New Gay Heroes: Portia de Rossi

It’s been months since I posted an installment of New Gay Heroes. I’ve had a couple of posts for the series in mind for quite some time, but just haven’t gotten around to actually writing and posting them.  This weekend, though, I saw a little snippet on the Huffington Post that lit a fire under me to get going. So without further ado…

Portia de Rossi

It’s true that when we think of famous lesbians, the first blonde to come to mind might be her wife, but Portia de Rossi is surely a New Gay Hero in her own right.

She and wife Ellen do wonderful things for lesbian visibility by being out, being themselves and sharing their lives with the public.  Whether they are  beaming in the glow of their engagement on the red carpet…

Sharing their wedding photos in People magazine…

Playing the Newlywed Game and speaking candidly about their life and love on Ellen’s talk show…

Or talking about equal marriage rights on Oprah…

Ellen and Portia are, together, such a wonderful positive representation for lesbians and same-sex marriage.

But on her own, Portia has this habit of appearing on talk shows and effortlessly and eloquently speaking about marriage equality.  Just last week, she quite calmly fielded the (at times bizarre) questions of the ladies at The View with poise:

The very same day she also stopped by Good Morning America, where she again spoke about her marriage to Ellen and equal rights (that starts at about three minutes in):

I just love the way Portia speaks about equal marriage rights with such grace and ease.  She makes it sound just as simple as it should – if we don’t have marriage, we don’t have equal rights.  Plain and simple.  Portia always manages to explain that marriage is different from being “partnered” or “unioned” or whatever other nonsense opponents of our rights try to sell us – and she always does it without breaking a sweat.

Portia de Rossi is a New Gay Hero for sure.

New Gay Heroes: Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow

Oh, Rachel.  Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. What can I say?  I have an enormous crush on Rachel Maddow.  Now, I don’t want my giant crush to color my characterization of Rachel as a New Gay Hero, so let’s just get it out of the way at the start, and then move on, okay?  Rachel Maddow is hot.  She is only made hotter by how incredibly smart she is.  And I am still in total disbelief that I get to tune into a super hot, self-proclaimed butch dyke talk about politics and current events on tv every night. Hot. Hot. Hot.  Okay – Ahem!  Now that that’s out of my system…

Rachel Maddow is a New Gay Hero for being herself on television.  Sure, she takes off the glasses (they do cover a lot of her face – no television producer would let a tv host, male or female, butch or femme, wear them on-air), and puts on a suit and some make-up, but you’d never mistake her for a girly-girl, and her look is still undeniably lesbian-ish.  And when she appears on talk shows, she’s 100% Rachel – glasses, sneakers, and her decidedly butch clothes.

In our culture, butch women are so often vilified, and Rachel is such a great shining example to combat all the negativity.

Rachel is not just a New Hay Hero for her looks, of course, she is truly a New Gay Hero for what she says.  When Barack Obama won the election in November, there was a lot of buzz about what the liberals would have to talk about now – Rachel has given us that answer.  She covers the Obama administration’s every move, applauding that which she thinks is worthy of praise, and examining in depth that which makes her uneasy.  Very recently, Rachel has been all over Obama’s lack of action on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

And DOMA:

As an entertaining tv personality, a positive representation for butch (and all) lesbians, and a watchdog for LGBT rights issues, Rachel Maddow is surely a New Gay Hero.

New Gay Heroes

When I saw the movie Milk, I cried all through the credits, and all the way back to the car. I cried for the loss of Harvey Milk and all that he could have accomplished, and also for my community’s lack of a leader, a leader with Harvey’s vision, drive, and ability to inspire. When we think of the face of gay rights today, who do we think of? I really don’t know the answer to that. There isn’t one person in particular who comes to mind. But in the months since I saw Milk, a few gay public figures have inspired me, in ways great and small.  And so I have decided to start a little feature here on the blog called New Gay Heroes.

New Gay Heroes will feature members of the LGBT community in the public eye that inspire, educate, or entertain in a way that I think is beneficial to our community.  New Gay Heroes are people that I am proud to see represent my community, and give me hope for our future.

So without further ado, my first New Gay Hero is:

Wanda Sykes

In November 2008, Wanda Sykes made her official coming out at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas.   She was moved by the passing of Prop 8 to go public.  In her speech at the rally, she said:

“We took a huge leap forward and then got dragged 12 feet back. I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked — our community was attacked.  Now, I gotta get in their face.  I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay.

They pissed off the wrong group of people.  They have galvanized a community. We are so together now and we all want the same thing and we shouldn’t have to settle for less. Instead of having gay marriage in California, no, we’re gonna have gay marriage across the country.”

Wanda isn’t a New Gay Hero just because of her empowering statements at that November rally, but also for her brilliant use of comedy as a way to share her life with the public – educating through laughter.

In May, Wanda was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.  NBC won’t let me embed the video, but you can watch here (once the page loads you can click “Select Chapter” to watch Wanda’s two segments – which are totally worth sitting through a couple of ads, I promise!).  In her segments with Jay, Wanda talks about she and her wife Alex being new moms to twins.  She shared some hilarious tidbits about the twins’ birth by c-section, such as, “If the doctor tells you ‘Don’t look there,’ don’t look there!“  And when Jay commented that he prefers to be there for the conception rather than delivery, she responded ”I wasn’t even there for that!,” after which they and the audience erupted into laughter.

Wanda had a couple of great bits about parenting, which demonstrated (without spelling it out) that life isn’t that different for two moms as opposed to a mom and a dad.  On separation of baby duties, Wanda explained that since Alex is breastfeeding “She handles everything that goes in, and I handle everything that comes out.”  And on the difficulty of caring for multiples, she said ”I told my wife, if you ever find me in bed with another woman, you know I’m just there for a nap! I’m just trying to get some shut-eye!”

As an activist and a comedian, Wanda Sykes is such a positive figure for us to have on our side.  Seeing her on Jay Leno, talking about her wife and children just like any straight guest would, may not seem incredibly significant, but it is.  Sharing our stories helps people to understand us, and making them laugh in the process just makes it that much easier for them to relate.  And that’s what makes Wanda Sykes a New Gay Hero to me.