Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

According to SoapOperaCentral.com, former Guiding Light star Maureen Garrett – “HollyLinsey” – came out.

After carefully cocooning her personal life from the media during her 35 years playing Guiding Light’s 

Holly Lindsey, actress Maureen Garrett has chosen National Coming Out Day to reveal publicly to Out magazinethat she is a lesbian and has been involved in a 20-year-long relationship with her partner, Janet Morgan.

Maureen and Janet have three sons and have also raised Morgan’s niece.

Congrats Maureen. I sure didn’t see this one coming, but its wonderful that she feels comfortable and another great example of how soap operas can open doors. Maureen played a heterosexual character on a show which debuted one of the most popular lesbian loves stories – Otalia – Olivia and Natalia.

Currently, two soaps have LGBT characters – Days’ Sonny Kiriakis and Will Horton and Bold and the Beautiful’s Karen Spencer and Danielle (to my knowledge Danielle does not have a last name yet.)  General Hospital’s off-the-canvas Lucas Jones is openly gay. Young & the Restless has a gay secondary character Rafe is also openly gay with no storyline. Rumor has it Y&R is supposed to out a major “younger” character – possibly Kyle Abbott, possibly Summer Newman or even Fen Baldwin?

I’ve long posited that LGBT characters on soaps have paved the way for much acceptance and I think the same holds true for the actors.