Reality dating shows aren’t necessarily known for their inclusivity, but Freeform’s new “Love Trip: Paris” is here to change that.
“Love Trip: Paris,” gives contestants the opportunity to find love, in a setting that honors the expansiveness of gender of sexuality, its showrunners and contestants say. The show features a cast of daters: four American singles, Josielyn Aguilera, Caroline Renner, Rose Zilla-Ba and Lacy Hartselle. The daters head to France to find their potential life partner where they meet and date singles of all genders and sexualities. Every episode, there’s an elimination, where some suitors are home. But don’t despair– in will come new diverse suitors in the next episode, hoping to fall in love with one of the show’s stars.
Lacy Hartselle, one of the American stars, told ABC News she grew up in a traditional Southern Christian household and is just now coming to terms with accepting who she is: a pansexual woman and divorcee.
Hartselle says she wasn’t exposed to LGBTQ+ representation when she was growing up, and is especially grateful to be a queer woman on TV now.
“There was so much I did not know and so much ignorance — and ignorance is what leads to division,” she told ABC News. “I just am beaming at the thought of what we have done by just being ourselves, by bringing our very human fullness, our strengths, our weaknesses, everything to the screen. You see us all, in all of our beautiful vulnerable glory.”
“We’re so used to seeing shows that are so whitewashed and heteronormative … but let’s see the way the world has changed and has progressed.”
