'Sesame Street' Introduces Show's First Married Gay Couple

Sesame Street is introducing its audience to the show's first married same-sex couple. According to USA Today, the show aired an episode on Thursday that introduced the audience to the couple, played by Alex Weisman and Chris Costa. The characters that they portray, Frank and Dave, respectively, will be recurring on Sesame Street.

The children's program introduced the audience to Frank and Dave, who also share a daughter named Mia, played by Olivia Perez, on Thursday's episode. The episode was titled "Family Day," and featured the married couple interacting with the eclectic cast of characters, including Elmo and Big Bird. During the episode, the characters gathered to prepare for a neighborhood party. At one point, Nina, who owns a bike shop on Sesame Street, said that her brother was on the way with his family. When they arrived, she introduced them by saying, "Okay, everybody, everybody, I want you to meet my brother Dave and his husband Frank, and my sobrina Mia."

USA Today has noted that this isn't the first time that an LGBTQ couple has been included in the show. Most recently, there was a "letter of the day" segment on the episode, "F is for Family," during which a boy was featured who had two mothers. Additionally, there was previously an episode held in honor of Father's Day that included a boy with two fathers along with a voiceover that said, "You might have a stepdad, or even two dads." However, when it comes to Weisman and Costa's characters, they will be the first married same-sex couple that will be featured on future episodes of the show.

The inclusion of Frank and Dave in Sesame Street has drawn widespread acclaim. Naomi Moland, who is a faculty member at the School of International Service at American University, shared that their inclusion was "groundbreaking" for featuring a married same-sex relationship on the classic kids' show, which airs on HBO Max. She wrote, "From my own experience, I am in a same-sex marriage and I have a two-year old. And so for me, it is really important for him to see that this is normal, that there are other families that look like ours that have either two moms or two dads." Moland added, "I also think it is extremely important for all children to see this because when they encounter families like mine, they see that this is normal and there are different types of families."