It’s the question on every lesbian’s mind: which straight woman will earn the coveted honor in 2010 of appearing on the cover of the Out 100 People of the Year? Who, in the year two-thousand-and-ten, will follow in the prodigious footsteps of previous Straight Female Cover-Stars like Cyndi Lauper (2009), Katy Perry (2008), Jennifer Hudson (2007) and Mary Louise Parker (2007)?
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WAIT NO LONGER, CHILDREN, IT’S JULIANE MOORE:
For 2010, OUT really outdid itself by adding a real-live lesbo to the cover — and not just any lesbian, but the lesbian nearest & dearest to my heart — Rachel Maddow! (Also, HAY JOHNNY WEIR)
I was going to write the obligatory “bitching about how OUT’s list is 95% men” post, but you know what? I don’t care. OUT is a magazine for gay men. It’s a national monthly glossy magazine with award-winning authors, big name advertisers, occasional acts of investigative journalism and an evolving and impeccably maintained website. Why do they have this fancy list in this fancy magazine with big stars and professional photographers photographing dozens of men who appeal to the men who read their magazine? Because gay men are willing to pay for things and you, my sisters, are not. (Except for everybody who gives money to Autostraddle or buys a calendar. You’re the good kind of lesbian/straight person/banana.) Apparently gay men are interested in expensive watches. I subscribe to OUT. When was the last time you bought an expensive watch. You just use your phone, dontcha. Also, GO! Mag makes a 100 Women We Love list every year and it features 100 women and one of them is me and another one of them is Julie Goldman and another is Miss April, so go read that.
So, the Out 100 has debuted, according to 17 emails I’ve received from various PR agencies today. Now let’s discuss some of our favorite persons on this year’s list!
[L to R, clockwise, starting at the top: Jasika Nicole, Amos Mac & Rocco Kayiatos, Mariah Hanson, Katie Miller, Meredith Baxter, Mary Glasspool, Chris Colfer]
Jasika Nicole, Actress:
You know how every year we get like 6 or 7 more hot young cute lesbians on our proverbial radar? That was Jasika Nicole this year. We’ve never seen Fringe, but we sure do like her face.
Amos Mac & Rocco Kayiatos, Editors:
Our BFF Amos Mac started Original Plumbing because he “didn’t see anything in the media representing transmen other than frenzied talk shows and porn.” A surprising success story, OP celebrated its first anniversary last month and was named Best Zine of 2010 in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
[Read Amos Mac’s Autostraddle Interview]
Mariah Hanson, Dinah Shore Masterbrain
“Fancy hotels, skimpy bikinis, giant pool parties—Mariah Hanson’s the Dinah could easily be described as spring break for lesbians. But the producer behind the annual Palm Springs, Calif., gathering sees it as more than that. “I want it to be the most amazing, show-stopping, mind-boggling, blockbuster event that one can imagine,” she says of the bash, the largest of Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend. “I think lesbians deserve it.”
[Read Mariah Hanson’s Autostraddle Interview]
Mhm. We agree.
Katie Miller, Student/Activist
Jerry Maguire’s got nothing on Katie Miller’s resignation letter : “I am unwilling to suppress an entire portion of my identity any longer because it has taken a significant personal, mental, and social toll on me and detrimentally affected my professional development. I have experienced a relentless cognitive dissonance by attempting to adhere to §654 [colloquially known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”] and retain my integrity, and I am retrospectively convinced that I am unable to live up to the Army Values as long as the policy remains in place..”
Katie went to the VMAs with Lady Gaga and has also been a repeat guest on The Rachel Maddow Show and is studying political science at Yale University.
Chris Colfer, actor:
Sometimes when I watch Glee I feel like, I wish Kurt had gone to my high school, I feel like we could’ve been friends.
Meredith Baxter, actress:
Meredith Baxter came out in December of 2009 and the world was super happy to discover that Mama Keaton is a lesbian! Also, she’s a graduate of the boarding school where I had my first girl-on-girl experience so I think that’s important.
[Watch her Autonatic Interview]
Mary Glasspool, Bishop
This year Mary Glasspool became the first elected openly lesbian bishop in the Episcopal diocese and the second openly homosexual Episcopal Bishop. The first, Gene Robinson, recently announced his intent to retire early due to the emotional toll that being an Openly Gay Bishop has taken on him and his partner.
[L to R, starting in upper right corner: Fatima Robinson, Chely Wright, Kimberly Reed & Laverne Cox & Jincey Lumpkin, Heather Cassils, Rachel Maddow, Jennifer Knapp, Chris Pureka, Lisa Chodenko]
Heather Cassils, personal trainer/performance artist
Heather Cassils made out with Lady Gaga in the prisonyard in Telephone and also has a whole career and life that has nothing to do with Lady Gaga but something to do with bodybuilding, Movement Research, Greek mythology and Art. Cassils says things like “My body is a complete construction. When you can present people with an image of something that’s ‘other’ — something in between that doesn’t have binaries — it offers them more options.” We don’t know what she means by that but it sounds sexy. Like Judith Butler sexy.
Chely Wright, Musician
Chely Wright, The Woman Who Came Out on Cinco De Gayo, told Out, “I need to show folks how low I got — this was do or die for me.” I read her book, Like Me, and liked it Taylor read it too in a Barnes & Noble in Kentucky, all in one sitting, and then she went on to a bar to drink and cry for four hours. This all happened before 5pm. You should read it.
Lisa Cholodenko, Filmmaker:
She made The Kids Are All Right, which changed lesbian culture everywhere for everyone.
Jennifer Knapp, Christian Singer:
When Jennifer Knapp came out this year, we knew we had a good one on our team. She’d stopped recording or performing for 8 years while living in the closet and then decided to come back gay.
Chris Pureka, Musician:
Chris Pureka makes me cry real girl tears all the time, I can’t even talk about it.
Rachel Maddow, Superhuman:
Let’s not mince words: there’s nothing I can say about Rachel Maddow that you don’t already know. But right now I’m watching this video of her interviewing John Stewart uncut and it’s really good. That’s your Rachel Maddow news for the day.
Also, here’s some new names we noticed on this year’s list that we didn’t already know about, but should defo start knowing about:
+ Yoruba Richen: Filmmaker
+ Kimberly Reed, transgender lesbian filmmaker
+ Emma Donoghue, Author
+ Fatima Robinson, Choreographer
+ Laverne Cox, first African-American transgender woman to appear on an American reality show
+ Jincey Lumpkin, “chief sexy officer” of Juicy Pink Box
Okay, look at that photo of Rachel Maddow before you go to sleep and dream about 100 people standing in a circle eating cupcakes and singing “We Shall Overcome.” Okay good. Happy Friday night!
Let’s talk about Fatima Robinson for a second. She’s one of the most consistently employed choeographers of the last 15 years. She’s literally done everything but most people I talk to didn’t know she was gay unitl they saw this today. I certainly didn’t. I remember she had a son around the time she was choreographing for her best friend Aaliyah(RIP)so I had just naturally assumed she was straight.
Maybe lesbians tend to have less disposable income because women still make less and lesbians are more likely to have kids. And there’s less of us. Less demand…you know… just sayin’ that stingy stereotype is bogus.
preach it:)
yup. you’re right. women make less than men due to institutionalized discrimination and many other factors. women are more likely to have kids. also women are socialized to not indulge in expensive things wheras men are socialized to feel they can buy the whole world if they want to. there’s like 100 forces working against us AND IT SUCKS.
the stingy stereotype is bogus, but that’s not what this article refers to, it refers to the market research and case studies of lesbian business success rates and spending patterns. Every day somebody tells me to give up on Autostraddle because “it’s impossible to make money in lesbian media.” You’d be surprised to hear who has told me this!
But lesbians aren’t “stingy,” not in my experience. This website wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the donations from lesbians (and the fans/friends of lesbians) — donations are 50-85% of our operating budget every month. So I know first-hand how generous lesbians are. I also think that gay ladies willing to spend money on things — i mean look at how much people pay to attend L Word Conventions. Lesbians are more than happy to spend money on things that matter to them, that’s been our experience.
But when it comes to print magazines… OUT was co-ed but that wasn’t profitable. So they switched to being men-only, and now they’re doing well. I get it, because again, I know first-hand and from the stories of others working in lesbian media that it’s really hard to get an advertiser to invest in us. That’s why it’s so important for lesbians to support lesbian-owned businesses and businesses who advertise on their websites whenever they can!
Anyhow that whole paragraph was meant to be hyperbolic in response to the idea that a gay male magazine owes us 50% of their list when we don’t pay for their magazine (I do, actually, I subscribe to OUT). maybe that’s not clear enough and for that i apologize.
but nobody should buy an expensive watch. i wouldn’t. i have a blackberry.
I don´t know how i feel about being called a fan of lesbians.
Ha! Dunno. I’ll happily claim fan/friend. I think.
Riese-I’m glad you don’t give up on us:) And I just realized that it might have seemed like I was saying Preach it, as in, “you tell Riese!” If it seemed that way, I’m sorry. I just meant that like it when GrrrlRomeo goes all feminist. I see her name in comment threads on various websites I frequent. I’m glad I know how much $ comes from donations now, though! I will make sure to keep giving when I have the money, thanks for all you do!
The sarcasm was completely lost on me because it’s a thing that people really believe. Another one is that lesbians are bad tippers.
I’m curious how many straight women read OUT. If I buy OUT, my Mom will read it if I leave it out. She won’t touch Curve…nor would my Dad. LOL
I always figured OUT featured straight women so often partly because more of their female readers are straight women than gay women and partly because gay men are more interested in straight women than they are in gay women.
I was going to make a relevant/potentially witty comment but then i saw the words Rachel Maddow and uncut in the same sentence. so here we are.
I love all things Maddow as well.
I think my mom has worked out my gayness by noticing the only things I ever watch on tv are Rachel Maddow and Glee. That lady is a ray of sunshine for all of us.
Ray of sunshine – YES!
Once I was watching Rachel Maddow and my (1st gen immigrant foreign) mom goes ‘gosh that rachel is so [cute/adorable/endearing] – she looks like a boy but she’s a girl. It’s just precious!’ (I can’t directly emulate her choice of words/ lost in translation!)
This event also led me to confirm that my attraction to ‘girls who look like boys’-> obviously genetic -> we’re all born gay! hooray.
Yeah, I totally dropped major hints thanks to Rachel Maddow and obsessively watching her show, it worked too cause by the time I told my mom she had figured it out.
I guess Fringe is going back on my dvr, despite sucking lately. Somehow, “hey, that cute girl likes girls in real life” just makes it better. Shallow, maybe?
Pretty much today has been the greatest day in a long time. Make-out sessions, a quidditch match (I’m the beater), and Rachel Maddow make me a happy lady!
(Also, there is no ‘h’ in Jon Stewart’s name. There, I said it.)
Thank you for saying “it,” Jess. One of my pet peeves and I’ve been seeing it a lot lately. Drives me crazy.
Also, I have a total crush on Rachel, and I’m straight. Just saying.
Chris Pureka…omg, I spazzed out like a creepy fan when I read her name above. SO GOOD!
so for some reason i though chris pureka was a boy who had won american idol.
turns out she’s mega foxy!
Oh yeah, I do watch Fringe…and I heart Jasika Nicole. Her character is not nearly part of the story as much as I’d like her to be.
I highly recommend you check out her website: http://www.jasikanicole.com/ especially artwork -> high yella magic -> Morning. Okay, it’s a pain I can’t link directly there, but she has some cute comics.
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So thrilled to see Jincey Lumpkin and Juicy Pink Box featured alongside such talent. Juicypinkbox.com is the BEST!