“She is Hot. She is Coming. She is Wired." As of next week, barring massive computer meltdowns and a
Stephen King style
Maximum Overdrive machines gone wild scenario,
"
She"
will have arrived.
National Coming Out Day turns 20 years old this Saturday and it’s the perfect time for “She” to come out. For those of you who missed my “Introducing SheWired” column earlier this summer, who haven’t noticed the myriad of banners floating around sites from Advocate.com to GayWired.com, or who aren’t Los Angeles-based and haven’t been privy to me bombarding you with one of our hot, provocative teaser cards at West Hollywood’s The Abbey, Here Lounge, East West Lounge or anywhere else on the Santa Monica Blvd. strip, “She” is LesbiaNation.com re-imagined, redesigned and refreshed as SheWired.com, a fresh new site for women who love women and those that love them.
LesbiaNation.com -- a groundbreaking site that pre-dated Ellen Degeneres’ infamous on-air coming out -- launched 11 years ago and offered sought-after lesbian, bi and queer related content while fostering a community of similarly-minded Web users worldwide. The notion of “coming out’ has drastically changed since National Coming Out Day’s inception in 1988 and so too, the Internet has evolved since 1997 when LesbiaNation was born.
While the Web remains a relatively young media outlet compared to newspapers, radio, film and television, LesbiaNation is ancient by Internet terms. And it’s to the credit of the site’s creators and the editors and writers who’ve contributed outstanding content throughout the years, that I’m in the position as Senior Editor ofLesbiaNation to shepherd the site into fun, fresh, pop and queer culture territory. We'll also be keeping you up to date on the latest news, diving into the latest political dish and giving you hot new ways to get interactive.
It’s easy to forget that 20 years ago, coming out wasn’t merely a personal choice but a political act to claim a queer identity. National Coming Out Day was born out of the one-year commemoration of the 1987 March on Washington, which also coincided with the AIDS Quilt’s first visit to Washington D.C.
As a budding lesbian in the late 1980’s it wasn’t enough for me to love women and to merely assimilate. With my two-toned, buzzed-on-the-sides haircut, giant black stomper shoes, rocker belts and Goddess-centric jewelry, I was carving out a compulsory lesbian identity.
Pre and post coming out, I dressed the lesbian part, like a uniform… a need to be seen. But since 1988 when queer activists and pioneering celebs like Melissa Etheridge, k. d. Lang, and Ellen Degeneres paved the way for the L Word set, I’ve relaxed into my lesbian identity. That said, I am forever an openly lesbian, gay, queer, show queen… you name it.
As a nascent lesbian-related site on the Web, before email became a universal and necessary form of communication, pre-mad social networking on Facebook or trolling the gossip blogs for the latest celebrity dirt and before the Internet became a viable and accepted research tool, LesbiaNation was a pioneer. It’s unabashed reclamation of the lesbian moniker and its groundbreaking content was available to women all over the world who resided in gay-friendly cities and in the smallest fly-over-state towns where establishing a previously impossible lesbian identity / community became “virtually” possible.
Thanks to pioneering activists, celebrities and everyday women who’ve remained open and steadfastly true their lesbian, bi, trans, gender-fluid and queer identities, for many, coming out doesn’t carry the stigma and pain it did just 20 years ago. And that’s taking into account the idea that the battle for equal civil rights for LGBT people wages on and that hate and intolerance still pervades the fabric of our culture.
SinceLesbiaNation made the scene, we who’ve contributed to it have prided ourselves on offering irreverent, thoughtful, silly and poignant stories from entertainment gossip to politics and breaking news to first-person stories on everything from finding the perfect girl to the battle for marriage and adoption.
With SheWired look for more of that and then some, with it becoming your go-to site for all things, lesbian, gay, bi, queer, trans, gender-fluid, straight but looking, or otherwise identified.
LesbiaNation staple columns including Media Blender, Proudly Out, TransNation and more recently, Ask Emily and Singled Out, and our television and sports’ columns will find a home on SheWired along with our other tried-and-true columns, celebrity interviews and features. And there’s a place on the SheWired hot spot, or G-Spot if you will, for the ever-popular Top 10 Women We Love list.
With the fresh new site expect more interviews, celebrity bloggers, video blogs and live coverage of everything from the Power UP annual bash to Dinah Shore Weekend and more options and opportunities to offer feedback and to interact with us and with the SheWired community at large.
SheWired will feature new contributors including Dante’s Cove and 3-Way TV star Jill Bennett with a freshly conceived South of Nowhere vlog, Out at the Wedding’s Cathy DeBuono with her "What’s your Problem?" vlog, Celebrity Fitness Trainer Shawnee Harkins with a series of video blogs, stand-up comic and one of the stars of Laughing Matters…Next GenGloria Bigelow and famed poet and activist Staceyann Chin… and that’s just a taste.
Exclusive celebrity interviews coming out of the SheWired gate include The L Word's Leisha Hailey, one-half of the Aussie pop sensation The Veronicas, Jess Origliasso, Indigo Girls' Amy Ray, All My Children’s latest lesbian love interest Tamara Braun, Queer as Folk alumna Michelle Clunie and a conversation about “gayelle’s’ with DListed’s wickedly funny Michael K.
SheWired is no longer coming out. She’s imminently her and I and the SheWired crew hope you’ll all come out and join us in checking her out and clicking around her assets. Sign up to be notified when the new site goes live at www.SheWired.com.
I look forward to seeing you all there.
Sincerely,
Tracy E. Gilchrist
Senior Editor, SheWired.com
