Dear Out magazine,

Hi, remember us? Yeah, we’re women. We’re gay women. Look, I know you don’t normally like to think about us because we’re all icky and girly and you prefer men — hence the gay thing. But we are a part of your community. We exist.

I know that last part is also hard for you to believe, since no gay women were featured on your cover during all of 2008. In fact, only four women (all straight, naturally) made your cover in 2008 total, and that’s being generous and including your December 2007/January 2008 double issue. Otherwise it would just be two — two women in 12 months.

But, hey, I understand. You are a magazine that largely caters to gay men. We get that. We’re used to it. And yet, when I looked at your Out 100 December cover I couldn’t help but see red. As in all the blood rushed to my head and started to boil and then started to churn and then started to explode red.

You picked Katy Perry as the female representative of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people of the year?

Katy Perry? Katy “I Kissed a Girl” Perry? Straight Katy Perry whose song has become an anthem for drunken straight girl-on-girl hook-ups at a frat party everywhere? Seriously? That Katy Perry?

You see, it’s not that I have a problem with her inescapably catchy song, per se. I mean, it does irk me when she sings that she hopes her “boyfriend don’t mind” and that it’s an “experimental game” and “not what good girls do.” Yes, I know she is joking. She really loves the gays even if she has never actually kissed a girl or anything truly gay like that.

Still, just because the religious right doesn’t like the song either doesn’t mean we have to automatically embrace it. In fact, it feeds into the worst stereotypes about what it means to be gay, namely an experiment on the road back to heteroville. … continue reading

A good friend of mine — a comic book artist who takes his superheroes very seriously — texted me early this week to tell me he'd cracked Rachel Maddow's code. "She's Clark Kent + Lois Lane," he wrote. "A charmingly self-deprecating journalist who becomes a full-blown superhero at night."

We've written about Maddow extensively here at AfterEllen.com, because media about media is in, and everyone is smitten with Rachel Maddow.

You'll notice on the latest cover of The Advocate that Maddow has donned suspenders. Usually suspenders on a woman scream "gay," but on Maddow, they're simply a nod to Mr. Suspenders himself, Larry King. Within two weeks of the first Rachel Maddow Show airing on MSNBC, she was consistently pulling in more viewers than the longtime 9 p.m. go-to guy.

In The Advocate's cover story (read it, it's good), Suzan Colón writes about the thing that has impressed me most about the Maddow phenomenon. … continue reading

The American election that would not end has finally come to a close. This is our final piece of election coverage here at AfterEllen.com, and it's about the other winners — the women who scored a resounding victory during the buildup to yesterday's historic election.

6) Amy Poehler
Those of us who lived through it will always remember Poehler's Hillary Clinton on sexism: "An issue I'm frankly shocked to hear people suddenly care about." We'll think back fondly on her turn as the rapid-blinking Katie Couric. But what our collective consciousness will forever be seared by is the sight of third trimester Poehler rapping between Eskimos and then busting a cap in a "mother-humping" moose. That is the moment she slipped out of Tina Fey's shadow forever.

5) Katie Couric
She didn't have it easy when she left the Today Show for the CBS Evening News. In fact, lots of people forgot about her altogether -- until a woman news anchor was needed to bat down the "sexism" cry and ask Sarah Palin some tough questions. It was excruciatingly necessary, like a root canal. In the end, Couric's interview was one of the top ten Google searches of the entire election. … continue reading

Rachel Maddow is the hottest lesbian in America. No, that's not my crush talking. That's the Out 100 talking. Out magazine featured the 35-year-old political commentator and TV and radio host first in the sneak peek of its annual list of gay men and women movers and shakers.

Rachel was singled out as “one of the year's biggest breakouts.” Thanks to her daily shows on MSNBC and Air America, the former Rhodes Scholar has burst onto the national scene this year with her astute and amusing take on the presidential election. Since its launch in September, The Rachel Maddow Show has doubled the viewership from her predecessor, Dan Abrams, regularly bests timeslot competition Larry King Live and has even outdone her mentor and lead-in, Keith Olbermann, on occasion.

What makes her triumph all the more astounding? The fact that she has been out since she was “old enough to drive” and — well — let's let Rachel explain the rest:

I'm a big lesbian who looks like a man. I am not, like, Anchor Babe, and I'm never gonna be.

Airhead anchor babe? No. Smart lesbian catnip? You betcha. … continue reading

As the remaining time winds down before the polls close, we thought we'd offer you some amusing election videos.

First up — our worst fears are realized when those unstable voting machines take on a life of their own, in this fake news report from The Onion.

This video from CollegeHumor.com makes fun of the stereotypes both political parties have about the other.

… continue reading

Out talk show host and political commentator Rachel Maddow has doubled the ratings for MSNBC since she took over the 9:00 time slot with The Rachel Maddow Show. She has higher ratings among 25 to 54-year-olds than even Larry King. The media in general, and bloggers specifically, can't get enough of her charismatic, level-headed, intelligent assessment of the day's events.

So, it stands to reason that after last night's half-hour hopegasm and brief appearance on The Daily Show, Barack Obama would want to end the most important week's news cycle with America's new girlfriend.

Maddow joined the Obama camp today at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, FL. It was a full crowd of "un-angry" people, Maddow noted, and also mentioned that she hung out around the third base line until she realized there was a Mister Softee truck inside the stadium in full reach of the press corps.

Watch the Obama interview that just aired on Maddow's show here:

Maddow opened the floor for Obama to take a swing at the Republican party as a whole, something he's been reluctant to do for his entire campaign. He demurred, basically saying that he didn't want to burn the bridges leading to and from the White House, because he actually wants to try to govern when he gets in. … continue reading

Rachel Maddow is just like us! Not just "us" as in lesbians and bisexuals, but "us" as in people. Rachel Maddow is a normal person. She updated her Twitter to say so on Friday afternoon.

OK, maybe having "smackdown" in the title of all the internet videos posted of you isn't normal. As in, "Rachel Maddow smacks down Pat Buchanan." "Rachel Maddow smacks down Bill O'Reilly." "Rachel Maddow smacks down Tucker Carlson (again)."

In a world of political pundits who resemble wind-up toys built to shout, Maddow handles herself with unusual aplomb. Oh, she's smarter than all of us to be sure, but she's like us too: she's got a puppy, she sleeps with comic books beside her bed, she shops on eBay.

The New York Times profiled the newest MSNBC host in yesterday's magazine, and if you didn't have a crush on her before, you're definitely going to now.

Biggest misconception about pundits: That we all hang out together. I don’t know any of these people. Maybe all the pundits are hanging out and not inviting me. … continue reading

Former Bush speech writer David Frum appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC) tonight and accused openly gay political commentator Rachel Maddow of inciting the same kind of violence through satire and humor that John McCain's campaign has been doing lately in its efforts to paint Obama as a terrorist (or terrorist sympathizer).

Then he spent the rest of the interview backpedaling as Rachel challenged his statement, and he tried to pretend that's not what he said.

Since we're not a news site (although we sometimes cover politics and news if it's presented as entertainment, ala Saturday Night Live), I'm blogging about this not so much because of the issue being debated, but because of how riveting this argument is to watch, and how well I thought Rachel responded to David's comments.

This is the kind of raw (if polite) argument we haven't seen on TV since Rosie and Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View — only this time, the stakes are higher, there's less emotion, and the lesbian clearly won the debate. … continue reading

There have been more than the usual number of out lesbians on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the last few weeks. And by "more than usual" I mean three (that's a 300% increase from zero, the average of most talk shows that aren't actually hosted by a lesbian). So I thought I'd bring you a round-up of their interviews, for your weekend enjoyment.

Last night, Rachel Maddow was on The Tonight Show talking about politics and the presidential election, and looking very, very gay — and I mean that in a good way (watch her segment of the episode here).

Two weeks ago, Ellen DeGeneres was on, talking about gay marriage, the importance of voting against California's Prop. 8, and ... hitting Julia Louis Dreyfus with a rock. Here's a clip of that (watch the full episode here): … continue reading

The other day I bumped into a friend of mine from high school whom I had not seen since she wrote the letters “K.I.T.” in my yearbook. After our awkward hug hello, the immediate question to follow was, “So what have you been up to?”

In the course of 10 minutes standing on a busy street corner, we summed up our lives, CliffsNotes style. She immediately tells me she is married with kids, and she is working at some law firm with three last names that I couldn’t possibly ever recall. The conversation then turns to me, and I have the always-awesome task of coming out — again. I tell my former classmate where I am working and that I am now living with my girlfriend of three years. I then wait for an awkward and befuddled face, and on cue, it arrives. After the momentary shock settles in, she becomes more intrigued than anything, and thus more conversation ensues:

“How’d you meet her?”

“I thought you might be gay in high school!"

“Did you like anyone in our grade?”

And then the dialogue I wasn’t expecting:

Former classmate: What kind of lesbian is your girlfriend?
Lesbian: Um, I’m sorry. What?
Former Classmate: You know, is she like an Ellen-type person, or more like a Portia de Rossi? Or is she like k.d. Lang or like that woman on Bravo with the gym?
Lesbian: Jackie Warner.
Former Classmate: Yes! Jackie Warner. See, you know!

While I could understand the curiosity surrounding her questions, I found it remarkable that she asked them. I mean, she told me she was married, and I didn’t launch into a litany of male celebrities: “So what’s your husband like? Is he a sloppy-sweatshirt-wearing kind of guy like Adam Sandler? Is he a baldy like Bruce Willis? Or does he have a full head like that McDreamy fellow?”

I guess as much as I was shocked by her candor, I couldn’t be offended by what she asked me because I admittedly have asked those sorts of questions of my own friends. How many times have you had to describe your ideal woman to someone using words like femme, butch, boi, androgynous, chapstick, lipstick or sporty?

Perhaps now, in place of those terms, it is easier just to use celebrity equivalents. So instead of saying something like, “I am attracted to femmes who are a little sporty,” you could say, “I’m looking for a Bette Porter with a splash of Dana." There you have a perfect visual and you know who you are getting. (And good for you, I might add.)

I know some of you may be getting mad at me and want to remind me that we are all individuals and very unique and shouldn’t succumb to any pigeonholes or stereotypes — and I totally agree with you. I understand that no one wants to be put in a box (they are cramped and often uncomfortable), but boxes can aid in describing the general style a person has, which is helpful in the art of attraction. You aren’t defined by this box; you are just painting a broad-spectrum image of yourself.

Given that some people (like my former classmate) wouldn’t know who Dana or Bette are, but would know who Ellen is, I was curious if any of you could describe yourself to someone using an out lesbian celebrity.

Let’s put it to the test. Which of these celesbians best describe you and your style? … continue reading