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Actor Ronen Rubinstein, who plays Rob Lowe’s gay son on Fox TV’s 9-1-1: Lone Star, has come out as bisexual in an interview with Variety.
“I fully identify as bisexual,” Rubinstein said in a Zoom chat with Marc Malkin. “I literally just got goosebumps saying that. It feels so good to talk about it, it feels so good to finally be comfortable with it.”
Rubinstein, 27, comes from Staten Island.
“The biggest thing for me is where I come from, it’s like people like me and people who have identified as bisexual or gay or as any part of the community, you’re just not welcomed. It’s as brutally honest as that,” he said.
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“It’s either you faced insane amounts of profanity, like the F-word was thrown around all the time or you would get your ass kicked if you were gay. So there was definitely a fear of sort of embracing how I felt. I was definitely more aware of it in high school. I was aware of my feelings and how I started looking at men, but I couldn’t talk to anybody about it.”
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He says that playing a gay role on 9-1-1, co-created by producer Ryan Murphy, encouraged him to come out.
His character, T.K. Strand, had a steamy make-out scene with another cop, Carlos Reyes (played by gay actor Rafael L. Silva), and they became boyfriends. Rubinstein said he was initially worried about how some of his family and friends would react to him filming a love scene with another man. However, the romance was well received by viewers, with fans of the show quickly naming the fictional couple ‘Tarlos’.
“The fans, especially the Tarlos fans, it’s one of the biggest reasons that I finally felt safe and comfortable to talk about it and to finally embrace it and be happy about it,” said Rubinstein.
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In real life, Rubinstein has a girlfriend, Jessica Parker Kennedy. He says she questioned him about whether he was holding something back from her in relation to his sexuality.
“She’s like, ‘Is there something we need to talk about?’ And I said, ‘Maybe.’ I didn’t know how that conversation would go. And it went probably as good as it can go. She definitely encouraged me to be vocal about it, just to live my truth. She’s like, ‘I love you for who you are, your full self and people will love you for who you are and your full self.’”
Related: BMX pro Corey Walsh comes out as gay
He says he wanted to come out to help other young queer people who may be struggling.
“I want people to know that they’re not alone and it’s definitely okay.”
On Instagram, Rubinstein posted an image of the interview with the caption: “Every single day, you guys give me your all. You opened your Hearts & Souls to me. I now give you me, my full, true self. Thank you for giving me the Courage. Thank you for always Accepting me. Thank you for Supporting me. Let us continue being our complete selves. Let us continue fighting for what is Right. Let us continue Loving each other and Supporting each other. Thank you. I Love You.”
Related: Country star TJ Osborne comes out in emotional new interview
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Harley
Hubba hubba.
Cam
Another open LGBTQ actor and one on a show that has lots of representation. Congratulations to him!
Kieran
Beautiful. Mazeltov.
PollyDarton
Straight yesterday.
Bisexual today.
Gay tomorrow.
Gourmet Guy
Boy, Polly, you got dat right! I’ve been in that movie. I was “bisexual” for about 10 minutes.
Catholicslutbox
Ricky Martin came out as bi first, but he was never in a legitimate relationship with a relationship and needed his female fan base.
This guy isn’t an A-list actor, so there really is no need for him to play bisexual and could just come out as gay.
He was always a little too close with his costar, the one that’s “married” without a husband in sight…
Millennials aren’t as repressed as boomers.
bivector
When you people say this, is it because you think bisexuals don’t exist at all, or just because there are cases where it happens? I’m always confused by the need to declare this whenever someone says they’re bi.
Donston
Catholicslutbox, Ricky Martin never said he was “bi”. When he did first talk about his “sexuality” or whatever, he said that he had an on-again/off-again relationship with a female for a few years and that he still got some enjoyment from hetero sex. However, he never publicly embraced a “bi” identity.
There are plenty of people under 40 who say that they’re “bi” or say that they’re something other than “gay”, but they embrace a “gay” identity later on. That’s still typical. All you have to do is watch a lot of “coming out” videos on YouTube over the last several years to see that “coming out” as “not gay” and then “gay” is still very much alive and well. While homophobia, internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity, “gay” insecurities and hetero pressures are still rampant among younger people. The younger generation may be less “repressed”, but all these things are still widespread.
However, the “bi now, gay later” shit is problematic as hell. There are plenty of dudes who say that they’re “not straight” but still don’t ever have any relationships beyond cis women. While wanting to be with your sex or having overall same-sex preferences doesn’t equate to being heterosexual. That “bi now, gay later” shit just breeds resentments towards “gays” and makes it more difficult for someone to be honest and maybe to be okay with being seen as “gay”. And you shouldn’t be telling people who/what they are, period. So, y’all really need to stop that shit.
Donston
A lot of y’all still have much to learn when it comes to understanding the nuances of sexuality and how individual sexuality is, as well as understanding things like fluidity, gender, ego, sociology, mental health and the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, emotional investment, relationship commitment spectrum. But all you really need to do is respect people’s journeys so long as they respect yours.
I would really just like for identity politics and sexual politics to go away and for us to stop being so damn obsessed with these “labels” and obsessed with putting them on other people. But that’s clearly not gonna happen.
Dymension
I love him! His story line in 911: Lone Star is so wonderful
BlueStateMan
This is the new thing in Hollywood. Gay actors come out as bi-sexual. They think it will still allow them to get and play straight parts. His girlfriend is most likely his beard and someday we will hear more about his actual boyfriend.
Major
Right on, Ronen. Welcome to our LGBTQ+ family. You’ll be a nice role model for the gaybies who are still in the shoes you were once in.
Shout out to Ryan Murphy for all he does to advance our worlds.
James26
*LGB
AxelDC
If you are going to come out as gay or bisexual, it doesn’t hurt to have a pretty face.
Essie
I’ve never heard of nor seen this particular show but, he’s a cutie so there’s that.
I want to thank the person on here (can’t remember who and I have no clue how to go back and look it up) who replied to my post about not liking “Schitt’s Creek.” I had decided to watch the first season on Netflix and I wrote that I didn’t like it very much and I was going to stop watching. They told me to hang in because it gets better. So I skipped several episodes of the first year and started season 2 and was very surprised at how good it became. I have just finished season 5. So, thanks for the encouragement, whoever you are. Maybe I’ll do the same with this 9-1-1 show, even though I know for a fact I hate cop shows.
Andrey
Gay, straight or bi, he’s one of the good guys.
Joshooeerr
You can’t blame anyone for being cynical when so many use “bi” as a bullshit halfway house on the road to gay. Especially when they often sheepishly admit that this is exactly what they did two or three years later when they marry their boyfriend. You can say “respect their journeys”, but there’s inherent homophobia in the halfway house stopover, and it’s kind of insulting to anyone who is gay. It reinforces the old notion that “bi” is sorta cool and a bit radical, whereas gay is “less than”. I’d suggest that eliminating this stupid, homophobic notion is a more pressing need than doing away with all labels (which ain’t ever going to happen, btw).
Dack52
agree that he’s a good guy, cute face, etc., but as with most bisex, “in real life, he has a girlfriend.” Most of the time, but not always ofc, bisex is more or less the same as hetero–just an observation, not a judgment.
bivector
I think it’s just that monogamous people can only date one gender at a time. (And if you’re not monogamous it seems 1000 times easier to date a woman and see guys on the side than to date a guy and see women on the side.)
Donston
Bivektor, I don’t agree with that at all. Plenty of guys nowadays are committing to same-sex partnerships/commitments/love while still sexually engaging with women, including myself. It’s not unusual.
While there are still plenty of guys who mostly date women primarily because of ego, sociology, homophobia, internalized phobias, gay resentments, not wanting to be seen as “gay”, wanting children and wanting them to grow up in hetero normalcy. Hetero expectations and pressures are still dominate, even among many out “queers”. There is still a ways to go. But ultimately, people are gonna be with who they want to be with. And you never really know the dimensions of anyone’s sexuality, their nuances or potential fluidity, their motivations, where they are in the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, emotional investment, relationship contentment spectrum- no matter the identities they present.
C_Alan
Dear Society,
Since I’m not bi then bi must not exist
Love,
“the real LGBT”
Fahd
He looks very cute in that picture with the police uniform. If I thought I had a chance, I might be more concerned about whether he’s bi or gay. I’m glad he commented about the closed mindedness of Staten Island, a pattern shared in many close-knit, blue collar neighborhoods on the east coast.
amanwithanedge
bi is the gateway. he gay.
James26
Bisexuals are real and they are awesome. I never understood the jerks who make rude comments about bi people, as evidenced in some of the comments above.
There are far more Bs in the world than L/Gs, and in the last decade that gap is widening dramatically, as more Kinsey 1s and 2s identify as bi. L/Gs should be grateful for them and treat them right.
Anyway, it’s great to see a cool, normal guy like Ronen come out. Hot too!
Donston
There is no such thing as a demo being “awesome”. That’s just as condescending as when people used to say that they love “gays”. People are just people. There’s variance of “awesomeness” in every population. Also, don’t tell folks that they need to “grateful”. That is as well condescending and problematic as hell.
I do agree that the people who are truly entirely homosexual and “gender normal” in every way throughout their lives represent a very small percentage and always have. And I’d wager that at least one-third of gay identifying people are not truly thoroughly homosexuals who never experience any forms of fluidity in their life.
When will people move from this “Kinsey scale” nonsense? It is not relevant in today’s world. Sexuality encompasses a lot of shit (the types and rates of attraction, arousal, desire, enjoyment, comfort, fetishes, paraphiliacs, what you are and aren’t willing to indulge, who you like pleasing, the extent of your sex drive). “Sexuality” is too varied and individual to look at through a basic six number scale. While the different degrees of fluidity or contradictions some experience in their lives also complicated things. And the gender, romantic, sexual, affection, emotional investment, relationship commitment spectrum is also incredibly varied. “Kinsey scale” talk needs to die.
Finally, what’s with the being happy that he’s “normal” bullsh*t? What is “normal” supposed to be? You’re accusing others of being assholes, but you are as well coming off judgmental and like a douche.
ryanM
Yes, bisexuals are awesome! But so are gays and heterosexuals. Studies on biphobia confirm your accusation. There is a significant amount of negative attitude toward bisexual males from gay males, ranging from disbelief to accusations of promiscuity and infidelity. Lesbians are much more accepting of bisexual females — and bisexual males. For various reasons, gay men seem threatened by the concept of bisexuality among their own.
As for the Kinsey Scale, I’ve never used it in my grad research except in reference to old research. It’s been supplanted by other scales decades ago. I personally prefer the two dimensional Klein Grid, which not only rates the gender of one’s attraction, but also the strength of the attraction. One major problem with the Kinsey Scale is that it validates Conversion/Aversion Therapy as effective. That’s because it doesn’t differentiate between attraction to both genders vs. indifference to both genders. In contrast, the Klein Grid captures amplitude.
Donston
A lot of of dudes have had poor experiences with “bi guys”: having to keep their relationship DL, feeling like they’re being used for sex or money or clout, being left for women, dealing with their partner’s internalized phobias or gay insecurities or mental health issues. So, I do understand some of the hostility. However, that hostility isn’t nearly as widespread as you’d think based on some comment sections and social media. While some “queers” fetishize bi behaving and identifying guys (something we see from this site). However, there are indeed folks are indeed just plain hateful or ignorant, and everyone shouldn’t pay for your own traumas and poor experiences.
I’m aware of the Klein scale. It’s certainly more modern and complex than the Kinsey scale. However, while it does a decent job at breaking down the orientation spectrum, it does a piss job at breaking down the elements of sexuality. “Sexuality” is more than “attractions” or the porn you wank off to. And that’s pretty much what that scale reduces sexuality to. In general, all these scale are problematic. They may assist someone in helping them get a better understanding of themselves or help explain themselves to others, but it’s impossible for any of those things to truly match the nuances and individuality of sexuality, the orientation spectrum, experiencing degrees of fluidity, your sense of self and all the ego, psychological and sociological elements that guide people. We’ve outgrown any scales. And we’ve borderline outgrown “labels” in general.
As far as James26 goes, he clearly resents effeminate males and thinks all “queers” should appear “normal” and attempt to “fit in”. His post was meant to be pure shade and hate disguised as support.
James26
@ryanM Thanks so much for your response! I think you make some excellent points. When I first started reading the scientific literature on sexual orientation, I was really surprised to learn that bisexuals generally have worse mental health outcomes than L/Gs. Definitely the reverse of what I would have expected. I would have thought that the ability to live in either the straight or the gay world would make life easier, but perhaps the opposite is true. Regardless, I think L/Gs need to be as supportive as possible and stop with the pointless and false nonsense about bisexuals faking it.
I do disagree with 2 of your points. First, while it’s true that there are other scales to measure sexual identity, desire, behavior and orientation and while it’s also true that some social scientists prefer other scales to Kinsey, it is not true that Kinsey has been supplanted or that it was only relevant decades ago. Kinsey’s scale is used all the time. Indeed, a study just last year on the “realness” of male bisexuality uses the Kinsey scale. See “Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2020).
Second, I don’t know how you can accuse the Kinsey scale of “validating” conversion therapy, let alone “aversion therapy” which is a long-ago discarded subset of conversion therapy. The scale is just a scale. It measures. It does not inform anyone that the parameter being measured is subject to change through volitional effort. The scale does not take a position on therapy. Maybe you need to explain this point better, because as you stated it above, it makes no sense to me.
ryanM
No, the Kinsey Scale was no longer in wide use. The study you cited did NOT use the original Kinsey Scale. There’s been many modifications after Kinsey’s original scale. Furthermore, that study you cited didn’t do any original research. It was merely a review which “combined nearly all previously published data (from eight previous studies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada).” In other word, they did not administer any surveys, thus had no control over the exact question asked in any of those previous studies. And that’s the problem: without looking at the original 8 source studies, there’s no way for me to assess whether the authors correctly combined the data, e.g. whether they asked the same question to the same population. It’s well-known that different demographics interpret sexuality differently. For example, some people consider mutual masturbation sex while others don’t. In particular, straight teenagers often do not consider masturbation sex. Many rural populations don’t even consider oral sex to be sex. Just as importantly, the source studies spanned 19 years.
An inconsistent or erroneous combination of data is a major flaw of metastudies, and I see no reason to assume that the authors of this study did not make this error since they chose to rely on the flawed Kinsey scale.
Furthermore, the authors did not specify whether the source studies used sexual attraction or actual sexual contact as their criterion. The major criticism of the original Kinsey scale is that it combined the two. In the original scale, a man who was forced to have gay sex in prison — but had no emotional attraction to males– was seen as no different than someone who willingly and lustfully had gay sex. No modern research would make that mistake. Indeed, that’s why we often use the term, “Men who have Sex with Men” (MSM) rather than “gay” when the behavior is more important than than the psychology. That’s certainly true in HIV prevention, where risk assessment is based on behavior and not attraction, A heterosexual male prostitute who has sex with men is at the same risk as a gay male prostitute doing the same.
In other words, that metastudy you cited does not demonstrate that the original Kinsey scale is still in wide use. At best, a modified Kinsey scale is sometimes used for very superficial research, e.g. for marketing purposes. My colleagues and I may use a 7 pt scale but that doesn’t mean that it’s the Kinsey scale. Our criterion/criteria for idenification would be much better defined, and we would never confuse sexual attraction with sexual behavior.No, the Kinsey Scale was no longer in wide use. The study you cited did NOT use the original Kinsey Scale. There’s been many modifications after Kinsey’s original scale. Furthermore, that study you cited didn’t do any original research. It was merely a review which “combined nearly all previously published data (from eight previous studies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada).” In other word, they did not administer any surveys, thus had no control over the exact question asked in any of those previous studies. And that’s the problem: without looking at the original 8 source studies, there’s no way for me to assess whether the authors correctly combined the data, e.g. whether they asked the same question to the same population. It’s well-known that different demographics interpret sexuality differently. For example, some people consider mutual masturbation sex while others don’t. In particular, straight teenagers often do not consider masturbation sex. Many rural populations don’t even consider oral sex to be sex. Just as importantly, the source studies spanned 19 years.
An inconsistent or erroneous combination of data is a major flaw of metastudies, and I see no reason to assume that the authors of this study did not make this error since they chose to rely on the flawed Kinsey scale.
Furthermore, the authors did not specify whether the source studies used sexual attraction or actual sexual contact as their criterion. The major criticism of the original Kinsey scale is that it combined the two. In the original scale, a man who was forced to have gay sex in prison — but had no emotional attraction to males– was seen as no different than someone who willingly and lustfully had gay sex. No modern research would make that mistake. Indeed, that’s why we often use the term, “Men who have Sex with Men” (MSM) rather than “gay” when the behavior is more important than than the psychology. That’s certainly true in HIV prevention, where risk assessment is based on behavior and not attraction, A heterosexual male prostitute who has sex with men is at the same risk as a gay male prostitute doing the same.
In other words, that metastudy you cited does not demonstrate that the original Kinsey scale is still in wide use. At best, a modified Kinsey scale is sometimes used for very superficial research, e.g. for marketing purposes. My colleagues and I may use a 7 pt scale but that doesn’t mean that it’s the Kinsey scale. Our criterion/criteria for identification would be much better defined, and we would never confuse sexual attraction with sexual behavior.
ryanM
As for conversion therapy, Kinsey’s inability to accurately assess its efficacy is well known. I first learned about it in high school. Indeed, even Masters & Johnson had that problem decades later, leading them to include that conversion therapy can be effective. I won’t go into too much detail here but basically, the original Kinsey scale not only confused attraction with behavior, but it also failed to capture the amplitude of attraction. Let’s say that you start off as a Kinsey 6, with no attraction to women. Electroaversion will damage some gay men to the point of no longer being attracted to men. By Kinsey’s definition, you will then move from 6 to 3, which to many conversion therapists, is a sign of success. Therein lies the problem: your attraction to women did NOT increase, so it’s not a true conversion. But the Kinsey scale cannot reflect that. It merely asks about the frequency of attraction to men and women. That means a decrease of attraction to men is synonymous with an increased attraction to women, since both move you left on the Kinsey scale.
Kinsey later later added an X category to the scale to denote, “not applicable.” But that minor modification doesn’t resolve the conversion issue. As Justin Lehmiller noted, “the Kinsey X classification emphasized a lack of sexual behavior, whereas the modern definition of asexuality emphasizes a lack of sexual attraction. As such, the Kinsey Scale may not be sufficient for accurate classification of asexuality.”
That’s why KInsey can be used to validate conversion therapy. In fact,Paul Cameron and his ilk have used it for that very purpose. That, and several other reasons, is why we don’t use the original Kinsey scale anymore in sexology.
If you need further clarification, contact me directly. I almost never follow up on Queerty posts, and as far as I know, there is no way to tell Queerty to alert me of responses,
ryanM
Yummy. But wassup with the tattoos in the 2nd photo, but missing in the B/W 4th photo? I’m not a fan of skin mutilation so I hope the tattoos were temporary. It would be a shame to deface that perfect skin (as evidenced in the first PR photo… which I admit is likely photoshopped).
ryanM
I wonder if the actor who plays his on-screen boyfriend knew that he is bisexual. And if yes, when he first found out. I wondered the same thing about Van Hansis, who was publicly closeted when he starred on As the World Turns as half of America’s first gay teen supercouple (Europe and Canada beat us, as expected). I was curious if Jake Silberman might have felt less comfortable doing their groundbreaking kisses had he known that Hansis was gay. It’s important to remember that this was 11+ years ago.
JessPH
Bi Now, Gay Later.
Cam
I wonder what was going on in his relationship that his girlfriend kept asking him about his sexuality.
cuteguy
I’m so sick of the ignorant gays on here thinking that bisexual is just a “stopover” on to gay. Young ppl are so much more fluid today and not so hung up on labels. It’s like that old SATC episode that didn’t age well where they were discussing bisexuality bc Carrie was uncomfortable dating a bisexual. The only one that was open was the beautiful Samantha. Even Cynthia Nixon’s character said something awful about being bisexual and comparing it to Ricky Martin. That episode has been edited in syndication for the obvious offensive language used.
Donston
Are most of the people who post here over 50? Because many of y’all talk about “younger people” like we’re complete aliens or live in an completely different society.
For some people, yes, “bi” is a “stopover”. You still hear plenty of stuff from people under 35 like “I was hoping I was ‘bi” or “I didn’t want to say I was ‘gay”. That shit is still fairly common, especially among males. There’s still a lot of “ignorant gays” partly because male homophobia, internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity, “gay” insecurities, hetero pressures, wanting to retain some form of hetero appeal- these are still really common things. And they’re still fairly common within pockets of “younger people”. There are reasons for these tropes and cliches.
Fluidity isn’t more common in “younger people”. Once again, “younger people” are not a different species. Tons of people in every generation have experienced dimensions, curiosities, experimentations, contradictions and/or fluidity when it comes to sexuality or gender. It’s just that “younger people” are more willing to express those things or be more honest about them. While a sector of society thinks “queerdom” or “bi-mess” is cool and hip and most of that sector is younger.
Straight, gay, bi, pan, omni, demi, fluid, flexible, queer, etc. – these are all identities. Just because we use far more identities than we used to, doesn’t mean that they’re not identities. We still have a long ways to go as far as not being hyper dependent on identity and not being overly pulled by sociology or ego. We also still have a ways to go as far as respecting that people’s sexuality, sex lives, gender, identity, who you wish to love/commit to, struggles, overall psychology are all individual things.
Cozmo2
That’s the Kushi way to come out as GAY
ricdardc1
… Oh Mary, Please……Bi-sexual coming Out, in Gayese is ….. Let The Breeder’s get over The Vapors, Then We Scream I’m’ma… Queen !
ricdardc1
…. i.e., you can put Donna Summer & Diana Ross on top of The Playlist now, Pearl Jam & Van Halen can go to the Bottom where They Belong.
Daggerman
…many many men are coming out of the closet but remarkably a lot still hide behind a woman!…yes, meaning they’re status is straight, and married simply because of the shame men STILL feel concerning with being GAY.