Today in 2SLGBTQI+ history…
On Monday, March 2, 2015, ABC Family’s The Fosters made TV history when characters Jude and Connor, both 13, locked lips after some awkward flirting and playful wrestling. The boys’ big moment wasn’t the first same-sex kiss between teenagers on television, but it was the youngest.
The Fosters, created by Peter Paige (of Queer as Folk fame) and Bradley Bredeweg (and with Jennifer Lopez as one of its executive producers), premiered on June 3, 2013, and ran for five seasons before concluding on June 6, 2018. The show followed the lives of an interracial lesbian couple – Stef Foster (Teri Polo), a police officer, and Lena Adams (Sherri Saum), a school vice-principal – as they raise one biological son and four adopted teenagers in San Diego, California.
The history-making gay kiss happened during “Now Hear This,” which was episode 18 in Season 2. Jude and Connor’s friendship had been building over the first two seasons of The Fosters, and in a previous episode the boys had held hands at the movies and even kissed, although not on screen. (The actors who played Jude and Connor, Hayden Byerly and Gavin MacIntosh, were 14 and 15 respectively at the time.)
MacIntosh told Just Jared that the storyline is important because many young people can relate to it. “Just being 13 is difficult enough, going through physical and emotional changes,” he said. “Then if you add in not being sure about if you like boys or girls, and society telling you that you should be a certain way – I can see why so many kids are struggling.”
Some fans online dubbed the couple “Jonnor” and were thrilled with the progressive and powerful message, while others took to social media to bash the show, calling it a “sin” and “cultural suicide.”
“When people question the scene, my response has been: ‘Everyone has a first kiss and you remember it. How old were you?’ Ninety per cent of people who have an answer come back and say, ‘I was 12, 13 and 14 years old,’ and I say, ‘Exactly. It was time to see this, time to put this up for the world,’” Bredeweg said in defending the scene at the time. “Then people understand; they’re able to wrap their heads around it.”
“I would say it’s very easy to balk at or sensationalize the headline, but it’s hard to deny the truth or the integrity of the whole story,” Paige added. “We are here to tell the true stories of what it is to grow up, and these are true stories of what it is to grow up as a young, potentially gay person. It’s the truth and that’s all.
“It was very important to portray a character that is going through a struggle that so many people go through,” he went on. “I want people to watch the show and see the struggle that Jude goes through, and feel more comfortable about themselves; to feel like it doesn’t matter whether you are gay or straight or bisexual or transgender or whatever you are, that you are happy with who you are, and that you are accepting of yourself. My hope is that people watch the scene and they are happy to see something on television that represents them.”
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