and yeah, like
I said, to reiterate, a lot of these come these
relationships come from a place of care. So this brings
(11:23):
us to some famous examples. There are quite a few,
but as I said, it's difficult to separate fact from
fiction with these. A lot of rumors and sensationalists reporting
and speculation. When it comes to examples like this, some
of them I couldn't find anything more on. People just
(11:43):
think maybe, so I didn't include it. And also a
lot of these don't have confirmation from the person in question,
specifically about their sexuality, so it's still up for debate
all that in. Perhaps one of the most famous examples
was Rock Hudson, who married his secretary of Phyllis Gates
(12:07):
in the mid nineteen fifties. After a magazine threatened to
expose his affairs with various men. His agent went on
damage control, throwing some clients of his under the bus
and process and arranged an outwardly heterosexual marriage to protect
Hudson's career. Even so, it was apparently an open secret
(12:28):
that he was gay, and he and Gate separated two
years later. This was notable for a lot of reasons,
but one of the reasons is the image Hudson had.
He was seen as a beefcake. He was a Hollywood
heart throb, the image of a straight man that women
could lust after and hope to be with one day,
and straight men could only hope to attain that kind
(12:52):
of image, and it was important to keep intact for
his career, although I'm sure gay men lusted after the
image as well. He later became one of the first
Hollywood celebrities to speak openly about his HIV diagnosis, and
he died of AIDS related complications around his sixtieth birthday.
(13:12):
The year before, he'd been pressured into kissing actress Linda
Evans on Dynasty, something he reportedly was really resistant to
because he knew he was sick and he was worried
about transmitting it to her, and at the time, people
still didn't really know how AIDS worked. So if you
want to learn more about him, there are several documentaries
(13:34):
about him, and there's a lot of other information. I
will say Gates herself insisted that they married out of
love and nothing else, and he wasn't officially outed until
after his sess so he didn't ever say it. The
rumors of his alleged homosexuality drew so much attention that
(13:55):
they are often credited with helping foster the early tabloid industry,
industry that profited off early outings of public figures with
which I personally find really cross, but yeah, it was
a big deal. Here's another one, actor William Billy Haynes,
a film actor whose career started taking off in the
(14:17):
nineteen twenties. He moved from silent films to sound films
without much trouble, which was kind of like a boon
at the time, and he was a real asset for
MGM Studios. Story has it, though, that a higher up
at MGM gave Haynes an ultimatum his career or his
homosexual lifestyle, because at the time he lived in an
(14:41):
openly queer relationship with his partner, Jimmy Shields. Haynes's career
shriveled because he chose his relationship, and his relationship with
Shields lasted until his death nineteen seventy three. Some people
do suggest he may have won wanted to retire and
pursue his interest in interior design, which he did anyway,
(15:05):
but it's likely that he was getting pressure to enter
into a beard relationship. It could have been both were
at play, but he left it behind. Allegedly, Judy Garland
didn't realize her husband was gay and later told her
daughter to marry a gay man because they were the
best partners.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I don't know if she went through somethings, so that
makes sense. To be honest, it is not true a me,
but like it could be believed. It's pretty believable.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah. Yes. Betty White has long been rumored to be
the beard for Liberacchi and attended a lot of events
with him to give him a straight outbi Again, none
of all, none of this is necessarily confirmed, but this
is the rumor. In nineteen fifty nine, the performer won
(15:55):
a lawsuit that insinuated that he was gay, so these
rumors were really prolific around him. His agent was so
desperate to fight these rumors that he attempted to hide
the fact that Liberacci was HIV positive at the time
of his death in nineteen eighty seven. That being said,
that's not necessarily what led to his death. There were
(16:16):
a couple of other things that were going on, but
sources do indicate his agent was pushing a certain narrative.
White herself later seemed to confirm he was gay. So
actor Jonathan Schnick, I'm so sorry if I'm butchering that,
claimed in an ama on Reddit that his manager requested
(16:39):
he attend events with Ellen DeGeneres as her beard in
the early days of her show Ellen, when there were
concerns that viewership would be negatively impacted if audience has
learned about her sexuality. He called it an honor.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Did she have male relationship I'm trying to remember. I
don't remember her having any relationships.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, it could just be he's attending with her. So
people are like assuming I was wondering.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Because I feel like that was never I'm sorry, that's
a sidetrack because like I don't remember because I was
young when she was big, like in her own she
had her own show, sitcom like that really propelled her.
And that was before we knew that she was a lesbian.
That's before she came out. Did she ever date on
(17:27):
band publicly?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I don't feel like she did, but maybe she. Okay,
keep going, Sorry, that's gonna be in my head for
a minute.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Well, I mean that's kind of the thing is it's
just the suggestion that maybe she is this person is
always with her speculation. This is also when representation of
Beard started showing up in sitcoms like Will and Grace,
along with the very related gay best friend Trope. I
(17:56):
speaking of memories when I was researching this, I feel
like there was a conversation about this when Tom Cruise
and Katie Holmes got married. You've got like the scientology angle,
so it's hard to say, but there there was an
air of performative marriage to prevent any questions and preserve
his celebrity image. And I remember thinking it was weird
(18:18):
at the time, and I was young. It felt so
forced for whatever reason. But also can people not just
be single? Right?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay, I need to go back, because I did look
it up. So that du that you mentioned, who is
actually pretty famous, like I remember him because he was
a heart throb, but apparently they wore a picture together
holding hands and such, so I guess he was a
beard for her. I did not realize. Yeah, oh gooy
things I didn't remember.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the thing is it still happens. Yeah,
our at least speculation still happens about secret gay Hollywood stars.
A part of this plays and just something called showmance
or dating someone for clout, for both for both their careers.
This doesn't have to be queer necessarily. We're gonna talk
(19:07):
about queerbating aspect momentarily. But you know, two actors are
good looking, attractive, think it might do better for their careers.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You know, I've seen it actually play out in YouTube,
like Big Two Creators tending to be dating and like,
oh my god, we've been waiting for this, like there's
this new level. Yes, and they're not actually dating, and
it's not necessarily because they're a beer. They're just trying
to get that showman's that like notoriety because they're blending
their yeah viewership.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, that parasocial level. I want them to get together.
So yes, it does bring us to the modern day.
There are still rumors about actors and public figures doing this,
though once again it's chicky to navigate and should be
handled carefully. I would say it's not really our business.
Though conversely, there have been conversations about queer baiting in
(20:02):
public figures who lean into a persona of being queer
when they maybe aren't for their career. These are also
difficult to pin down because I don't ever want to
dismiss someone's sexual identity I don't know them, and I
feel this often falls on bisexuality, which is already a
problem when it comes to representation of bisexual folks. Like
(20:25):
kind of the conversation comes negatively for bisexuality, I would say,
But I do think people absolutely lean into it in
some cases if it benefits them. Interestingly, I find it
interesting that this is the opposite of like a beard.
This is like somebody really leaning into queerness for the
(20:48):
benefits of it. But yes, that being said, there are
measurable examples of non celebrities entering into marriages of convenience,
or cooperative marriages as they're sometimes called in parts of Asia.
As you mentioned, Smantha, queer adults pretend to be straight
for their families, including occasionally marrying someone of the opposite
(21:12):
sex to avoid disappointing their families. Many of these marriages
are between a gay man and a lesbian, both looking
for the same shielding. Some do it to have children,
because in a country like China, for instance, it's really
hard for same sex couples to adopt. For a while,
this arrangement was well known enough that there was an
(21:33):
app in China to facilitate it called Queers. The app
eventually shut down due to lack of revenue, but the
founder at least reports that people still reach out hungry
for their services. That it was popular. People in these
situations spoke of the pressure to meet societal expectations, the
weight of the questions from their parents, and feeling like
(21:57):
there was no choice but to get married. Also interesting
to me, there are a lot more gay men looking
to marry a lesbian than vice versa, or at least
because people clearly don't want to be super open about this,
but according to kind of the numbers we do have,
that's what it seems to imply. Many who who did
(22:22):
acquiesce to being interviewed reported being absolutely miserable that it
ended up being not a fix at all. Are not
worth it. There's a pretty big conversation in India happening
about this too. The twenty twenty two movie bad Hai
Dou depicted a gay man and a lesbian woman marrying
each other so that they could pursue what they actually wanted.
(22:43):
While there was some back and forth about whether this
movie was harmful or helpful for the queer community, it
certainly got a conversation going. There was a lot of
discussion about the harm that these lavender marriages can do
in terms of mental health. In the wake of this
of never being honest with your family, and how the
brunt of that did usually fall on women. Many ended
(23:07):
in separation, and a reminder. Rates of mental health conditions
like depression and anxiety are higher in the queer community,
so these things can be exacerbated. It's a big topic
in Pakistan too, which had a movie that same year,
twenty twenty two that caused a lot of conversation where
(23:28):
being gay is criminalized. Numbers are on the rise, but
hard to track since people are hesitant to share their sexuality,
but one of the interesting markers that I saw is
that it's seemingly more prevalent in the upper and middle class.
The reasons people who did agree to interview about this
gave for why they did it were largely to keep
(23:49):
family in their life. That was the biggest reason by far.
Shifting gears around twenty twenty four, lavender marriage slash lavender
dating was a trending topic, and it was trending with
gen Z. The definition shifted to mean a relationship between
(24:10):
two people where they function like a married couple. The
reasoning largely given for this was being tired of dating,
not being able to afford dating, and not being able
to live as a single person not being able to
afford that either. People reported just wanting someone to share
a mortgage with to travel with, and that they weren't
(24:32):
worried about sex, so they didn't even care about that part.
In fact, some viral social posts around this time were
encouraging their potential lavender partners to go out and be
with other people. That they didn't care, They just wanted somebody.
It was much more about stability and affordability. Here's a
quote from autostraddle. Romantic relationships seemingly involve a greater expectation
(24:56):
of compromise than these hypothetical lavender marriages do. Pressure to
align across a vath swath of human behaviors and preferences.
Focusing only on the logistics of partnership like money and
housing releases pressure to align on more emotional elements like
shared interest, perspectives on monogamy, love languages, or communication types.
(25:17):
And so. This article, which is called broken Lonely lavender marriages,
may be for you. References the publication bride coining of
the platonic marriage quote a legal union based on spiritual
connection or practical love rather than on sexual or romantic love.
It's fascinating to me because that's kind of how it started,
(25:39):
but without like a lot of rights for women usually,
but that's kind of how it's started. This is related
to another term inflationship, you know, which is yeah, which
you think it's about. I read a really funny article
about I mean, it's sad because it's our reality, but
(26:01):
it was kind of funny because this person was like,
the world is not made for single people, Like you
can't buy things. And I've faced this before all the time.
If you want bread too bad, a lot of food
is gonna get thrown away. So that was what this
certain his post was about. I related to it to it,
(26:26):
but also rent rent being so expensive. As a single person,
women are allegedly more likely to seek these types of
relationships due to frustrations around unequal responsibilities when it comes
to domestic work and things like that. Others reported living
without fear of being hurt or abused. Lavender marriage can
(26:49):
feel safe and stable. I know it's it's a depressing
state of affairs. Yes, and speaking of going back to
that traveling bit, speaking of yeah, you gave me a
segue and I took it. A reminder is not safe
to travel while queer to certain countries. So that's part
(27:11):
of that conversation. And another thing you mentioned, Samantha, it
can be beneficial for people on the a spectrum. That
is something that is coming up more and more in
the conversation. Here's another quote from that autostraddle article. In Hollywood,
lavender marriages were largely commercial prospects, enabling participants to maintain
(27:33):
thriving careers within a puritanical and capitalist society. New lavendar
marriages are similarly finding a way for gay people to
gain the system and still succeed within capitalism's constraints, because duh,
life has never been more expensive than it is now. Certainly,
having and raising children has become so cost prohibitive that
many gen zers have no interest in doing so. Ultimately, though,
(27:57):
just as Hollywood's levendar marriages did nothing to cure the
disease of homophobia, new livend her marriages also address symptoms,
but not the disease. The astronomical cost of being single.
I think that's a great way of putting it. I
had a friend whose therapists said we should be in
a political marriage, which I think kind of sounds like
(28:20):
a It sounds like this platonic marriage. The way she
described to me, it sounds like, yeah, you just have
a good friend and you're gonna live together and pay
for rent and like you spend your lives together.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Well maybe that's essentially what I was thinking about when
I was younger, like younger being like the thirties, but
like a lot of my friends were, you know, having
marriages and like kids at the point. But I'm like,
and I have a roommate, and it felt so childish.
But essentially it's the same thing as the marriage. I'm
splitting rent with that, you know, we're splitting the cost
of living with someone because it is so dang expensive
(28:57):
and living by yourself is ridiculous, even though that's being
married equates to being single and having your own place.
But it's so much more expensive being single and having
your own place.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yes, and it is, it's rough out there, it's there.
I get it. I get it. As I said, As
I said, people can be happy in these relationships. I
think there's a real expansion on what we consider a
(29:32):
happy and successful relationship. However, when we're looking at the
history of queer people not being able to be themselves,
that's not okay. If we're looking at people right now
can't afford basic like housing and food, that's not okay.
But I do. I just want to say, even going
(29:53):
back to the golden age of Hollywood, some of some
of these relationships are really loving and caring. Yes, And
as I said, there are still apps for finding a beard.
You can look them up right now. There are also
forums about identifying if you are a beard and don't
know it, which I kind of feel like that's a
(30:15):
trust is to.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Me, that's me. Yeah, that's a whole different conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, communication is key, this whole thing. Communication is key.
One of the big conflicts I saw was that people
and these relationships disagreed about what constituted as cheating and
about what the boundaries were, because in some of them
it's essentially we're together on paper, but you go and
be with whoever you want. Some of them not so much.
(30:46):
Another note, queer censorship is real and very present to
this day. There are multiple examples of movies and shows
cutting her altering planned queer storylines and clinging inside out too.
I forgot about that. Shows have been canceled despite high
ratings critical and commercial ratings, and usually the common theme
(31:08):
was it's a queer storyline. So even if the Hollywood
star Beard conversation might feel a little old Hollywood, what
was at its core is still there. It's still prevalent.
On top of that, a global health study from twenty
nineteen found that eighty three percent of the global population
of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people can seal their orientation
(31:31):
from most of the people in their lives. And you
know that's who's willing to speak up about it so
hard to say. Here's a closing quote from PinkNews dot com.
It's worth noting that not everyone is ready or comfortable
to outwardly express their true selves. So the process, even unconsciously,
(31:54):
of bearding isn't something that should be in any way criticized.
If anything, it is a long standing, historic tradition in
the LGBTQ plus community and nothing to be ashamed of
as long as every it's consensual.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
As everybody's open communication.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Open communication. And that being said, I long for a
world where the homophobic outward forces necessitating bearding would be gone.
But yes, yes, this really took me. I wasn't expecting
to go. I didn't know labnder dating and marriages had
(32:33):
like come back so hard and kind of a different way.
I wasn't expecting that. So I learned a lot from
this episode and I would really love to hear from listeners.
If you have thoughts, experience, any examples that we didn't
go over, because there are quite a few, you can
(32:55):
email us at Hello at Stuffhannever Told You dot com.
You can find us on Bouo sky Almost podcast or
on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Compierreau
and we have a book you can get where to
get your books. Thanks as always to our superduced Arima
and our executive Pruce A Maya, thank you, and thanks
to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told You is
prediction of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
(33:16):
you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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