From the link:
Doesn’t living with your (same-sex) partner count as “coming out”? 
Coming out is kind of like losing your virginity if your a girl. If you don’t do it at least once every 10 years, it grows back.
I was momentarily confused because I thought she was the teacher that was lost in the Challenger disaster. “Wait, what?”
Yeah, but between 30 and 40 was left as a grey area.
That guy in the picture has an expression on his face that seems to say “Eww, I’m touching a lesbian…get it off”
+1.
she is my age, and I didn’t know.
Yeah, I’m not sure what McNichol thinks she’s accomplishing by coming out publicly. (I assume she was already out to friends/family.) I respect her decision to leave acting, but this does mean she hasn’t been in the public eye for many years I doubt many teenagers today have any idea who she is. The article linked in the OP cites People as its source, and I was wondering if there was some greater context that had been omitted…but there doesn’t appear to be. I had been thinking that maybe McNichol was going to be involved in a documentary about gay youth or had become spokesperson for some relevant charity, but it looks like she just released a statement through her publicist. So while I think it’s nice that she has come out, I don’t think it does much to help gay kids who are being bullied.
No, I never knew, but then again, it was only a few years ago I found out John Waters was gay. I recall her supposedly dating Leif Garret who could’ve turned anyone straight.
Actually, he (Richard Mulligan) was gay too; don’t know whether he ever came out though. And that’s a really awful photo of the two girls. They were a lot better looking than that.
Yeah, that’s Richard Mulligan. That’s just his face.
I remember watching Family. I had no idea she was supposed to be gay. I don’t remember that at least.
Kristy looks as if she’s doing a course of some serious steroids.
I used to be a big fan of Empty Nest when I was a kid. I don’t remember if I knew at the time what it meant to be gay or that Kristy is gay, but I can’t say that I am surprised that Kristy is gay.
Richard Mulligan on the other hand? That’s surprising if that’s verified. I never really had any impression he was gay and it seems from his wiki that he presented himself as straight: Richard Mulligan - Wikipedia
I’ve known since I was a kid because of a conversation with my mother about Empty Nest. “No, not that daughter. The one played by the lesbian actress from Family.” Though I assumed given her comment that it was common knowledge then. OTOH, I was stunned when Michael Stipe came out recently, because I could swear he did back in the 90s.
Man, then I hope Joan Hackett was gay too, or that was criminal to waste her as a beard.
Nobody should be blamed for not realizing K McN was gay: hers was an entire generation of gay actresses overshadowed by (straight) Nancy McKeon.
Did he come out recently? I just looked on the “Personal Life” section of his Wikipedia page, and it says that back in 1994 he refused to assign a label to his sexual orientation but did state that he’d been attracted to and romantically involved with both men and women. That’s probably what you’re remembering (I remember it too), and it looks like he’s basically continued to say the same thing since then.
He came out a long time ago. I remember the REM Behind the Music had an interview with Stipe expressing shock that anyone ever thought he was straight: “I was wearing eyeliner and a skirt on stage in 1983. Of course I was gay!”
Maybe the confusion is because people are thinking of when Kelly McGillis came out to no ones surprise?
I’m in my early 20s and I knew who she was.
I just saw Little Darlings a few weeks ago
Perhaps I was a bit short, I didn’t mean any hate, I’m sure others don’t too.
Basically, in the mid and late 70s, Kristy was to TV what, Jodie Foster was to movies
She won two Emmy awards for “Family,” which was a family drama that was pretty good, but didn’t hold up well in time. We didn’t really have that many dramas back then that weren’t medical or cop show. Her character was not gay but they had a few gay themed shows which was groundbreaking back then.
That picture in the link is bad. Kristy was very pretty, especially in the “Empty Nest” era.
Kristy and her brother, teen idol Jimmy, also tried a recording career (see link)
What ever happened to him?
I do agree her coming out won’t do much for teens, if she wants to help a cause, she’d be better off promoting the fact she has bipolar disorder. She left a hit TV series because of it. I remember when Patty Duke publicly declared she had bipolar disorder it really brought the illness home and showed how common it really was